RTG Ventures & Aderra Announce ‘JV’ on Fan App
Posted by Reggie James | January 3rd, 2012 | Filed under Music Technology
LONDON, UK–(Jan 3rd, 2012) – Last February, RTG Ventures, Inc. and Aderra Media Technologies announced a partnership to exploit concert digital technology for the benefit of the artists who would retain control of their content. The relationship has now identified another dimension, for the two companies to pursue, that of a joint venture for the specific purpose of developing a fan application (app) which will leverage the global diversity to the fan base. A Letter of Intent has been agreed by both parties.
The announcement sees the fruition of a series of long awaited concepts that will be shaped to combine leading edge technology that address the needs of fans, artists and management alike. The app will encompass gig-goers, social location services as well as unique content and engagement that are potentially habit-changing for music fans.
Describing the genesis of the JV, Aderra CEO, Ed Donnelly commented: ”Having met with RTG Ventures in Los Angeles in November we were impressed by the technology that RTG Ventures digital and development agency, Digital Clarity were developing. It was then that we explored using some elements of their technology platform to encompass in an app.”
Steve Baughman, who is spearheading the app’s development, “Capturing that chemistry between an artist and his or her fan base is indescribable. There is a real desire of fans for a full experience which creatively goes beyond the music. When done right, the app will capture the essence of the artist and link it to the audience in whatever form it takes. And it crosses geography, demographics and expectations to meld the experience. To combine Aderra’s rich history in music, now combined with a technology development and marketing partner in RTG/Digital Clarity, we are all looking forward to 2012.”
Reggie James, Digital Clarity MD and SVP of Marketing & Communications at RTG Ventures said, “The ability to work closely with Aderra and have access to their wide range of diverse and major artists including; Metallica, Zac Brown Band, Smashing Pumpkins, Mark Ronson and Deadmau5″. The JV marks a major step forward in the growth plans for RTG Ventures with the ability to scale the business and avail these artists to the other major business focussed technology platform being built in addition to the app.
ABOUT RTG VENTURES
RTG Ventures offers Music & Entertainment Technology Solutions and Digital Marketing Services. Harnessing the strength of its digital marketing agency, that has a trusted reputation over the last 8 years, the company has applied its knowledge process in developing cutting edge technology platforms for web, mobile and tablet devices.
Using Digital Clarity’s application in the Marketing and Social arena, RTG Ventures offers a unique value proposition of intelligent, analytics based technology solutions with the support of an experienced digital marketing team. RTG Ventures, Inc. is an OTC:QB company. Symbol RTGV.
ABOUT ADERRA
Aderra is a state-of-the-art capture and content delivery firm for both entertainment and corporate live events. With its patent-pending technology, Aderra records any live event, concert or performance, duplicates thousands in minutes, which are then available for sale on custom branded flash drives before the audience has left the venue. Aderra’s turn-key operation provides everything from on the spot recording & editing to music licensing clearances, giving you an additional revenue stream from every live performance.
SAFE HARBOR PROVISIONS
The foregoing contains certain predictive statements that relate to future events or future business and financial performance. Such statements can only be predictions, and the actual events or results may differ from those discussed due to, among other things, those risks described in RTGV’s reports filed with the SEC. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. This document is published solely for information purposes, and is not to be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in any state. Past performance does not guarantee future performance. Additional information is available upon request.
Tags: Aderra, Aderra Media Technologies, App, Digital Clarity, Ed Donnelly, Reggie James, RTG Ventures, Steve Baughman
US Trip – A Focus Toward the Future
Posted by Reggie James | December 7th, 2011 | Filed under Music Marketing, RTG Ventures
As you are all probably aware by now, I returned about 2 weeks ago from a trip to the US that saw me take-in Los Angeles and New York.
I wanted to take this opportunity to share some the experience with you and more importantly outline the exciting new opportunities arising from some of the meetings.
Why the trip?
In my audio I talked about learning from the last 12 months and our 1st year. My last two blogs looked at everything leading toward the new technology and positioning our company in a brave new world.
