Show Me the Money: Finding Cash for Your Publishing Start-up

By Sophie RochesterWhen it comes to getting your business off the ground, in addition to vision and a solid business plan, you need one thing above all: money. At O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference last week, a panel representing very distinct viewpoints — from that of CEO to venture capitalist — came together to discuss the issue as part of the panel: “Start-ups to Publishing Companies Ripe for Expansion: What Are Investors in the Publishing Sector Looking For?”Thad McIlroy, Principal of The Future of Publishing, has been arranging VC financing for start-ups for two decades, specializing mostly with publishing tools and some SaaS (software as a service) companies. McIlroy kicked off the discussion with a sobering account of his experience of publishing investments – in the last two to three years he’s worked with a couple of pure publishing companies looking for VC funding and he feels it’s a very tough market. McIlroy explained that there are lots of companies looking for funding without success and believes that publishing is not a fertile ground for VCs, because publishing is not generally profitable. “You’re going to have to fight for the investment dollars and you may need to give up a lot more than you want to, to get that money”Speaking not only as an investor, but also as someone who has sought investment, Christophe Maire, founder and CEO of txtr.com, begged to differ. Maire is bemused as to why there isn’t currently more interest from investors in this area. An active investor in the Berlin technology scene, Maire has been involved in the build-up of Brands4Friends, Plista, Barcoo, Readmill, Appaware, Amen, and Soundcloud, where he sits on the board. Maire believes that more investor attention should be paid to the publishing sector – especially the e-book market. Sectors such as the music industry, he feels, get a disproportionate amount of attention from investors.This sentiment was echoed by Henrik Werdelin, Managing Partner at product innovation studio Prehype, saying that perhaps when presented with an ebook-related company that this somehow doesn’t have the same “sexiness” as something like a music-related project. Werdelin also dismisses the notion that when presented with a potential investment that vertical industries are particularly relevant at all — that is to say, that they would look more at whether a new product or service resolves a specific problem around user experience than to which industry it is set to serve.Brian Rich, CEO of Catalyst, a growth private equity fund, is generally more optimistic about publishing investments. Rich distinguishes himself from VCs, and underlines that Catalyst is really looking for proven business models, namely lead generation, content and subscription businesses. Catalyst recently invested in two successful publishing businesses, including one bought from Reed/Elsevier a few years ago, which has been transformed into a majority digital business after what Rich calls “a lot of hard work.”

The Pathway to Securing Investment

Valla Vakili, co-founder and CEO of Small Demons, a content discovery platform, represents a company that has successfully managed to attract plenty of seed funding to date. Although the platform could be positioned as industry-agnostic (as it covers books, music, film, etc), Vakili is adamant that the company is a “narrative-first enterprise” and is not afraid to put it firmly in the publishing camp. Vakili explains that first-level meetings with investors aren’t easy, there are a lot of questions which, at first, are hard to answer – but in time responses to these potential investor questions improved, and with that the funding started to come in.

Do the Big Players Leave Room for Start-ups?

With the omnipresent might of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, what hope is there for publishing start-ups? Rich explained that it’s a double-edged sword – while the big players certainly make it hard for many companies to make their mark, they also offer up huge audiences to work with and the opportunity for secondary businesses to cater for these audiences.Direct competition with the giants is futile – Rich and McIroy agreed that they’re not interested in looking at companies claiming to be “the next Facebook.” However, Vakili pointed out that knowing the ground not being covered by the giants, can help companies like Small Demons in considering what else it can offer its users. Maire was also keen to underscore that throwing in the towel with the big players might be premature, noting, “The world will not be totally dominated by Amazon.”

Content Discovery and Remixing Content

So are there currently any start-up opportunities in the publishing market? Content discovery and content remixing appear to be two key areas being watched. McIlroy says while other industries are exploring content remixing, that publishing is failing “to differentiate between original content and remix.” He believes that there is still room for publishers to create a “rich, algorithmic method” to explore existing content and present it in different forms, citing Reader’s Digest as the original remixer of publishing.

Content or Technology as a Scalable Asset?

Traditionally investors looked to technology as a scalable asset, but content appears to be making a comeback. Vakili certainly feels that content is an equally scalable asset, a notion backed up by Rich who feels we’re moving back toward a period where “content is king,” though he qualified this by saying we’re not quite there yet. Angry Birds is cited as the perfect example of a piece of content developed and expanded into an entire franchise.

Takeaways for Start-ups

So what should start-ups looking for investment put on their check-list: don’t try and create the next Facebook, look to how your product or service will fit in or work with the giants, try to widen out what you’re doing from ‘publishing’ to broader category of “content,” think about content discovery tools (suggested by Rich as current gap in market) and last but not least – as Werdelin pointed out – if you get turned down by one investor then keep on trying, at the end of the day it’s just one very personal opinion which can be founded one something as arbitrary as “daughter likes to read so I’ll fund books.”DISCUSS:Which Segment is the Most Promising for Publishing Investors?

