Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 14)

SM: Are you getting the visibility at the right level of executive sponsorship at these large media companies? RF: I can tell you there are a lot of very senior folks at Washington Post that I have personally met. Beyond just them, deciding to build a network is a very important decision for a brand.

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 13)

We’re talking about large media companies and their assets: readership / traffic, brand, channels, advertiser relationships, sales forces, and inventory. Why should old media just concede the battle to Google and Yahoo, with so many great assets? SM: Not only do they have great sales forces and good relationships with advertisers, but they also have

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 12)

We concluded the last segment on the note that amongst Adify’s noble mission is to free the bloggers from the clutches of Google AdSense, which really abuses them. (I am only half kidding … the title of this series is deliberate, and on topic.) SM: What kind of CPM rates are you seeing? I know

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 11)

We left off at the point where I concluded that there is no network out there with any business ad inventory except FM. SM: Part of my problem is that the Washington Post talked me into signing up, but they have no business ad inventory. RF: Well, start your own! Actually, I would never talk

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 10)

SM: Would you give us some examples of your larger and smaller customers? RF: We work with an education related network called HotChalk, we work with a network of do-it-yourself home improvement types called HouseBlogs, we work with an entrepreneur called Robert Kadar who is starting a network called GoodHealthAdvertising, he is an expert and

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 9)

SM: What is your business model? RF: It is always based on some metric based on throughput and performance. We have folks working with us who, although we love them as customers, they are very small businesses who are going to run $20,000 a month in media. We also have folks with us who are

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 7)

We talked about the fragmentation in the media business, with the long tail developing a stronger influence overall. Adify’s genesis is in this trend. SM: What is the significant opportunity you see in the fragmentation phenomenon? RF: First we realized that brand marketers are going to have a challenge.

Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 6)

SM: Let’s fit Adify into this framework. What is the value proposition, what is the business model? RF: When we started Adify, what we saw was the ad networks were trying to aggregate bulk amounts of inventory and apply targeting algorithms to that in order to sell a huge amount of direct response advertising. That

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