The blog today, is looking at my trip to the US and how it would truly test the new concept from people in the music and entertainment business, as well as seasoned technology pros and investors who had held on to the coat tails of the silicon valley dragon.
For me, New York is a given. It is the historical soul of the advertising industry and as such, was core in the agenda. Meeting those that share an entrepreneurial vision of what we are looking to achieve is crucial. Also, re-establishing links with people who we had approached tentatively a few months back was also important in outlining the RTG roadmap for future growth.
So with meetings and schedules prior to Thanksgiving, it transpired that the first leg of the journey would be Los Angeles.
So why LA? Simple. To meet with like-minded people and give the technology platform an airing with the most prolific individuals within the entertainment industry, it was an opportunity too good to pass.
On top of this, we have deep relationships in LA. Meeting Aderra for the first time was such a powerful event that it will no doubt prove pivotal as we move forward and I will dedicate more time on this particular aspect of the trip in my next blog – very exciting.
Again, though the reasons for the trip may be obvious, It was key to capture the hearts and minds on both coasts to make the trip worthwhile.
Testing Concepts
The whole purpose of the trip was multifarious. I had been (and still am) running the agency Digital Clarity, for the best part of 2011 until recent months where I had taken the helm of the technology, to review and bring into a modern arena.
I have spoken in detail already about two things:
- Major changes in the music and technology arena – commoditization, engagement and scale.
- The shift in our technology offering and the need to address the changing market ahead of the curve.
On top of having to re-position RTG’s proposition, the trip to LA and NY would be the litmus test that was required to see whether the prototype, concepts and ideas for our new platform would fly or be shot down in flames.
Los Angeles
Linda Perry had made significant in-roads over the last 12 months to not only (re)establish relationships with major investors but also major names in music and technology. On top of this, it was these major heavyweights we were to meet alongside some people we had already spoken with tentatively and who had been kept warm waiting for – you know what.
If New York is where the money is and the San Francisco/Bay area is where the technology was being built, then Los Angeles was the meat in this musical sandwich.
To keep this short and to the point, we met with several major, successful names, and with all, I outlined and described the expanded technology offering to the industry which would allow us to be First Mover. The First Mover position is not said lightly. It is a position that is both coveted and difficult to achieve. Yet that observation was made by one of the toughest guys in the sector.The dots were connected.”
After crossfire questioning, it was apparent that what I was describing to them was not only something that was needed but would also allow the music business to look at data to make business decisions. This was no longer social media, but social business.
After a gruelling session with one of the savviest technology, music and social investors in town, I was greeted with the words, “Tell me more, this is genuinely investable…!”
Without question, the idea of streamlining our offering and focussing on revenues was unequivocally accepted by all, as well as the wholehearted acceptance of our view on the future. The confidence of knowing what we have in development, augmented with a digital marketing agency both working in harmony, was proving a potent value proposition.
With these thoughts firmly embedded in my mind, I was soon leaving the sunshine of LA and heading for more seasonal climes in the Big Apple.
New York
New York in all its glory with the holiday season round the corner is quite a site. The buy-in in Los Angeles was key to the next leg of the tour.
In New York, my first meeting was with a dynamic duo that runs one the most successful ambient media companies which feeds directly into the leisure and luxury brand arena. Former high level music men, they immediately saw the value in our repositioning and approached us with a likely scenario of how we could work together. As they outlined, finding ‘data value’ against their offering was now becoming crucial to their business as well as giving them an edge, not just in the US but in the important emerging markets of China, India and South America.
Another meeting in New York was with a wonderful and charming individual who heads one of the most enterprising private hedge funds based out of New York, that has its eye on application of technology on a global basis. The discussions centred around intelligent debate about the global, political climate and its effects on technology and infrastructure. This led to how technology with a human face is the right approach in a more socially connected planet.
Partnering for Success
Expanding Digital Clarity’s brand is one of the most important discussions that we had whilst in New York. Digital Clarity’s DNA runs deep in the evolution of digital marketing. Emulating this to the next level, without diluting its offering led to a discussion in a meeting that is currently being explored. Though still in its infancy, it has the possibility of helping the company take a big leap forward in establishing a footprint in the US for the Digital Clarity brand.
