Archive for June, 2009

What is Social Mobile?

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Social Mobile is social networking on-the-go. It’s about pairing up the power of social networking with location. Instead of simply meeting someone online, a social mobile app can help you meet someone nearby now, find something to eat within walking distance, or buy that special gizmo around the corner.

Social Mobile apps are relationship-aware and location-aware, meaning they are at the center of a great puzzle—how to make money from hyper-local advertising.

Schmooze.  Sponsored by Less Networks Smart WiFi.

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What’s Smart WiFi?

Friday, June 26th, 2009

Less Networks combines a network of WiFi hotspots with social networking and mobile advertising.  Smart WiFi users are able to find out who and what’s nearby, when they are out and about. The quality and quantity of this kind of information is getting better and better. Today, there are over 300,000 WiFi users who benefit from Less Networks Smart WiFi.

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Voluptuous News Hole Seeks Ad Daddy

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Personal Ad: Voluptuous News Hole Seeks Ad Daddy with Deep Pockets

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the concept of the “news hole.”  If not, get familiar!  It’s Journalism 101…or rather Journalism Business 101.  All that lovely journalistic content, whether print or broadcast, needs to be paid for by advertising.  In a newspaper, they actually think of it in terms of a content hole that needs to be filled after all the ad space is sold, i.e., now that we’ve found the advertisements, let’s backfill with some journalism.  It works about the same way with TV and radio content.  Unfortunately, the whole hole thing doesn’t convey as nicely into the social media world.  As a result, it all seems mostly hole with donut holes for ad dollars.

Schmooze. Sponsored by Less Networks Smart WiFi.

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Is it Reach, Targeting or Scale?

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

It’s the reach. No, it’s the targeting. No, it’s the scale!

We kicked of the month of March by meeting for the first time with our mobile ad network partner JiWire. Putting faces and names together at JiWire showed us the obvious–that a face-to-face smile is way better than a :-) .  On the trade show front, we attended ad:tech San Francisco and EconSM, where we heard more about the death of the newspaper industry, the coming of hyper-local advertising, and the convergence of mobile and social media.  We collected a zillion business cards.  Basically, we schmoozed much of the time and snoozed during the boring parts.

Interested in talking convergence of mobile and social media with us. Contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

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Free WiFi Dude Seeks Lucrative Relationship

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Personal ad: Free WiFi dude, sexy, fast, and cheap seeking business model for creative and lucrative relationship.

Last February, we were lucky enough to score meetings with Rick Ellinger, President of WCA (Wireless Communications Alliance) and Milo Medin, Founder of M2Z Networks. WCA has become one of our newest resources for industry happenings and events. M2Z has proposed providing free nationwide wireless internet in exchange for an allocation of free spectrum from the FCC.  Cool!  We also attended our first SF New Tech, which has connected us with companies (and free tacos!) like Skout (mobile dating), Saaze’ (digital signage) and txtBlaster (mobile advertising). We’ve since been a regular at SF New Tech.

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Too hot? Too cold? Too Far? Too Bad.

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Beginning in January, we made a concerted effort to get out more.  Our first and possibly most pivotal not so random encounters were with Fish & Richardson partner Rick Horning and AnchorFree co-founder Eugene Malobrodsky. Rick and Eugene made some introductions, shared contacts and recommended trade shows, all of which led to more introductions and meetings in the months leading up to this Schmooze letter.  We also bumped into Sputnik and anticipate a great friendship in the making. In a really random twist, we attended a Stanford panel discussion on European Entrepreneurship and Innovation, where we learned that Austin companies are as hot as Scandinavian companies are cold, and that all of them are located too far from Silicon Valley. The message? Silicon Valley schmoozin’ can’t be beat.

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The Irony of the New “Social Mobile” Space

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

The irony of the new “social mobile” space is that few technologies today can actually replace happy hour mixers, trade shows, and other networking events.  As a result, we’re getting out more, drinking more drinks, and logging more air miles.  Sure, we’re using Facebook and LinkedIn to help set up meetings and keep track of who we met, and yes, we’re using Dopplr to share our travel plans with fellow mobile socialites.  And of course, we’re Twittering away to keep our followers up-to-date.

The point is, there doesn’t yet exist a killer social mobile app (and perhaps there never will) that can replace a comfortable pair of shoes, a nice smile, willingness and energy to go out and meet people.

Schmooze is an effort to chronicle the adventures of social mobile companies trying to make socializing easier for everyone else.  This involves a lot of…ahem, schmoozing, boozing, and when it comes to some trade show panels, snoozing.

It is our hope that all this hard “work” will result in truly innovative technologies and believable business models that will make it easier for all of us to meet people we don’t know.

If you have a social mobile story to share or know of an event that would be of interest to the mobily social, please let us know.

Rich
CEO
Less Networks

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