At OnMedia 2012, Disagreement Over The Significance of RTB

By Brian LaRueAmong the offerings at this week’s OnMedia 2012 conference (presented by the AlwaysOn Network) here in New York City was a panel discussion around the merits and detriments of real-time bidding that actually heated up in the way a lot of us always kind of hope it one of these discussions will. Yesterday afternoon, RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal spoke on the topic “The Ad Network Is Dead.” That’s perhaps a misleading title, considering RadiumOne basically is an ad network, and considering experts have been proclaiming the death of the ad network for years, but Chahal’s gist was that programmatic buying was intrinsically changing what we think of as an ad network. His talk segued neatly into a panel discussion among other CEOs of ad networks, or at least ad network-ish companies – AdKeeper‘s Scott Kurnit, CPX Interactive‘s Mike Seiman, mediaFORGE‘s Tony Zito, MediaMath‘s Joe Zawadski and Collective‘s Joe Apprendi — on the topic “The Rise of the Real-Time Media Platform.”Among the offerings at this week’s OnMedia 2012 conference (presented by the AlwaysOn Network) here in New York City was a panel discussion around the merits and detriments of real-time bidding that actually heated up in the way a lot of us always kind of hope it one of these discussions will. Yesterday afternoon, RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal spoke on the topic “The Ad Network Is Dead.” That’s perhaps a misleading title, considering RadiumOne basically is an ad network, and considering experts have been proclaiming the death of the ad network for years, but Chahal’s gist was that programmatic buying was intrinsically changing what we think of as an ad network. His talk segued neatly into a panel discussion among other CEOs of ad networks, or at least ad network-ish companies – AdKeeper‘s Scott Kurnit, CPX Interactive‘s Mike Seiman, mediaFORGE‘s Tony Zito, MediaMath‘s Joe Zawadski and Collective‘s Joe Apprendi — on the topic “The Rise of the Real-Time Media Platform.”And, guess what — the six CEOs disagreed about the merits of the undeniably rising real-time media platform of the nature Chahal had just spent a half hour championing. Efficient as real-time bidding may be at sending messages to an advertiser’s desired audience, “just about all messages are at the wrong time,” Kurnit asserted. His point was that the wrong time to present an ad to a web user was anytime when that user is seeking out some other, non-branded content — which is most of the time. Unless a person willingly goes to “a banner or Craigslist,” they’re looking for something other than an ad, he said. And Kurnit questioned the worthiness of the increasingly hot niche of RTB for mobile. “To interrupt me on my mobile device — really?” he said, a note of incredulity in his voice. For an advertiser to send an unsolicited ad message via mobile, he said, constitutes “suicide.”Chahal quickly disagreed that advertising was innately interruptive. “That’s something I would buy in 1999,” he said. The challenge these days, he said, to change perceptions about interruptive ad messages is to “make advertising closer to information.”As the conversation continued toward how to make ads more inherently useful, Seiman broke in. “Where are we getting all this media from?” he asked. The discussion around making ads engaging in and of themselves exposes what he referred to as “an inherent brokenness in the system” by essentially ignoring publishers and focusing so much on advertisers.The idea that advertisers and publishers should take a more holistic content/ad approach went over well, but there was some disagreement over where that placed the relevance of RTB. “For publishers that have perfect content, it can’t be real time,” Kurnit said. “Algorithms and robots are not particularly creative.” But to Zawadski, because of the scope of an online ad campaign, advertisers are often left with a “big mass of input/output” that automation can only help. “Use one to inform the other,” he said of the balance between human and automated efforts in the whole process.As the discussion progressed, Kurnit questioned whether social advertising — a core element of Chahal’s company’s raison d’etre, as RadiumOne comes from the position that the whole web is social, made up of people constantly sharing experiences and ideas with people they know — is even possible yet. “You’ve gotta separate the social graph from the social activity in the graph,” Chahal stated. “We have not started social advertising in this medium. We have not.”Toward the end of the discussion, Kurnit made the assertion that the online ad industry in general isn’t as advanced as it wants to be. “Don’t you cry yourself to sleep at night?” he asked his fellow panelists, jokingly. But as the discussion wrapped up, the panelists concurred this industry has advanced much farther in the past few years than a lot of fields have, which is nothing to sneeze at.Later in the day, AlwaysOn also recognized this year’s OnMedia 100, the year’s “top emerging companies creating new business opportunities in the world of media, advertising, marketing, branding, and public relations.” Click here for a list of those companies.

The Traits of a Great CEO

By Chris Shipman, Catalyst InvestorsChris Shipman is a Co-Founder and Partner of New York City-based growth private equity firm Catalyst Investors.

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“Don't call me that word. I don't like things that elevate me above the other people. I'm just like you. Oh sure, I come in later in the day, I get paid a lot more, and I take longer vacations, but I don't like the word ‘boss.’” - Hank Scorpio, Globex Corporation CEO, The Simpsons

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As an investor, I have been involved in more than 60 investments in private companies over the past 15 years ranging from very early stage start-ups, to growth capital, to large buy-outs. Like most late-stage venture or growth capital investors, we review 250 to 300-plus deals a year, take meetings with a quarter to a third of these, get to the term sheet stage on 10 and make two or three investments per year. Building a company from an “idea” to a “concept” to “revenue” to “cash flow” is incredibly hard. It’s all the more awe-inspiring when I consider the many accomplished, talented, hard working and downright smart people I meet in this job who do not ultimately succeed. Picking the right teams is one of the things that keep investors up at night.A private equity investor’s job basically consists of two things:  1) identifying companies and sectors with great growth prospects and 2) finding exceptional CEOs with good teams to form or run companies. The first part, while not “easy”, is quantifiable and is a function of research, experience, deal flow, networking, technological expertise, and the like. The second part, the people part, is in many ways harder to quantify.  Of course, experience, track record, intellect, references, likeability, vision, etc. are all important – necessary but not sufficient. It’s something else that separates the good from the truly great. Thousands of books have been written on “management” and yet there isn’t a one size fits all answer as to what skills a manager needs to be successful – because, as for many things, it depends.  At a minimum, the good CEO should have the following characteristics.1. Honest and Opportunistic. Honesty, openness, clarity of vision and the ability to communicate are all traits the successful CEO needs to build a team of loyal and dedicated workers.  Everyone on the same page.  Everyone’s job clearly defined.  At the same time, the successful leader isn’t afraid to change course – with people or with products.  This is tough.  Replacing your CFO or CTO, who was there from the beginning, worked long hours, and is a personal friend is something that many CEOs are reluctant to do – even when there is clear evidence that the person is no longer right for the job and the company’s future success depends on someone with a different skillset.2. Visionary and Reactionary. Today’s visionary is tomorrow’s goat, and the time between the two is increasingly short.  Kodak had a great 100-year run, IBM 50 years, Palm five years and MySpace two. The successful CEO isn’t just thinking about today, they’re thinking about next year and what the world will look like in 10 years. Vision is important, but just as important is the ability to react to the changing world and build a company culture that rewards and encourages innovation and change. Everything should be questioned every day, and doing things “because that’s how we’ve always done them” isn’t acceptable.3. Demanding and Flexible. Good CEOs are tough. They’re demanding. They set goals and expect their employees to meet them. At the same time, they’re flexible. And they’re smart enough to judge their people not only by their results, but also by the realities of the marketplace. A missed revenue goal might be due to the economy, issues within the industry, product development delays, problems with sales or marketing training – a myriad of issues. A good CEO understands this and holds people accountable while accounting for the reality of the challenges the team is facing.4. Talented and Lucky. Yes, talent is key. But most of the companies that we look at have CEOs and leadership teams with impressive track records of success. Luck plays a bigger role than most people care to admit. A great CEO in the wrong place at the wrong time is unlikely to find great success. Even more common is the mediocre or even bad CEO who can do quite well by virtue of being in the right place at the right time (think about the early cable television, wireless, or dotcom days) and gets credited with being a great CEO.5. Confident and Humble. CEOs almost by definition need confidence. But not arrogance. An ability to admit mistakes, accept criticism, and understand that someone, somewhere is always smarter than you is a key attribute. A successful CEO isn’t ever afraid to hire the best person, and in fact on several occasions I have seen leaders make a hire that everyone in the room thought (although maybe didn’t say at the time) would likely be the CEO’s replacement at some point in the future.There is no “perfect” manager and there are no traits or personality types that work in all situations.  History is written by the victors; in other words, much of the current consensus about what makes a “good” or “authentic” leader is anecdotal and backward-looking based on leaders who have had success.

Attribution Online: Introducers and Influencers and Closers… Oh My!