The Missing Link
The learning over the year and the rapid development of digital technologies in the past decade or so has radically changed the way in which we can interact with the music industry. Likewise, the impact of social media upon the music industry has also made it much easier for musicians to interact with their fans. Having the ability to have all your music, video, imagery and data managed, and reported in one interface is not unique. Having reports that makes sense of data from over 30 social and music platforms is powerful. But having an algorithm that gives you the ability to model forecast and make sense of engagement & sentiment that in turn, indexes against commercial return – suddenly becomes very exciting.
In a recent report looking at key findings of their fifth annual survey, global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, found that there was a large rise in adoption rates of social technologies. They also noted that levels of reported benefits remain high when organizations use social tools for internal purposes but have also increased among those that use them for communicating with customers or for integration with partners and suppliers.
This report and the level of investment that is being ploughed into the types of technology our company is engaged in, is not only a testament to our vision but paint a bright future, endorsed by the meetings in Los Angeles and New York.
The Future is Bright
Unlike before, it transpired that everyone I met and who I’ve have highlighted above, could see the need for this new platform. It also became rapidly clear that if we were serious about our business, RTG would need to position itself as the pulse at the heart of this conurbation where decisions were made.
Next Steps
We are busy. Tablet based interfaces alongside an app are in the offing alongside a website platform that will give users a login into the powerful pulse gateway. Where possible, I will keep everyone updated to the progress, partners and opportunities that continue to arise as we build toward 2012. We are moving forward with reinforcing support and will have some great news later this month. Thank you for sticking with us.
Tags: Aderra, Algorithm, Analytics, Digital Clarity, Digital Marketing, Entertainment Industry, Finger on the Pulse, First Mover, global management consulting, Growth, Heart of the Industry, Inc., Linda Perry, London, Los Angeles, McKinsey & Co, McKinsey & Company, McKinsey fifth annual survey, Music, Music Industy, Music Technology, MusicTech, New York, Pulse, PulseStation, Reggie James, Reporting, RTG Venture, RTG Ventures, San Francisco, Social Business, Social Media, social technologies, Social Technology, Stylar, Video
US Trip – a Review, Part 1
Posted by Reggie James | November 28th, 2011 | Filed under Music Marketing, RTG Ventures
As the last of the Thanksgiving turkey is consumed and celebrity chefs talk about elaborate ways to endure more food for another week, it is clear that the festive season is in full swing.
All this thought of food led me to think about an old saying – “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” In other words, you don’t know how good something is until you try it.
So I have been to the US and wanted to share with you why I went and the results and feedback of people tasting the RTG pudding. Before I do, and like the proverbial turkey, I thought it best to break this into bite size chunks. So, this will be the first of three posts, as it is important to share what we are doing with the company and the rationale behind our approach on how we move forward.
The Challenge
Following on from my recent audio interview that took stock of the 1st year of RTG Ventures, I highlighted what I described as ‘wholesale changes’ that had to be made to make the company not only a viable business for the future, but also a company that has a strong value proposition going forward.
Having looked at all the spider web of layers as well as different divisions, holding pages and stop-start programs; the process of creating a lean and nimble business could only be done with an intelligent and pragmatic process that would question the value of each area, within the current structure.
2011 had seen forays into arenas that were not always core to the strengths of the company. The diversity of so many businesses within a relatively small company was not only untenable but confusing. It was important to assess the central core of the business by directing a laser beam on the execution to revenues of the business identified. The core I talk of, was also reflective of growth and low hanging fruit in the wider business community – mainly the growth of digital music distribution and that of online marketing and social media across web, mobile and tablet devices.
It was clear that with an ill wind blowing across western financial markets, lean and agile was the only way to grow to derive revenues and deliver back, shareholder value.
So, with the stewardship of the technology in-house we applied a Digital Clarity consultative and pragmatic approach.
The Result
As mentioned in my audio interview, the analysis have been thorough and the results have created an exciting new structure that compliments the skills of the company and addresses the needs of both a central market in the music and entertainment industry, as well as a broader playing field in the digital marketing space.
