Mobtown Labs

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So all of this buzz about DSP’s and Realtime Bidding has gotten me thinking.  Why exactly are we so obsessed with these standard IAB sizes?  What’s the deal with banners anyway?

Anyone who knows anything about programming, flash, html, and javascript knows that the size and shape of the banner really doesn’t matter when it comes to scheduling and the technology behind adserving.  It’s probably the business people and management that are so detached from the technology and mechanics of online advertising that have painted us into this corner.

Well Facebook is not so dumb.  I guess that’s one of the benefits of having a twenty something developer as a CEO.  For what they lack in big business management experience they sure are creating a massive revenue and profit machine.

“The biggest income stream seems to have been performance advertising, which likely accounted for more than half of Facebook’s 2009 revenues at $350 million. Next was brand-based advertising, which accounted for an estimated $225 million in revenue. Microsoft advertising came in at $50 million and virtual good income was only $10 million according to these numbers.”

From Mashable Article - Facebook Could Surpass $1B… http://loca.ly/bfA3ho

So why are all of these data companies like Blue Kai, eXelate, and DSP companies like Invite Media, MediaMath, Turn, Triggit so obsessed with the banner?

It sounds like the real value is outside the banner!

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One of the most common successful startups is to re-do something that has become basic better.  One could argue Twitter did this with AOL’s Instant Messenger and Paypal did this with online merchant accounts and services like Verisign.

Right now a company called PBWorks is doing that in the wiki space.  Over the past several years, since the dawn of MediaWiki and Wikipedia everything complicated is dealt with by someone saying “Why don’t we just create a wiki for it.”

The problem is you go to MediaWiki’s homepage and you need to know some PHP basics, you need a server, and all sorts of stuff.  Then you find out all of these security issues and the fact that you can’t link intranet links in MediaWiki without some special script installed in the source files.

Well PBWorks makes that all easy.  We used PBWorks for our Help section for Socialroster and the feedback was great.  We could easily make and link directories and it was free.

Well now they are getting bigger and competing with Microsoft Sharepoint and Salesforce.

Currently, PBworks manages 50,000 wiki groups with over 3 million users and has accumulated a loyal client base. The company serves teams at over a third of the Fortune 500, and was home to three presidential campaigns, the United Nations, The Financial Times and Harvard University.

Like Salesforce, PBworks is a paid subscription service, with no advertising. The company has raised nearly $2.5 million in funding, with its most recent funding round of $2.1 million announced in 2007. Competitors include Microsoft Sharepoint, Jive, and Socialtext.

And of course, we can draw comparisons to Google Wave, Google’s much-hyped new collaboration platform.

From TechCrunch http://bit.ly/6Li5kl