By Mike SeimanOnline advertising has always suffered a kind of schizophrenia when it comes to showing itself as similar to or different from traditional media. There are some ways in which the industry can (and should) certainly post up on its uniqueness – the ability to facilitate and measure user interaction, for example – but there are also reasons it’s best served by tacking into conventional expectations, rather than attempting to blaze new trails simply because it can. One seemingly arbitrary difference that deserves rethinking is the way in which campaign success is attributed to media partners.In the offline advertising world, the concept of branding pivots around the idea that the consumer is somehow affected every time he is in contact with an element of the brand message. From first contact in a 30-second TV spot, to the second contact via a billboard on his commute, and right up to the final contact when the consumer is ambushed by the in-store POS display, it is understood that all of these points of contact have contributed to his ultimate purchase. The end sale is attributed, at least in part, to each of these touch points. No one would ever suggest that because the sale did not happen while the viewer was driving on the freeway, the billboard had no effect on his desire to ultimately engage the brand. It is assumed that the billboard played a role and it is, therefore, attributed a percentage of value in the process.The online world is different. For myriad reasons (none overly compelling), the measurement-centric focus of online advertising – and display advertising, specifically – has lead to a culture where attribution of a sale is given solely to the last marketing company to drop a cookie on the user’s browser. This “last cookie wins” culture perverts the ability of branding and performance to be seen as synergistic to each other. An online advertising partner is given the message that while their unique ability to create an impressive user/brand experience may be nice, the truth is that they will be judged simply by how many converted users saw their cookie last. In splitting the concept of brand exposure from the concept of measurable performance, the industry does itself a great disservice.The attribution debate has long raged in the online advertising space and will no doubt continue on. But if the industry is to lure more of the all-important brand dollars, it will have to proffer a new culture where, just as in offline, every touch of a user that ultimately converts is credited in some part for the conversion. Only then will the floodgates of creativity truly open up — digital partners will then know that their out-of-the-box thinking stands a chance of being rewarded over (or at least alongside) the efforts of the display chop shop that has been serving cheap ads below the fold, but where the cookie is still served.Fortunately, there is good news. At least one very prominent agency is implementing a cutting-edge attribution model with its digital partners related to a large-scale campaign for a high profile client. In this new model, attribution is split and assigned relative payout weights between the company that serves the user his first impression (this partner is called the “introducer’’), the partner serving the final impression prior to conversion (this partner is the “closer”), and all partners that served impression along the way (these are “influencers”). Interestingly, this method of campaign attribution pairs an older concept with a newer one unique to online. The consideration of these different stages is a traditional idea, but the ability to put specific touches into buckets is something that can only be done in an interactive environment. The concept is new and the results are not yet all in, but speaking of behalf of an ad network invited to be an early beta tester of the model, we see a lot of promise in the method.Contrary to some common thinking, the idea that online advertising can mirror the most desirable elements of traditional media should not be seen as an admission of weakness. Illustrating these links to traditional strategies while integrating the added value of the new capabilities is the path to luring forward-leaning brand advertisers to more fully embrace the online realm. Rethinking how we process online attribution is a great starting place.

CPX Interactive CEO Mike Seiman offers his opinions on the Human Factor and Authentic Leadership.

CPX Introduces Cookie-Free IP Targeting

By Brian LaRueToday, digital advertising company CPX Interactive announced its new cookie-free IP targeting system, partnering with audience targeting solutions company Semcasting. According to CPX, the process, leveraged with its reach and Semcasting’s available data, has more than three times the reach of cookie-based targeting and is 77 times more accurate than ZIP code geotargeting.According to CPX CEO Mike Seiman, it’s more transparent and upfront than using cookies, too, in spite the privacy concerns that may come to mind at the mention of IP targeting. “We never target a specific computer or machine,” Seiman said in a recent phone conversation. “We’re targeting a zone.”  The users themselves are effectively anonymous, and, said Seiman, “you lose the stigma associated with following the user” via dropping cookies. “We don’t have the browsing data, so we don’t have that element of needing to say we’re not looking at the browsing data,” he explained.Instead, the process looks at, as Seiman put it, “anything licensed” — offline data on public record — and then breaks it down into 5.2 million IP zones and considers it against 120 demographic variables. CPX is able to figure out which zones have higher concentrations of certain demographics, but while it can target as specifically as a building or group of buildings, it doesn’t go so far as identifying who’s sitting behind what computer. Seiman used the example of a pharmaceutical company that would want to reach doctors. “We would know the IP of multiple [doctors'] offices,” Seiman explained, and would be able to target the office, but not each computer inside it separately.Seiman said CPX had been looking for a solution like this for a while, but getting it off the ground came to “selecting the right partner.” The solution had to be scalable, and it had to be fast. “It’s more intricate than hitting a button,” he said. “You need a really scalable service to work with.” It helps, he said, that CPX has 10 years of experience and 90 employees — “things you can’t replicate no matter how much money you throw in into the cookie jar.”According to Seiman, aside from the aforementioned pharmaceutical industry, this kind of targeting has ramifications “for certain [for] the automotive industry,” looking at household areas with a propensity to buy certain varieties and makes of cars. He called the implications for political advertising “huge,” pointing out how voter registration data is considered in building these IP zones.

The Case vs the Luma Display-Ad Slide

By David ShayIn his classic literary work, “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau sums up his suggested strategy for living a life of truth and value: “Simplify! Simplify!” I have been a fan of both the author and his philosophy since my college days, but as I have aged I have come to learn that there are times when simplifying a complex issue leads to a static view of an inherently fluid situation. In these cases, rather than creating clarity, simplification can lead to a good deal of confusion.As the head of marketing for a company at the very heart of online display advertising, I enjoy the challenge of developing more and more concise ways of explaining a landscape that becomes more and more complicated with every passing year. This being the case, I seek out tools that help present the interrelation of the landscape’s many players and categories (ad networks, demand-side platforms, data providers, ad servers, exchanges, etc.) so that people can understand where my company fits into the puzzle.One such tool, Terence Kawaja’s Display LUMAscape slide, has no doubt been referenced hundreds of thousands of times by now. In an effort to bring clarity to a confusing and chaotic display advertising landscape, Kawaja amassed nearly every player in the field and placed their logos into high-level classification buckets. Kawaja then attached these buckets with a series of arrows that showed the apparent “flow” from advertiser to publisher.I remember first seeing the Kawaja slide and being thrilled to have a tool that helps explain to my father – a smart man for whom his son’s industry was a mystery – how what I did related to the more common names he knew like Google and Yahoo. For many, I assume, the slide served as a road map for a town that they may have visited now and then but never knew exactly how to navigate. This kind of instant understanding was, indeed, powerful.And yet, the Luma slide concerned me. You see, while my company made the slide – and I do not disagree that the bucket we were placed into represented a good starting place for describing what we do – the truth is that there were other buckets I knew we could have also been placed into. I knew there were assets we bring to the table that are dismissed by this static view of the industry. And, as the landscape has only grown more littered, I realize that my concerns were well founded.As often happens with tools that serve to make the complicated easy, the Kawaja slide is now a crutch our industry relies on. For some, referencing the slide falsely means they don’t have to ask the deeper questions to find out what a company actually does. After all, it’s right there in front of them. But the truth is that most of the companies on the slide do not simply handle one part of the puzzle. What about the exchange that built an industry-leading ad server? Or what about the ad network that offers vast horizontal reach but also offers its inventory in customized verticals while providing its own first-party data as well as seamless integration of all major third-party data providers? What buckets do they go? Assuming that the static snapshot contains all the information needed about a company easily leads to more confusion about the ecosystem’s true dynamics.Like anything that simplifies a process, Kawaja’s slide is a great tool, but smart advertisers and brands shouldn’t let their understanding of it keep them from asking partners, “What else can you bring to the table?” Perhaps Thoreau himself would best be rewritten as “Simplify! Simplify! … But don’t forget to ask the right questions.”David Shay is evp of marketing at CPX Interactive.

