Solve Media: releases new pre-roll advertising insurance, gives viewers choice, makes advertisers happy [VIDEO]

Using psychology to win at advertising isn’t a new strategy, but Center City-based advertising startup Solve Media has devised a way to put internet users in a psychological pickle that forces them to decide between enduring an ad or typing a slogan into a CAPTCHA box.

The new product, Pre-Roll Insurance, launched earlier this week and it seems like it will make advertisers happy no matter what viewers do.

Based on the CAPTCHA TYPE-IN advertising product which helped put Solve Media on the map from its launch in September 2010, the pre-roll video advertising feature replaces the usual “skip ad” button that shows up a few seconds into a video internet ad with a text box. To ditch the ad and get to the content, the user has to type the company’s slogan into the text box. The advertiser feels as though he got his money’s worth because a potential customer engaged with his branding message. The internet user, however, has to decide whether to sit through an entire advertisement or type in a potentially irritating slogan.

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Comcast CEO Brian Roberts demos enhanced TV with Facebook [VIDEO]: Roundup

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our weekly Comcast roundup or other news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Comcast CEO: “Jury is Out” on Netflix’s Impact [Wall Street Journal: Digits] — Brian Roberts on whether Netflix is friend or foe.
• Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Speaks Out on Bloomberg FCC Complaint, NBC News [MediaBistro]
• Hulu weighs sale options after approach: source [Reuters] — Comcast, via NBC, has some ownership. Tech Crunch called this BS.
• Powell: Comcast/NBCU Merger Net Positive for Industry [Broadcasting & Cable] — “National Cable & Telecommunications Association President and former FCC Chairman Michael Powell told a C-SPAN interviewer that he thought the Comcast/NBCU meld would be a net positive for the industry, providing some ‘real glue’ for an industry already melding increasingly disparate interests.”

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Searching a ‘cure for Philadelphia Sydrome’ and other Links

• Philadelphia Syndrome: In Search of a Cure [Matt Monihan] — One of the leads in the Northern Liberties Devnuts co-working crew gives his take on Philly defeatism
• Philadelphia region lags in job creation, according to U.S. figures [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• SEPTA to sell ads on its website [PlanPhilly]
• Protesters disrupt speech by Sunoco CEO [PhillyInc: Inquirer] — “Protesters interrupted a speech being given by Sunoco Inc. chairman and chief executive Lynn L. Elsenhans at a luncheon at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Thursday afternoon.”
• 76er Evan Turner’s life now an app [Philadelphia Business Journal] — “”Philadelphia 76ers rookie Evan Turner has joined forces with XCO SportsLink to develop a free smartphone application that will provide fans with exclusive access into his life on and off the court.”
• Emotional tributes to Baldino at Pennsylvania Bio Awards [Philadelphia Business Journal] — Frank Baldino, the life sciences legend in the region, was honored after passing last year
• Straight talk about the Japanese nuclear plant disaster [PlanPhilly] — By a local nuclear power plant operator, not long before Temple University-Japan students were evacuated.
• AT&T’s ‘river of data’ flows through Philadelphia [Philly Inc: Inquirer] — Tour of their regional control center

Comcast Roundup: appeals court backs FCC, Comcast launches 2,000 WiFi spots in Philly and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Appeals Court Upholds Access Rules for Cable TV [New York Times] — “United States appeals court on Friday upheld a Federal Communications Commission rule that forbids cable companies that also own programming channels from refusing to allow competitors to also offer those channels.” This is expected to have a major impact on Comcast’s pending acquisition of NBC.
• As Technically Philly reported yesterday, Comcast has launched a free WiFi network for existing customers in Philadelphia and some parts of New Jersey.  The Jersey Journal reports on the spread of these hot spots outside New York City in New Jersey.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Comcast unbound: Wi-Fi service available in Philly, parts of N.J., Del. [CED Magazine] — Includes some 2,000 spots in Philadelphia
• Microsoft, Comcast, Yahoo: no zombie cookies here, Congress! [ars technica] — A breakdown of the use of Flash cookies by major sites, including what Comcast does.
• Comcast Says Interactive Ads Available in 10M Homes [Broadcasting and Cable]
• Comcast Sponsors City Year’s Opening Day [Comcast blog]

When there is just too much Comcast news to follow, the Comcast Roundup will be there every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST

Solve Media, formally AdCopy, launches in Philly (not New York)

For the executive team at Solve Media, this venture is just the latest chapter in a long partnership.

“At this point, we can finish each other’s sentences,” says Ari Jacoby, CEO and co-founder of Solve. Solve’s management team, which includes Stu Libby, Todd Lieberman, Max Sobol [founder of StartPhilly] and Jeffrey Weisberg, all formerly worked on VoiceStar, a Philadelphia-based call analytics company that was purchased by Marchex in 2007.

