Comments on: FM Raises Another $4.5M; Are They Having Difficulty Filling Inventory?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

got to make up for it somehow.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

there were other campaigns running that were similar in nature that continued to run after he killed the People Ready stuff (and after the post you cite).

All the conversational marketing campaigns seemed to have been killed by the end of July or so. It could be that they are rethinking it, or perhaps Batelle changed his mind and now has declared conversational marketing a bad idea which he refused to do in the very post you cite.

I was looking for follow-up to the follow-up : )

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Interestingly FM is holding a summit (aka $900 conference) on conversational marketing 9/11 & 9/12 less than half a mile from me. I just saw the ad on the Ad Age website.

http://federatedmedia.net/events/index

Lots of good speakers lined up, but Battelle isn’t listed as one of them. If he was, I might splurge for the $900 just to ask this question in public:

“Since your whole business is entirely built on the premise of conversational marketing why do your current campaigns all seem highly traditional? Has “conversational marketing” devolved into meaning placing ads on blogs?”

By: centernetworks

centernetworks — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I inquired about attending the event about 2-3 weeks ago, never heard back.

By: Scott Lawton

Scott Lawton — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Robert typed: “I’m disappointed that Battelle had no public comment on that”

Actually he did: http://www.federatedmedia.net/blog/archives/2007/06/a_follow_up.php

By: Scott Lawton

Scott Lawton — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“I have to assume that an ad network makes money (not profit perhaps) from day 1.”

i.e. they lose money from day 1, based on an expensive sales force and the long sales cycle that seems to be required to land advertisers that will pay the desired CPM.

Of course raising money doesn’t necessarily indicate that FM is hurting; most businesses consume cash while growing. But I agree that lots of good inventory goes unsold, which must be very disappointing for the bloggers (and FM itself). I wish them luck; it’s an interesting model.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

it’s pretty clear that the present business model is either not enough to sustain current operations or, probably more likely, not enough to grow the business as fast as they want to. Otherwise why do the round at all?

FM seems to have stopped all of the ad campaigns where its main bloggers were quoted saying nice things about the company advertising and not just the “People Ready” campaign.

I’m disappointed that Battelle had no public comment on that and have no idea whether they are still enamored with the idea (I think it’s definitely an idea worth playing with, and I imagine it paid FM very well)and retooling it, or punting altogether.

Ad networks seem to be all the rage and $4.5MM is much less than the $200MM Glam is trying to raise.

It would be interesting to find out what is the total advertising market $ being thrown at the TC 100K and get an idea of whether it’s approaching saturation or still has much room for growth.

WebbAlert plays to the TC 100K, but is not a mass consumer brand and never will be. Are there enough dollars available to throw at the TC 100K to generate more and more stuff like that?