SeeHere Gift Information and Personalized Golf Towel Review

Name of Product: SeeHere Personalized Golf Towel Price of Product: $17.99Where can the product be purchased: online at SeeHereDescription of Product: “With the holidays fast approaching, you should consider these personalized photo gift ideas for under $40 from FUJIFILM’s SeeHere.com!For Mom: Go green with a canvas bag ($24.99).For Dad: Stay on course with this golf towel ($17.99).For grandparents: Keep ‘em warm with a fleece blanket (regularly $41.99, only $39.49 during the month of December).And don’t forget to keep these holiday promotions in mind:30% off all photo calendars (use promo code: calendar-32)25% off all photo cards (use promo code: cards-47)25% off all photo ornaments (use promo code: ornament-4)25% off all photo posters (use promo code: poster-39)25% off all printed cover story books, hard bound photo books, and classic photo books (use promo code: book-38)25% off woven and fleece blankets (use promo code: blanket-10).”Review of Product: I received a promo code to order a free golf towel from SeeHere and knew my dad would LOVE it! He is an avid golfer and loves his granddogs so I quickly uploaded a picture of Chester and Cleo and in a few minutes had the golf towel ordered.  The site was very easy to use and the golf towel arrived just days later – the perfect holiday gift! The towel is nice quality and the picture on it looks great.  I can’t wait to give it to my dad! Make sure to check out SeeHere for all of your holiday gift needs – nothing beats a personalized gift!I received a sample of this product to review at no charge but my opinions remain my own.

Interactivity Of Digital Ad -- Time For A Perception Change?

By David ShayJust a little more than 10 years ago, the way we measured a user’s engagement of a specific ad would likely have involved a call center lighting up for the 15 minutes following the broadcast of a direct-response commercial. (It probably ran in the overnight hours on a second-tier cable network.)But in the late ’90s, the idea of advertising designed for user engagement took a monumental leap forward. What became known as ‘the click’ did two things:*Revolutionized an advertiser’s ability to interact with a user and*Enabled the measurement of that interaction.In an interesting turn of events, the industry quickly became infatuated with the latter and has all but ignored the former. “Interaction" quickly became a tactic to be measured, rather than a part of the strategy to be incorporated.It is ironic that while this movement toward measurement -- at the expense of creativity -- has arguably slowed the ascension of digital advertising to the favorable status of ‘brand builder’ enjoyed by its more traditional cousins, the focus on measurement actually grew to offer a stark distinction from those media of the past.“They may be your brand-building tools,” digital might have said in 2000, “but just try to measure the ROI of your last TV buy.”A decade into what has clearly been its coming of age as a legitimate advertising medium, however, digital has encountered the predictable downside of its metaphorical deal with the devil.Digital sold itself with the idea of measurement being the end all, be all. Now, if it is going to make a run at the proverbial branding table, it must do its own version of a high-profile rebranding initiative. It must convince Madison Avenue that it can, in fact, bring something unique to the branding table.If digital looks back at its roots, this new narrative should not be too hard to pull off.The truth is that the interactivity offered by digital media provides advertisers the chance to completely rethink their brand strategy. What began with ‘the click’ has grown into complex rich media engagements that can wrap a user in a brand-experience, collect volunteered information about interests, and illicit declared and evangelized brand fan-hood. Aren’t these the very things that advertisers would have given every one of their Clios for in the age of Mad Men?But how do we (the digital advertising industry) pull off this pivot of perception? I believe that rather than pitching digital against traditional media, we must start thinking more about how digital and interactive media advertising can play a role alongside traditional media in the overall brand strategy. We must start talking more about how digital can work to magnify and complement parts of a campaign that are executed across the traditional outlets of TV, print, radio and outdoor. The goal should be to trigger interest offline…and engage interest online.By thinking about how the interactive nature of digital advertising can lend itself not only to unprecedented levels of measurement but also to new levels of brand engagement, the industry will open itself up to the true promise of the digital revolution.Ultimately, the industry will be best served when digital is given a seat at the table at the beginning of the process and incorporated in the planning stages of cross-media campaigns designed to increase both brand favorability and brand revenue. Isn’t that what brand building really means?

Holiday Gift Guides: Make It Personal With Photo Gifts

Giving personalized gifts is a great way to show someone special just how much you care and it really doesn’t take any more time or effort than buying  a less personalized gift. SeeHere.com has a great selection of quality photo gifts that are sure to make anyone happy to receive. I was especially intrigued by the fleece photo blanket, you can do one giant photo or a collage of photos. I decided to order a photo of the kids on Santa’s lap to check out just what these blankets are like. I thought a seasonal photo like that would be great as a fun thing to pull out each Christmas and snuggle under it as we remember them being so tiny.Well the blanket arrived and I am really happy with it, I was unsure how they printed the photo on it but it is in the fleece not screen printed on top so you don’t have to worry about the photo cracking and peeling off over time. SeeHere.com also has a bunch of other great photo gifts you should  check out  like ornaments, tote bags and towels and many of them are on sale with these great promo codes

• 30% off all photo calendars (use promo code: calendar-32)
• 25% off all photo cards (use promo code: cards-47)
• 25% off all photo ornaments (use promo code: ornament-4)
• 25% off all photo posters (use promo code: poster-39)
• 25% off all printed cover story books, hard bound photo books, and classic photo books (use promo code: book-38)
• 25% off woven and fleece blankets (use promo code: blanket-10)

I received product free of charge to facilitate my review, all opinions are my own.

Tyler Newton: What is Growth Equity?