The band got back together for Solve Media, a new First Round Capital-backed startup with offices in Center City and in New York City. The company’s first effort is TYPE-IN, a product that embeds advertisments in CAPTCHAs, drawing a mix of praise at the inventiveness and disdain at yet another vehicle for advertisers. Since launching yesterday, the company was featured in today’s Wall Street Journal, as well as in VentureBeat and Fast Company.

However, while each publication claims that the company is “New York based” most of its operations are right here.

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Invite Media’s Philly roots run deep

Earlier this month, the tech world’s eyes were set squarely on Invite Media.

The small company, headquartered in Rittenhouse, made big news when it was purchased by Google. Industry analysts were mostly concerned with how the purchase of Invite’s real-time display advertising bidding software played into Google’s long-term strategy.

But here in Philly, we’d guess that there were likely a handful of celebrations taking place from West Conshohocken down to University City as Invite Media’s Philadelphia ties run deep.

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Google purchases Invite Media

According to All Things Digital, Google has acquired Center City-based Invite Media for a price tag “in the $70 million range.”

Invite Media, backed by First Round Capital and Comcast Interactive Ventures, acts as a central real-time dashboard for buying web display ads. It’s likely that Google will use Invite’s technology to help further streamline its advertising business, which accounts for nearly all of its revenues.

The company was founded by Penn grads Nat Turner, Zachary Weinberg and Scott Becker and also has offices in the 67th Ward.

This isn’t the first time Google has shown love to the 215, the company also invested in DreamIt vet SCVNGR last year. Google also has been on a bit of an acquisition binge this year, snapping up seven companies since April.

Edit: More details on All Things Digital and on Silicon Alley Insider.

Introducing our advertising packages

An example of an ad package. Click to see all of the package options.

Over the past few months we have been adding to a long list of advertising options: feed ads, display ads, event listings and job posts are all part of our offerings to regional organizations and advertisers. We admit it can get a little confusing.

To help solve the dilemma, Technically Philly has introduced our advertising packages, an easy way to create a marketing campaign that suits the exact needs of you and your organization using a multitude of advertising offerings.

Hosting an event? Get a calendar listing and a display advertisement with our Events Planner package. Want direct access to TP’s 10,000 readers? Sponsor one of our weekly features or purchase an RSS advertisement.

And that’s just the start of it. Here’s a quick look at our eight offerings which range from a $50/month donation to eye-catching full site wraps.

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Seeking monthly RSS feed sponsorships beginning in November for $200

An example of a feed ad. Click to enlarge

Dear more than 600 of the most tech-savvy, innovative and entrepreneurial Philadelphians who subscribe to the Technically Philly RSS feed:

We can’t quite thank you enough for making the choice to have our technology community and business news sent to you daily, by way of our RSS feed and e-mail subscription — saying nothing of 11,000 monthly unique site visitors, Comcast news roundup subscribers or 1,200 Twitter followers who are mostly actual people.

Starting Nov. 1, one of two big changes will happen to your feed.

1. You’ll begin seeing it sponsored by really supportive organizations, businesses or individuals who want to see, help and be associated with Technically Philly as it becomes a sustainable, effective and necessary tool for promotion, collaboration and discussion surrounding this nascent community of innovators in the Delaware Valley. We’re offering monthly sponsorships now for the bargain basement trial offer price of $200 per month. See more details below or contact us at advertising [at] technicallyphilly.com.
2. The full-text feed which we’ve always offered will, very unfortunately, be cut off, to be replaced by a summary feed.

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ClickEquations: Paid search, online advertising and why Google is not your friend

A screenshot of a ClickEquations client's paid-search portfolio, breaking down a variety of ad campaigns.

The ClickEquations crew say they do what they do best because they were once the customer.

Launched in 2006, the Conshohocken-based company was once strictly a search agency managing mostly large-sized pay-per-click accounts, but founder and president Craig Danuloff and team increasingly found limitations in the tools available for the accounts they handled.

“The best products are the ones created to help the consumer, right?” says Alex Cohen, the company’s marketing manager.

So, that’s what Danuloff, who got involved in e-commerce software as early as 1994, and CEO Lucinda Holt did. The duo moved the company’s focus to developing tools that company’s themselves could use to manage their own paid-search accounts — placing and tracking links listed on search engines by chosen keywords.

Since that private beta launch last August, things have turned out alright, so far, for the company trying to own paid search, which is the targeted, contextual advertising that appears on Web sites, particularly search engines, according to keyword relevance.

Eight investors, including Philadelphia investors Emerald Stage2 Ventures, MentorTech Ventures and Ben Franklin Technology Partners, last month invested $3 million in the firm’s expansion, including growing their development staff to accelerate the number of features they offer. Nautica, Comcast, Liz Claiborne and Forbes Traveler are among their high-profile clients, with other announcements on the way, Cohen says.

For continued growth, ClickEquations will win over lots of companies that aren’t using ad management tool and, Cohen says, explain just why “Google is not your friend.”

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