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| Tuesday, 06 November 2007 | |
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The next big thing? Perhaps, if you inhabit an alternate universe and you don’t have a life. Or a brain.
Journalists rarely if ever deserve any sympathy. They are rather nasty and often venal individuals. So imagine a story landing on the desktop that combines, or so it says, “the world's largest privately-owned advertising network” and better still “the world's most innovative communication company”. Saatchi, Google, Microsoft, Apple? No. Such stuff drives responsible journalists to do the April Fool’s check to make sure that the date is not 01 April. It is not, so then you read on to discover the identity of “the world's most innovative communication company” and “the largest privately-owned advertising network”. Two companies you have never heard of (and never will again) are thinking to put advertisements into cellphone calls in exchange for free calls. It must be a jolly good idea but it’s worth it's weight in hydrogen in terms of commercial success. Telia tried this on PSTN calls a decade ago but it bombed. As a journalist I might one day regret naysaying this (when JaJah or Oridian smashes through $1000 per share) but I am now reading back through the gung-ho release and my dinner is threatening to make an unscheduled reappearance in my lap. It was a concoction of steak and mushrooms so boy, would it make a mess: • “JaJah, inventor of easy-to-use, low-cost, high-quality, web-activated telephony, is the world’s fastest-growing, most innovative and only truly global Telephony 2.0 platform, counting millions of consumers, telecommunications companies and enterprises as customers. JaJah has made all the benefits of IP communications available to the mass market by connecting phone-to-phone VoIP communication as easy to use as a search engine. The next stage of JaJah’s evolution will be in-call advertising, a new multimedia technology offering highly targeted, real-time promotional opportunities. By sponsoring calls, advertisers establish new customer relationships and revenue streams, while telecommunications companies can generate greater ARPU by implementing the JaJah In-Call Ad Server alongside their existing infrastructure.” JaJah’s partner in all this is Oridian/Online Media Solutions Ltd, “the world’s [self-styled] largest privately-owned advertising network”. You ask what Oridian does or who it is? Answer, officially, is that: • “Oridian monetizes international traffic through its local sales offices in North America, Latin America, Argentina, Germany, France, Israel and the UK, and representatives in Australia, Scandinavia, Italy and Greece. Following reorganization of its US operation, the company recently reopened offices in New York City, headed by Oded Lev, Vice President of Business Development and Head of US Operations at Oridian, to provide locally based business development services to major US dot.coms seeking international exposure.” My co-writers have pleaded that I refrain from swearing so I can only say that I have never heard so much rubbish in my life. Oh, hang on, The protagonists speak! Jacob Nizri, CEO of Oridian says that “ad networks are the bridge between advertisers and publishers and we’re always on the lookout for new ways to bring dot.com publishers to international advertisers. Our partnership with JaJah is a significant development for our business, but more than that, it’s revolutionary in terms of technology and the development of online advertising: in-call advertising gives call sponsors the ability to reach a global audience on a truly personal level. By its very nature, JaJah creates permission-based, targeted audiences that Oridian can reach effectively, bringing new business to non-US advertisers and monetizing US publishers’ international traffic. US publishers currently sell 80% of their ad space but are missing out on 20% of their potential audience. That’s a number they can’t afford to ignore. We bring them together with that missing 20% -- at the lowest industry cost.” Trevor Healy, CEO of JaJah, says, “to partner with the world’s largest privately owned ad network is a huge win for JaJah and our partners. Oridian is an industry veteran with a global reach and a decade of experience that will prove invaluable as we enter into this new and exciting territory. We are now bringing the global power of Oridian to our mobile and fixed line operator partners so that they can monetize the massive inventory that exists in telephony today. Commentators are saying that JaJah’s open platform is becoming the “Facebook” of Telephony 2.0. If so, then advertising is an integral component”. Check the calendar (it’s not 01 April, it's 06 November) and repeat after me: “commentators are saying that JaJah’s open platform is becoming the “Facebook” of Telephony 2.0.“ Now come on. JaJah, Oridian: have you ever heard of them? Do you expect to hear of them in future? To be frank, the answers are no and hopefully not too soon, respectively. Jim Chalmers |
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