Growth private equity is a hot topic in alternative asset management these days but even with all of the attention, growth equity remains ill-defined. Often times, growth equity is defined by what it is NOT: venture capital or buyout. A simple way to explain growth equity is to revisit the classic S-curve of industry evolution. Venture capital focuses on industries that are early in their evolution where buyout generally deals with mature companies. Growth equity deals with those in between.The Difference Between Growth and Venture - The classic venture model presumes that one or two monster hits per fund will make up for mediocre returns or losses on the rest of the portfolio. Venture capital is best suited to network effect businesses where there will typically be one or two winners in a particular market segment. Such companies require rapid scaling because achieving scale is paramount. However, this “swing for the fences” approach can frequently lead to overcapitalization and poor returns on capital for companies that don’t fit this particular investment model. Growth equity takes a more disciplined, capital-efficient approach to supporting company growth.The Difference Between Growth and Buyout - Buyout, on the other hand, performs best when dealing with mature industries. Generally speaking, buyout managers seek companies that are earning sub-par returns on capital. Those companies are purchased using financial leverage, and changes are implemented to increase the returns on capital. Because buyout funds must use financial leverage to magnify the returns generated by improving operating efficiency, buyout funds generally take more financial risk than growth equity funds.While growth equity managers share some skills sets with managers at VC and LBO funds, growth equity managers take less technology and adoption risk than VCs and less financial and execution risk than buyout investors. Growth equity provides capital to invest in product development, asset deployment, sales and marketing and acquisitions for companies as they build market share throughout the growth cycle. These companies have typically developed defensible market positions so the capital invested is not open to technology or customer adoption risk. Growth equity investors strike a balance between capital discipline and revenue growth.To investors, growth equity is a distinctly different discipline than venture capital and buyouts, but brings the benefits of both.Industry Expertise Required: Because growth managers help their companies navigate rapidly evolving industries, they need a high level of industry expertise. Industry expertise helps drive superior deal sourcing, deal selection and portfolio company performance. Disciplined growth equity managers that can identify the sectors of the economy that will profitably grow faster than GDP can deliver consistent, strong returns in up and down markets.Value Add: Growth equity managers add value to their companies by ensuring that their portfolio company management teams maintain the proper balance of focus on both growth and return on capital. First and foremost they must back and build the right management teams that are entrepreneurial, visionary and professional. They must then help their management teams expand their companies by offering advice on product strategy, mergers and acquisitions, competition and exit opportunities, while balancing the growth imperative with attention to performance metrics, long term profitability, capital efficiency and financing solutions.From a capital markets perspective, growth equity firms invest in companies with less than $500 million of enterprise value that once might have been public earlier in their life cycle. Whether it’s the expense of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance or the lack of middle-market investment banks to provide research coverage, the public market no longer provides the same level of support to mid-market growth stocks that it once did. There are thousands of companies in growth sectors with greater than $10 million of revenue that need growth financing or exit liquidity.Growth equity managers provide much needed growth financing and strategic guidance to these companies that are not well-served by venture capital funds, buyout funds or the public stock market.Tyler Newton is Partner and Research Director at Catalyst Investors, a growth private equity firm. He also blogs about the economy and financial markets at www.tylernewton.com and he tweets here. Opinions expressed here are entirely his own.

Rachel Kovar: PE Physician, Heal Thyself!

After you invest in a business, you are constantly looking for ways to control costs without reducing quality or taking on unnecessary administrative responsibility. Scalability is important to both grow your business and swiftly respond to market changes. A comprehensive tactical and strategic operating plan is essential to the profitability of the investment, as is installing the right management and staff.Managing your own shop should be no different. There exist measures in place to evaluate, improve and manage core business performance, but what about taking on non-core functions?Partnering with an expert internal support services provider can deliver the same kind of results for your portfolio and performance you expect from your partners. Though not a traditional solution for PE firms, outsourcing is worth considering as part of cost management strategy, particularly when it comes to business support services – from back office (low-skill copy and mail to creative/graphics services), to research and knowledge management. Just as your organization provides expert business counsel to achieve profitability and growth, an outsourced services provider can function similarly. The right partner will help assess your internal support and provides you with a roadmap that matches your organization’s goals and immediate needs.The ROI from outsourcing – when done well – can be significant as it achieves the following:• Provides firms with scalable resources while reducing HR risk exposure• Eliminates certain infrastructure costs and helps firms avoid some significant long-term capital expenditures• Reduces people costs through labor arbitrage, leveraging the right technology, refining processes and aligning skills to tasks• Enables refocus on core business activities to drive revenue and increase profitLowering costs is a primary reason to outsource, however, more business leaders outsourcing today put increased revenue and productivity ahead of immediate savings. For example, the IAOP World Summit 2010 reported that 65% of its delegates listed long-term cost savings, supporting future growth plans, and increasing overall business flexibility as their top reasons to outsource.Where to Start:1) Divide business activities into two distinct categories: core (revenue generating) and non-core.2) Identify tasks (not functions or roles) that fall into the non-core category and separate those out in to two groups (1) supports revenue growth, or (2) keeps the lights on.3) It seems counter-intuitive, but “supports revenue growth” is the best place to start. Outsource service providers that are equipped to recruit and manage talent in the more complex support areas like knowledge management, or which require highly developed conceptual, technical skills and/or front office interaction is required should be able to procure and/or, provide and manage all of the back-office services that “keep the lights on”.4) Consider off-shore vs. domestic outsourcing options. Offshoring is often a lower cost solution, but even domestic outsourcing delivers impressive savings (10%-40%) and providers are more likely equipped to deliver multi-service solutions. Many US companies that already outsource want their suppliers to expand their offerings and manage more services, meaning fewer suppliers managing higher-level activities that require more highly skilled resource. This is driving many business leaders to turn to domestic service providers to reduce the risk of miscommunication and, protection of confidential information, which is often less regulated offshore.It’s Still Your Business:The perceived loss of control makes it difficult for business leaders to outsource. This is one of the most common mistakes. This perceived control often stems from poor and/or sporadic reporting, little or no planning (strategic or otherwise), lack of transparency or poor communication. You don’t have to be in the weeds to have control. Set up the program the right way from the start:1) Establish concrete measurable expectations.i) Ask for sample reports.ii) Set Service Level Agreements.2) Require a tactical service delivery plan for implementation, change management, SOPs, communications and escalations on both sides.3) Plan for both expected and unexpected changes in demand.Excising costs, changing processes and replacing/realigning personnel to derive the greatest profits possible from the assets your firm manages is your core business. Outsourcing offers private equity firms and their portfolio effective ways to reduce and control ongoing costs, take advantage of the right resources for the right jobs, and leverage easy-to-use, configurable tools and technologies to support growth. Partnering with an external expert whose core business is internal support services can be the key to delivering tangible bottom-line value for your firm.Rachel Kovar is an expert on multi-sector domestic and global outsourcing. She is founder and president of Managed Business Services. Opinions expressed here are her own.

