SM: What has amazed me about the last five years of the Internet is the inability to segment, which is Marketing 101. Why is it so difficult to get segmentation? It is the most fundamental and most powerful element of marketing! SA: Exactly! Steve Jobs talks about when he joined Pixar he saw that people
SM: My position on this dichotomy between content destination and ad network is that in the future, all media companies will have to do both. SA: We believe we are redefining what a media company is. We epitomize what you just said. All media companies have to recognize that pre-web 2.0, you could own and
Professor Raj Reddy at Carnegie Mellon University first urged me to look at micro-franchise as a vehicle for economic development. Today, micro-finance has become a world-renowned phenomenon, especially with Dr. Yunus’ Nobel Prize two years back. [You can read my interview with Raj here.]
SM: I always like it when a pioneering company takes a new approach with a solid business model already in place. SA: I will tell you something about Glam’s history we have not talked about before. Most startups come to a decision point in the first two or three years after launch, where the original
SM: Glam was a pioneering startup. How did you assemble your management team? SA: Our seven key founders are all serial entrepreneurs and pioneers in Silicon Valley and Internet Technology.
SM: What is the story behind Glam? Where did the idea come from? SA: Glam was interesting from the first concept. It started as a jewel of an idea in 2001 and developed in 2002 at the bottom of the downturn.
SM: Was Rae a successful venture for you? SA: Rae did well. We created navigational applications for Apple, then PCs, and later worked with Wells Fargo and American Express. Interestingly enough, they introduced us to a small company called Mosaic. Once I saw what Mosaic was doing, I knew we had the legs to deliver
Samir Arora is a serial entrepreneur with a history that includes Rae Technology and NetObjects. Aside from being chairman and CEO of Glam Media, he is chairman (and founder) of Information Capital LLC. Glam Media offers a self-coined ‘vertical content network’ platform. The Glam Media network includes over 400 publishers, all of whom receive an