The result is that RTG Ventures is now focussed in obtaining new business as well as building out great new technology. Therefore, moving forward the company shall be described thus:
“RTG Ventures offers Music & Entertainment Technology Solutions and Digital Marketing Services.
Harnessing the strength of its acquired online marketing agency Digital Clarity, the company has developed a software platform that fills the needs of artists, management and labels in a complex and ever increasing social economy.
Using Digital Clarity’s application in the social and marketing arena, RTG Ventures offers a unique value proposition of intelligent, analytics based technology with the support and insight of an experienced digital marketing team.
RTG Ventures offers companies a complete, seamless and powerful solution in marketing, alongside cutting edge technology platforms for web, mobile and tablet devices.”
If I may, I’ll borrow a quote from Eric Ries, author of the Lean Start up, “The goal of a lean start-up is to move through the build-measure-learn feedback loop as quickly as possible.”
So, using real world thinking, we are building a real world company.
Practical Changes
Behind the scenes and over the next 4-6 weeks will see changes that roll-out to reflect the new era of RTG Ventures. Alongside the wholesale changes there will also be cosmetic changes to areas such as websites and naming conventions.
Unlike before, the changes will have reasoning and where necessary, be communicated via various channels. I say where necessary as we need to keep a competitive advantage in what we do.
In my next blog, which will come out Wednesday, I will talk about the deconstruction of our technology and in my penultimate blog of the series, I will go into detail on the trip and why I had to test our new approach in the harshest and biggest entertainment arena in the world, Los Angeles, California.
Tags: Digital Clarity, Inc., Reggie James, RTG Ventures
Social Media Advertising Diversifies As Revenues Rise
Posted by Reggie James | October 24th, 2011 | Filed under Digital Advertising, Social Media Advertising
Watching a re-run of Mad Men at the weekend, I almost yearned to be back in the old world of advertising. All the trials and tribulations of Don Draper and his team at the advertising agency, Sterling Cooper seemed like a walk in the park compared to some of the complexities faced today by both clients and agencies alike.
Madison Avenue has always had its fair share of challenges as the world of media evolved. Though the complexities exist, so do the opportunities, no more so than now. As brands, big and small wonder how they reach the ever changing consumer and business client, Digital Clarity is perfectly poised to embrace the need to understand, execute and analyse a world full of diversity driven by data.
A little like Sterling Cooper and other agencies around the world, Digital Clarity has evolved itself. This journey started before even Google’s AdWords platform existed, the agency has diversified to offer a bespoke service to advertisers and agency partners alike. A lot of our recent work has come from companies fed up with agencies who only work in one area and who do not understand the ‘joined-up’ commercial complexities that impact business today.
From being a pure-play Search Marketing Agency; the company has moved into design and development, mobile marketing and social media, both as a strategic implementation partner through to using social channels as an advertising platform.
This last area seems to show much promise to add to the company’s current offering. Here are a few reasons why.
At the recent Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco last week, Dick Costolo mentioned that Twitter’s monetization efforts are working better than expected. On top of this, the Twitter CEO also outlined that Twitter would be offering new and innovative ad formats to the array of advertiser falling over themselves to advertise on the social media platform.
Twitter’s advertising platform was a long time coming and in part, this was due to the company looking to strike the right balance between the mass advertising models that have existed historically and the new more sophisticated tools available to brands and their agencies today.
Twitter will bring in $139.5 million in global ad revenues in 2011, according to a new forecast from eMarketer, up 210 percent from just $45 million in 2010.
Currently, the main advertising offerings from twitter are broken into three main areas.
- Amplify the reach of Tweets through ‘promoted tweets’.
- Driving conversations and interest around brands through ‘promoted trends’.
- Targeting a follower-base of advocates and influencers for brands through ‘promoted accounts’
Like Facebook before it, advertising was a sure way of raising revenue on a platform that had a captive audience and an equally excited number of brands looking to reach this group.