ad pepper Infuses Semantic Targeting Into New RTB Platform

By Gavin DunawayWhile audience targeting and buying is getting more attention than a non-threatening teenage boy who sings in a very high register, I’m always looking further down the road. For a while I’ve been pondering when contextual targeting will make a big comeback, and discussing concept-based targeting with NetSeer made me think the moment is nigh.But beyond that, it seems inevitable that hybrid systems of contextual and audience targeting will eventually rule the display market. Interestingly, ad pepper media has delivered one through its new adXplus real-time bidding platform.In addition to delivering advertisers the audiences they crave in real-time across multiple networks and exchanges, adXplus also employs ad pepper’s iSense semantic targeting to find suitable context as well.“adXplus was designed to constantly adjust bid values for every impression based on a multitude of data criteria including user, context and performance enabling us to deliver the right ad to the right user in context yielding the best possible campaign performance,” explained Sacha Carton, director of Product & Technology Development and director of the board.adXplus also offers retargeting abilities, automated optimization technology and comprehensive reporting. Finally, the platform includes SiteScreen semantic brand protection technology, which Adotas covered in great detail on its launch.The new RTB platform is one of several marketing solutions ad pepper operates across online channels. There’s also lead generation through iLead, email marketing with mailpepper, affiliate marketing via Webgains, as well as contextually targeted display advertising on publishers who are part of the iSense ad network.

ad pepper Debuts adXPlus Real-Time Bidding Platform

By Jennifer ZainoiSense and SiteScreen, the semantic technologies from ad pepper for contextual display advertising and  brand protection, are key building blocks behind the digital marketing services and technology solutions provider’s new adXplus real-time bidding (RTB) platform. The company, which by and large until now has focused on spot media buys and its own ad network, has spent 18 months enabling the deployment of these capabilities at scale via its proprietary RTB platform, across leading RTB-enabled ad exchanges and sell-side platforms, as well as its own publisher network.ad pepper counts among new partners for its adXplus RTB platform, which is a fully managed service, Admeld, AppNexus, The Rubicon Project, and Doubleclick Ad Exchange. “This is enabling us to deploy our campaigns at scale with all our targeting capabilities across millions of sites made available through these partnerships,” says Sacha Carton, ad pepper’s director, product and technology development.Carton says that the features its technology is bringing to the RTB space – 3,500 categories for precise page-level targeting, brand safety filters covering 18 objectionable categories, and black- and white-list delivery options – are important because “you are talking of so much scale in terms of reach and distribution, that to jump in with no predefined assumptions on what can work for you from a targeting perspective could mean you would be lost and wasting money not getting to inventory suitable to your objectives.”He also points to a sophisticated automatic, algorithm-led optimization engine that evaluates each impression and user against all the data points it has, whether semantic- or performance-related, to continuously optimize message delivery to best-performing audiences and content segments and adjust bid values per impression. “We do it at the URL level which is compelling, because you can say that your ads and messages work effectively on specific URLs and so you can switch off underperforming URLs,” he says. That’s a better option, he says, than performing at the domain-level only, which may cut off appropriate ad distribution points.Don’t Trim That TaxonomyWhile some other semantic advertising platforms have been pursuing RTB opportunities for awhile, Carton says that it’s often the case where such vendors that are not themselves media businesses have integrated into agency trading desks or selling platforms with very trimmed-down taxonomies. “Most DSPs can’t cope with the level of data coming through a 3,500 category system,” he says. The optimization engine in adXplus is improved for the RTB space, to “leverage all that data in its most granular form to base delivery and optimization decisions on…Optimizing a campaign semantically with information and data at a more granular level gives you more opportunities to get more performance out of your media spend.”adXplus launches in both the U.S. and Europe simultaneously. It’s the only RTB-enabled platform that will be fully operational with 12 languages, he says, which is particularly critical in the European market. “By and large in Europe we are the only platform with so many languages and categories and we are among the top two with the most category segments in the U.S.,” Carton says.As a company Carton sees ad pepper migrating in the direction of RTBs, and he expects that having its own proprietary semantic technology will make it a stronger competitor there. RTBs represent, he says, a “natural evolution of the space. The efficiencies RTB brings to the online advertising world are flabbergasting as compared to the previous way of doing business, and so will continue to win an increasing amount of spend in the market.It is a very, very competitive ecosystem, and by and large the competition will become more and more about technology and analytic capabilities, and those that are able to develop the right platform will succeed,” he says.

Apps I’m loving Now

Apps I'm Loving NowBy Kirstyn BrownWhat I love about Apps for my iPhone is that there’s something to suit every personality and lifestyle, which means for us fit chicks, there’s an enormous about of nutrition and fitness-related Apps out there just waiting to overwhelm us. So, to help you narrow it down, here are my top three of the moment:1. iMapMyRun (or MapMyHike, Bike, Fitness, etc)All you have to do is run (or hike, bike, even train). This series of fitness Apps takes all the guesswork out of recording your workouts and tracking your progress as you improve. Since I’ve recently been getting into running, my favorite is MapMyRun as it uses GPS to map out my routes, record my time and pace and syncs up to my MapMyRun.com online profile so I can post my routes and challenge friends. I can even post a run straight to Twitter or Facebook.Bonus feature: If you hit the weights or played a round of tennis, you can record that too. And did I mention, it’s FREE?Runner up: The Nike+ GPS App    2. Lose ItMore than just a calorie counter. This handy daily food log tracks all of your nutrients and breaks down your caloric intake into percentages so you can see just how much of what you’re eating is comprised of fat, carbs and protein. It keeps you accountable and makes it clear where you need to make tweaks in your diet to yield fab-abs results. You can also input your workouts and it will automatically deduct your calorie burn from your daily total. Best part? It’s free.Runner up: DailyBurn      3. PaceDJFeeling sluggish? Just beat it. With this unique App, you set your desired running pace based on beats per minute – so around 160 BPM for a decent run. Then, the App creates a playlist using songs from your library that match that BPM. By running to the beat you keep up your pace as well as your motivation! Pretty cool, right? It only costs $2.99, a reasonable price for a motivational coach!While we’re on the subject, what songs do you love to blast when going the distance? Here’s a few tracks I’m loving now:Beautiful People Ft. Benny Benassi – Chris BrownKeep the Car Running – Arcade FireRun the World (Girls) – BeyonceEvery Teardrop is a Waterfall – ColdplayBorn This Way – Lady GagaYou’ve Got the Love – Florence + The Machine

