Online Travel Continues to Boom

According to RBC, within the U.S., online travel sales account for 43% of total travel sales. That number is projected to increase marginally to 44% by the end of next year. Analysts believe that increased online sales will be driven by the continued adoption of mobile devices. Meanwhile, online travel sites are expanding their international operations and adding inventory, as well as enhancing mobile operations to ensure they capture a bigger slice of this pie.

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Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Asher Delug, CEO of Airpush (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds as though you would prefer to exit into strategic than to deal with all this financial mumbo-jumbo.

Asher Delug: Absolutely. Preferably a strategic that is public, so we can participate in the further upside of the company. I think a cash stock deal with a public company would be an option because it gives us the ability to make a difference at the new company and drive more equity value for ourselves. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Asher Delug, CEO of Airpush (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: That is extremely valuable.

Asher Delug: I agree. There is no other company in the world that has that particular data asset. Other companies, like the ones I mentioned, have very interesting data assets. But the nature of ours is unique. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Lori Sylvia, EVP of Marketing at RedBend Software (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. I wonder how successful that business is.

Lori Sylvia: I think they are pretty successful. They found a very niche market, and they do well. They are the number one luxury brand.

Another example of a service is provided by Panasonic. They are a very forward-thinking company. They have a line of ruggedized Android tablets that everyone is very familiar with. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Asher Delug, CEO of Airpush (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Can you talk about the other side of the differentiation coin – the data side?

Asher Delug: For the first few years of mobile, the big complaint by advertisers and the reason why mobile ad rates have stayed so low compared to desktop rates is because until very recently, mobile has not had a very established data ecosystem. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Asher Delug, CEO of Airpush (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Tell us more about these three patent-pending ad formats and what is special about them.

Asher Delug: Our three patent-pending formats are unique. One is the push notification ad. This is an opt-in, so the user opts in and then starts receiving about 1.5 notification ads a day. The ads are shown in the notification tray of the Android device. Users can also opt out at any time. >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Lori Sylvia, EVP of Marketing at RedBend Software (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Do you have any observation on language issues? There are several markets that are not English speaking. If you look at the Arab world, for example, they are mostly not English speaking. India, as another example, is vastly not an English-speaking market. There are maybe 50 million to 60 million English speakers, but beyond that there are another billion people who don’t speak English. Do you see opportunities for local language tablets, services or apps? >>>

Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Asher Delug, CEO of Airpush (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How are you, as a mobile ad network, responding to the real-time bidding (RTB) trend?

Asher Delug: We are focusing the company very much on RTB at this point. An initiative we launched recently was our DSP (demand side platform). It allows the 5,000 mobile advertisers that are using Airpush today, which range from the largest brands down to very small local agencies, to purchase ad inventory across all the RTB exchanges and supply sources from a single interface. It takes the complexity, cost, and barriers to entry out of the RTB market for the average mobile advertiser. >>>