Again, according to research firm eMarkerter, Facebook will make $4.27 billion in revenue this year, more than double the $2 billion made in 2010. This breaks down as $3.8 billion from advertising this year, up 104 percent from $1.86 billion in 2010.
More interesting however, is that the company should make $470 million from ‘Facebook Credits’, a virtual- currency program that lets users buy items in games, more than triple the $140 million it made last year.
All these various business models give Digital Clarity a unique insight that many can only dream of and puts the agency in an excellent environment to apply these methodologies to tools we are building out for RTG Ventures as well as new customers.
As mentioned earlier, diversity creates complexity. Complexity creates opportunity. Opportunity exists for those who can make sense of a changing market for its customers.
Tags: Advertising, Design & Development, Digital Clarity, Facebook, Mad Men, Search Advertising, Social Media, twitter
Measuring Social Media
Posted by Reggie James | April 29th, 2010 | Filed under Social Media
Please feel free to read my post on Measuring Social Media on the Digital Clarity Blog
See it here: http://www.digital-clarity.com/blog/social-media/measuring-social-media
Tags: Digital Clarity, Measuring Social Media, Reggie James
Digital Clarity to manage Paid Search [PPC] for Web only England World Cup qualifier against Ukraine
Posted by Reggie James | October 6th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
Already creating news by the fact that this will be the first game streamed live and exclusively online, the move is a major milestone for broadcast of live England matches as well as an endorsement of the growth of the internet as a stand alone medium for major sports events.
The rights to distribute and market the game were made available after the Setanta collapse to Perform and will be delivered via Perform’s platform www.ukrainevengland.com
http://www.digital-clarity.com/press-releases/digital-clarity-manage-ukraine-england-ppc
Tags: Digital Clarity, Paid Search, Perform Group, PPC, Ukraine v England
BingHoo vs. Google: A battle of the Titans or 1st round KO?
Posted by Reggie James | September 23rd, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
BingHoo vs. Google: A battle of the Titans or 1st round KO?
The news that Yahoo and Microsoft have finally tied the knot and will provide advertisers with a combined search offering has been a long time coming. The dominant partner in the relationship — Microsoft, has been trying to drag Yahoo kicking and screaming down the aisle for the best part of a year and the on going saga has claimed many an exec along the way; not least founder and former CEO, Jerry Yang.
In essence, the fait accompli was almost inevitable given Google’s dominance in the search space. Alongside the worsening search ad revenues of the respective number two and three in the market, the Seattle giant really had to push this deal to appease shareholders. With both companies announcing poor recent results, the deal will also help boost morale and confidence at Microsoft, whose staff are probably sick and tired of playing 2nd (and 3rd) fiddle to the incumbent leader.
So why is Google so dominant and what’s it going to take the new ‘BingHoo’ to grab a slice of the Google pie? To answer this, lets take a quick look back to remember how we got here and how two major areas lie at the heart of this question –technology and reach.
Technology
Yahoo today is the combination of a variety of acquisitions, namely GoTo — the original pay-per-click auction-based engine that started the whole journey. This engine changed its name to Overture and then acquired AltaVista — the first text -based search engine — this was then all bolted together and has evolved to the Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) platform we have today. Google’s AdWords AJAX based software technology sitting on the open source Linux platform allowed the Mountain View Company to create a lighter front end and kept the process simple. It shared its vision with the development community and created an API allowing for large scale ad uploads and changes. Google also built its platform from scratch.
Yahoo, in essence didn’t. Along the way, YSM has desperately tried to update, change and integrate all the various technical platforms it had acquired and then had to overhaul all over again (via the Panama platform) when Google’s AdWords engine introduced a more intuitive and blind bidding based platform.
Reach
Augmented to this challenge of technology delivery for the Yahoo/Bing partnership is one of reach. The key question for advertisers is how can they justify running on any advertising platform which is clearly costing them more to facilitate than the return achievable as well as the volumes available.