20 Publicists Reveal the Biggest PR Mistakes Your Small Business Makes

By Erica Nicole in Grow · Marketing & SalesDoes public relations actually work? Of course. Should you have a public relations plan in place? Quite possibly. But before you take a deep dive into PR, you should know: It’s not the 80’s – everything has changed. You may have built a profitable company, but with the right public relations strategy, you’re on the brink of developing a world-class “brand.”Before you develop illusions of grandeur about landing on The Today Show or the front page of national news — you should be keenly aware of the mistakes that most small business makes when it comes to PR. We’ve tapped some of the nation’s leading public relations firms, run by entrepreneurs just like you, to uncover the number one PR mistake your small business makes. Are you, and your agency, doing PR right? Let’s find out.#1             Don’t discount relationships with bloggers. Keep media relationships at a happy and healthy pace with timely information – it works wonders! Heck, one of my clients will be on the Today Show because of it.Seattle: Jaime Palmucci, Founder/Digital Strategy Director at Debutante Media: @debutantemedia#2             Make your business newsworthy.  If you think editors should just write about your company simply because it launched – think again. Don’t leave out news value or potential news angles and ideas.Chicago: Molly Lynch, Founder/Managing Director at Lynch Communications Group: @mollylynch#3             Trust your PR agency!  You hired us for a reason, so listen to us.  If we suggest you need new photography, you probably do.  If we tell you that you need to do this interview, you need to do it.  Challenging your PR agency’s expertise is only going to defeat the purpose of hiring us.  We’re here to help you, so let us help.NYC: Lauren Rich, Founder + Director at RICHPR: @RICHPRStar#4             Include PR as part of your ongoing business model. If you opt for DIY PR, remember that sending a poorly crafted press release here and there and expecting it to bring you exposure won’t work.Portland: Carey Powell, ACC, President/Owner at Fearless PR and Media: @FearlessCoach#5             Invest in your company’s profile.  Invest your time, energy and budgets in building your brand through media relations, social media, speaking engagements and more. As a small business, it’s important to build a strong foundation for your brand, and in turn, your company will appear more credible and dynamic to target media and potential customers.Charleston: Beth M. Cleveland, Principal at Elm Public Relations: @PR_Beth#6             Choose the right firm to represent your brand. It is crucial that you and your public relations firm are on the right page, and definitely a part of the same industry. Don’t sign with a PR firm just because your friend owns it, you like the website, or because you can afford them. A PR agency should be the final missing puzzle piece and the right fit to complete your vision.NYC: Jordanna Stephen, Founder/President at Touch of Pink Public Relations: @TouchofPinkPR#7             Random pitching is not a strategy. Don’t send poorly constructed, non-targeted press releases and pitches to random media outlets – it is a huge mistake. A large majority of business owners don’t take the time to understand how journalists and editors work, and in turn their press releases and pitches end up in the trash.NYC: Kristin Marquet, President at Marquet Media: @KristinMarquet#8             Don’t underestimate what it takes to make media magic. A tremendous amount of time and energy is required to make media placement magic happen! And once you land a major press hit, not using the placement for marketing is a huge mistake. A mention in Real Simple, a quote in the New York Times, or an appearance on Good Day New York should be a part of your credentials.NYC: Andrea Samacicia, Owner at Victory Public Relations: @VictoryCom#9             Don’t hire an agency that doesn’t do research. Research is an essential component to any PR plan. Your agency should know your audiences, industry, competitors, relevant media outlets and appropriate contacts.  Post-campaign research is also necessary to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Though research is the most neglected, it is the most valuable aspect to ensure results.Miami: Danika Daly, President/CEO at Danika Daly PR: @danikadaly#10           Get out of your own way. Don’t create your own hurdles by spending too much time on who you want to be instead of who you are. Finding your own voice is so important because PR will broadcast that, so that people can find you. This is the reverse of what a lot of small businesses and publicists do, which is to go out and try to change minds. You run a business, not a charity. Sell nuts to squirrels.Chicago: Philip Chang, Partner at Carbon Publicity : @strongerbonds#11           Refine your media lists. Targeting big-name press and media outlets, just because they have name recognition and large audiences isn’t always the best way to go. There is far more value in a local and niche media outlets, where your audience will be more relevant and interested in your message.Chicago: Ryan Evans, President at Bitesize PR: @bitesizepr#12           Maximize the momentum. Most businesses don’t know how to maximize the exposure they get with a public relations program. There is so much more you can do with an article, a news clip, radio interview or blog review after it airs or runs. And once you receive press, don’t rely on PR solely to move the needle with sales without any other type of marketing or advertising program.NYC: Elyse Bender-Segall, CEO at PR Revolution: @prrevolution#13           Be realistic and give it time. You don’t give PR enough time to work effectively, and expect it to make your business flourish overnight. Many small businesses only utilize PR for a short amount of time and then abandon it quickly when it doesn’t live up to their unrealistic expectations.Los Angeles: Steven Le Vine, President/CEO at Grapevine PR: @grapevinepr#14           Invest in your brand. Don’t underestimate the value of investing in professional photography, branding collateral and press samples. Presentation is everything when you launch a new brand and introduce your business to influencers, media and to the public for the first time. To get the most out of your PR investment, be sure to equip your publicist or agency with the proper tools to succeed.NYC: Carla M. Nikitaidis, President/Founder at CMN PR @cmnpr#15           Understand your target audience. Small businesses sometimes shoot for coverage in outlets that are not relevant to their audience or end goals. When planning PR strategy, the intended business results should always be at the forefront — not coverage just to have “ink”.NYC: Karen D’Angelo Hopp, Co-Founder/Partner at Bazini Hopp: @karenhopp#16           Hire a Firm that Get’s It!  Don’t hire a large PR firm for namesake that can’t cater to the unique needs of a small business. With a small agency or consultant you can, more often than not, spend a lot less money and get a higher level of work done. If you hire a consultant, you can gain 11 years of experience for the price of a junior account executive at a larger firm and know who’s handling your account.Los Angeles: Elizabeth Rosenberg, President at LOFT Marketing & Communications: @loftmkt#17           Learn what public relations really means. Many small business owners are extremely excited to be in business and assume the most immediate need for their business is public relations. PR is a component of Marketing, so it’s essential for you to have a clear understanding of your brand first and to set some long-term marketing goals prior to seeking PR.Houston: Ashley Small, President/Digital PR Specialist at Medley Incorporated: @ashleyrsmall#18           Create a crisis management plan. A mistake or failure on the operations side requires fast mobilization to address the underlying issue as well as the resultant problems with key audiences. Too many small organizations don’t think it’s worth investing any time or capital in this area, and they frequently pay for it in the long run – because the margin of error drops to zero over time for any successful business.Los Angeles: Brad Chase, Partner at Capitol Media Partners: @mrbradchase#19           Stop pitching the wrong media outlet. Too often small businesses (and some PR firms) don’t take the time to make sure a media outlet is the right fit for their publicity needs. Pitching to everyone is a waste of time and a great way to get blacklisted.Austin: Shennandoah Diaz, CEO and Master of Mayhem at Brass Knuckles Media: @brasskmedia#20           Think beyond the press release. PR is a relationship between your company and the media. Nurturing that relationship is invaluable. Befriend reporters relevant to your business and make sure they know you and your company long before you have a new release or other press event. Then when the time comes you’re sharing news with a good friend and not sending a Word document full of press speak.NYC: Sarah Kunst, Founder at whEnroute: @sarahkunstBONUS:  Be prepared. Great, we can get you coverage but you need a call to action. Always invest first in a web site that functions before investing in media relations as part of PR. Also PR needs to be a priority; it is an investment in the longevity of your business so please make time for it.Chicago: Stephanie Krol, Owner at Stephanie Krol Public Relations (SKPR): @stephkrol    

