Fred Wilson at Entrepreneurs Roundtable 15
We had the great fortune of having Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures as the guest ‘VC’ at the Entrepreneurs Roundtable last night. We had a sold-out full house and almost everybody in the room was an entrepreneur. Five startups were scheduled to pitch to Fred to get his feedback and with some extra time, Fred was gracious enough to let 4 more entrepreneurs pitch to him. Overall his feedback was amazing and everybody was very impressed with his energy, constructiveness and insights. We hope he will be back at a future event. Here are some videos from the event:
I will be uploading the rest of the videos soon. Please check back.
Push notifications in Centrl iPhone app
We have implemented push-notifications in our iPhone app so now, even when you are not running Centrl on your iPhone, your friends will be able to send you messages. So, you will never miss any important message or any great shared deals ever again.
This makes Centrl a more continuous experience and makes sure you get notified instantly on important messages from your friends. The new version of our app is now waiting to be approved in the App Store. Here is a screenshot of how it will look like:
As always, we are looking forward to your feedback at feedback-at-centrl.com.
New layers 11870, Oodle and Google Base now in Centrl!
We have just added new exciting layers in Centrl. Now you can access great content from 11870.com, Oodle.com and Google Base easily in Centrl as a map layer around you.
11870:
“The best services in your area. The service guide with reviews and images by friends and users.”
Find luxury hotels in Buenos Aires, tapas and flamenco in Madrid, shopping in Paris or bars in New York using our 11870 layer in Centrl.
Oodle:
“Buy, sell & trade locally. Oodle - a smarter classifieds site”
You can find that great rental apartment listed on Oodle from within Centrl as easy as 2 clicks. Type in some keywords like “1BR” and see all the available rental apartments around you.
Google Base:
“Post it on Base. Find it on Google.”
You can find great rental apartment listings from Google Base easily in Centrl. Again, type in some keywords “2BR” and you will see all the active listings around you on the map.
Please enjoy these new layers and let us know what other new layers you would like to see in Centrl at feedback at centrl dot com.
Centrl is the first LBSN with Navteq’s LocationPoint advertising platform/The rise of ‘right-place,right-time,right-person’ advertising
Advertising spend in broadcast media is on the decline:
* With the rise of on-demand world, push/broadcast advertising model is no longer effective.
* In October, the four biggest broadcast networks reported declines in audiences between the ages of 18 and 49.
* Advertising Age, in a study on social networking and its impact on television, found that 25% of users of social networking sites like Facebook indicated they were spending less time watching TV because of the time they were spending online.
So this means online advertising spend is exploding? Not really:
* TechCrunch indicates that in the third quarter, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL collectively eked out only a 0.6% increase in online advertising revenue quarter over quarter.
* MediaPost.com reports that, while online ad revenue is up 11% year-to-date, compared to last year’s growth of 26%, growth has all but stalled in 2008. They predict that 2009 will be the first flat year for online ad spending since 2003.
* In a survey of attendees at AdTech New York, private equity firm Halyard Capital found most predicted digital-marketing budgets would be down 10-20% in 2009.
* According to research by Morgan Stanley, the average CPM for a banner ad has dropped from $3 to $1 over the past decade.
* MediaPost predicts that this decline in the rates advertisers are paying will extend to online video advertising in 2009, which is an area that has been enjoying a two year spike in CPMs.
So then where will the ad dollars go? Will they go to social networks that is getting monster page views? No, again:
* Click-through rates on social networking sites are 10 to 100 times lower than the average for banner ads, which were already in the 0.1 percent to 1 percent range.
So then, what is the rising star? It is ‘mobile’ and ‘location-based social networks’:
* 62% of AdTech’s attendees responding to the survey by Halyard cited mobile as the advertising platform that will grow the most in the next two years, as they point that the ’spray and pray’ model no longer works and they need more effective ways to get their messages to the consumers.
At Centrl, we are seeing amazing engagement metrics from our users with the location-based ads we are serving through our partner Navteq and their LocationPoint location-based advertising service.
You are traveling to New York? Download Centrl for free to your phone, see where your friends are, pick some restaurants to go to through Centrl’s layers and while you are at it, click on these green icons and get 10% off your hotel stay. The advertisement becomes a benefit when it is delivered at the right place at the right time.
We are very excited to be the first LBSN to use Navteq’s LocationPoint and we are working with them very closely to improve and optimize every aspect of our system. As the industry and advertisers are gearing up to send their messages to the right people at the right place at the right time, it is very encouraging that these messages are transforming from advertising into ‘benefits’ for our users.
Centrl is now available on Android and BlackBerry
Our Android and BlackBerry applications are finally available:
Android:
BlackBerry:
You can download them at http://centrl.com/mobile . We are looking forward to your feedback!