Bing is making good headway and is very slowly chipping away at the vast Google search monopoly. Over the course of June and July, the site has jumped up 1 per cent to 8.9 per cent market share. Sadly, Bing’s 8.9 per cent market share still has a long way to go if it will dent Google’s dominant 64.7 per cent, but the seed has been sown and the fruits of this hard toil should start to show nearer the early part of next year when the combined force of the companies goes live.
Is this a good time for the combined Bing and Yahoo to make a wholesale dent in the Google traffic armoury? It would seem so. Google is currently looking to move a little further from search and into the more traditional areas of Microsoft’s domain — operating system software, programmes and ad serving as well as Yahoo’s old area of expertise: display advertising.
The reach question goes hand in hand with the technology question though in this case, not technology for the advertiser but technology for the end user of their platform — the consumer and business buyer — the basis on which the whole growth platform was built.
So what does the future hold?
Well, if the recent uptake of Bing and the ongoing rebrand of Yahoo, with its user-generated facility is anything to go by, the folks at Mountain View may want to re-examine where their focus lies. Mass investment in Android, Chrome OS, Maps/Street View etc., may be reviewed if the momentum in the tie-up gathers pace. Augmented to all the hoo-ha is the recent news that after three years, a $1billion investment made by Google for 5 per cent of AOL was finally bought back by AOL’s parent, Time Warner for a mere $283 million.
There is no doubt that if you use paid search as a part of your online marketing strategy, Google has been front and centre and an obvious choice for the past few years. On the other hand, Microsoft’s search engine has all-too-often been viewed by marketers as a peripheral option and a non-essential media buy with not enough traffic to justify the time you would have to spend implementing and managing it. Because of this, it was common to simply be left off of the schedule entirely.
Since the new deal could deliver Bing as much as 28 per cent of the U.S. search market share (according to comScore in June 2009), or around 4.1 billion monthly searches, from the perspective as a marketer, the question is this: is Bing now a must-have on the PPC media schedule?
Although the partnership will leave Bing far behind Google in terms of market share, Microsoft has eliminated a competitor and now has a fairly compelling argument to take to advertisers.
Assuming that Google does have to share the paid search media schedule with Bing, this perhaps leads to a more concerning question for the search giant; where is the budget going to come from?
Tags: BingHoo, Digital Clarity, Google, Interent, Reggie James
Rachel Mepham Drives Sales and Helps Business Grow
Posted by Reggie James | September 21st, 2009 | Filed under Rachel Mepham, Search Advertising
Having worked at Digital Clarity for some time, I though it was only right that I start sharing some experiences of successful Paid Search and SEO campaigns.
Rather than just show-off, I though it best to mention colleagues of mine, who over the years have delivered ‘killer strategies’ that have helped companies grow.
So, to kick things off I thought I’d talk first about Rachel Mepham.
Rachel Mepham is Head of Digital at Search & Digital Marketing agency Digital Clarity.
In the last 6 years she has helped companies obtain the best form the plethora of various advertising platforms available online. Rachel Mepham has been instrumental in delivering bespoke and strategic Paid Search campaigns for some of the biggest brands today.
Utilising the best of Google AdWords, Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo Search Marketing Platforms, Rachel has delivered excellent results for companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Bonusprint, All Response Media, and JWT Inside.
If you want to learn more about Paid Search, SEO or Social Media, as Rachel a question here – Rachel Mepham: rachel.mepham@digital-clarity.com
Author: Reggie James
Tags: Digital Clarity, Paid Search, PPC, Rachel Mepham, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, Social Media
Orange Canyon
Posted by Reggie James | September 21st, 2009 | Filed under Orange Canyon
Further to my last post requesting if anyone had heard of Orange Canyon, I have now seen some refrences to it and it can be found at http://www.orange-canyon.com
Though just a holding page it looks like digital clarity will be exploring the corlolation between search and social media – interesting!
Tags: Digital Clarity, Orange Canyon, www.orange-canyon.com
What is Orange Canyon?
Posted by Reggie James | September 14th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
Been hearing a lot about a new blog on a few forums called Orange Canyon.
Anyone heard of it?
Reggie
Tags: Blog, Digital Clarity, Facebook, Orange Canyon, PPC, SEO, twitter