Advantage Business Media's digital road map

By Sean CallahanAdvantage Business Media is about as b2b as a media company can get.Its 19 publications include Electronic Component News, Manufacturing Business Technology, Product Design & Development and Wireless Week. The Rockaway, N.J.-based company was formed in 2006 when CEO Rich Reiff and President George Fox, backed by private equity fund Catalyst Investors, acquired a number of titles from Reed Business Information.Reiff and Fox have turned their product-focused magazines into strong Web properties. When they bought the magazines from RBI, the company's digital revenue was about 11% of its total revenue. Now that figure is 42%, and Reiff expects it to reach 50% by the end of the year.Reiff said he and Fox have transformed Advantage Business Media with a simple formula that he believes other b2b media companies can follow.First, they changed the editorial culture to adapt to the pace of the Internet. “We're not monthly anymore; we're daily,” Reiff said. Advantage's first digital focus was on producing regular e-newsletters for its brands.Second, Advantage sold the value of its digital products, which include webcasts and online display advertising. “We were very strict about pricing,” Reiff said. “We would not allow any value-add. We would not allow selling it cheap. We sold value and gave a return on investment [to marketers].”To implement this approach, Advantage also had to change the culture of its sales teams. Reiff and Fox merged the company's print and digital sales teams. They also replaced salespeople who did not go along with the new program.Ryan McNally, a partner at Cataylst, estimated that two-thirds of Advantage's sales staff has joined the publishing company since 2006. He also said the revamped sales teams relied heavily on prospecting to dig up small advertisers that could afford the relatively low prices for targeted digital products and see a return in leads.Third, Advantage has boosted its digital side margins. “Digital dollars are more profitable,” Reiff said.McNally said Advantage has been profitable every year Catalyst has owned the company. Now, as digital revenue has surged, so has the company's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). Advantage's EBITDA has doubled since 2006.Reiff said he expects digital display advertising to be Advantage's next big growth area.McNally said Advantage is also looking to increase its revenue from events, which currently stands at less than 5% of the company's overall revenue.Earlier this year, Advantage acquired Continuity Insights, which operates the the Continuity Insights Management Conference, in part to develop its face-to-face business. Reiff said Advantage is currently looking for additional acquisitions. He said Advantage and Catalyst are primarily seeking b2b media brands that haven't fully taken advantage of digital revenues.Even though Catalyst has owned Advantage for five years, usually about the time a private equity firm begins looking to sell an asset, McNally said he's more focused on acquisitions for Advantage in the short term. “Catalyst has no immediate plans to exit or look for the door,” he said.

PaceDJ App Review

Pace Your Music to Your Workout5-Star RatingBy Wendy Bumgardner, About.com GuideNothing drags your workout rhythm down as much as a slow, slow song on your music player. PaceDJ is a great app that sorts through your iTunes library or chosen playlist and then lets you select the pace of music you want for your workout. This is an easy-to-use app that is great for walkers, runners and cyclists.Get Moving at the Right TempoThe PaceDJ app is simple to set up. You can let it loose on your entire music library or select a playlist you have already built. It analyzes each song for its beats per minute. You then select a tempo that will match your workout and you have an instant music mix for that pace. They suggest 500 songs to choose from for the best mix.You can scroll through the songs selected and prioritize them with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Those you give the thumbs up to will be played first. Those you give thumbs down remain on your playlist but are at lower priority.You can choose the range of beats per minute that will be played, from 0 to 10 bpm of your chosen pace. PaceDJ will also play half tempo and double tempo songs that relate to that range. A wider range means more songs.Now, just open PaceDJ when you want to start your workout and it will play the mix for whatever tempo you choose.What is the Right Tempo for Walking Workouts?PaceDJ links to James Sundquist's list of suggested tempos for walking, running and biking at various speeds. It was fun to see this link, as he and I linked to each other long ago in the early days of the web. His suggested walking paces include 120 bpm for 3 mph, 130 bpm for 3.5 mph, 140 bpm for 4 mph, 150 bpm for 4.3 mph.How do you know what pace you want? Use our Walking Pace Calculator to find your walking pace.I have a "Race" playlist for my iPod Shuffle that I built just by eyeballing which songs I thought were peppy. Running it through PaceDJ confirmed that I was on the right track.When you are in the middle of your workout and feel like you need to speed up or slow down, you can access PaceDJ and simply hit the up or down arrow next to the Target BPM to adjust it.Bottom Line on PaceDJThis app was just what I wanted to build a race mix or a workout mix. The only thing I might want is to have suggested tunes to add.

PaceDJ Offers the Perfect Beats for Any Workout

By Troy DreirPaceDJ is an iPhone and iPod Touch app that creates mixes at your ideal target pace, letting runners, walkers, and cyclists synchronize their exercise with the songs they love. The app gets information from the iPhone or iPod Touch music library to determine the tempo of each tune. The user then sets a target exercise pace, either in steps or in rotations per minute.The interface is intuitive, so it's a snap to prioritize songs in mixes according to user preference based on whether users like or dislike what they hear in the mix. The app selects songs based on an energy ranking, which de-prioritizes lower energy tunes unless a user "likes" them. The app also lets user include songs at half-tempo and double-tempo of their target exercise pace. If this sounds good to you, jump on it: The typically $4.99 app is on sale for $.99 until July 24, 2011.

Read Together, Even When Miles Apart

Read Together, Even When Miles ApartDon't let something like a business trip or a late night at the office derail your little one's bedtime routine. Now parents who are away can read Jeremy Fisher: Buddy Reading Edition and Peter Rabbit: Buddy Reading Edition in real time to their kiddos at home, thanks to a Buddy Reading feature for the iPad and iPhone. You and your kiddo can interact with the digital book -- and each other -- across different devices. Plus, you can choose the "Learn to Read" function, where the child touches an object to see and hear the word. Beatrix potter's classics are $2 each; available at the iTunes App store.