The online marketing arm of e-business consulting firm iXL Inc. is spinning off from its Atlanta-based parent company to become an independent entity based in Culver City.
IXL Live has become Digital Planet, and will focus on developing and producing original online chats, as well as video and audio webcasts as part of marketing campaigns.
The company was chosen to produce the official convention webcast for the Democratic National Committee at www.Dems2000.com. Digital Planet also has deals with Checkout.com, WebMD, Yahoo! Inc. and Lycos, among others.
IXL retains an ownership stake in the new company, which has also received venture capital investments from Mellon Ventures, Animanagement and Talent Entertainment Group. Company President Steven Chester said additional strategic partners will soon be announced.
“It’s a very different business from how iXL is run. They build Web sites; we function more like a studio,” Chester said. “There’s a large demand in the marketplace for these kinds of services, so we thought we’d take advantage of it and grow. Keeping it inside iXL, it was going to be hampered.”
Instead of just providing its online netcasting services to iXL’s customers, now the company will go after any Fortune 2000 company looking to build a brand online. As online consumers become more comfortable downloading video and audio or watching streamed netcasts, the demand for Digital Planet’s services will only grow because most companies are not in the business of developing online content, Chester said.
Digital Planet, which currently has 35 employees, will move this month from its current office in Westwood to a new office with state-of-the-art studios in Culver City. Chester said the company plans to add staff, but declined to provide specifics.
Ignoring Advice on Incubators
Despite increasing questions about the viability of incubators, two members of the Tech Coast Angels investment group have founded a new company to incubate and grow tech companies in the flourishing Ventura (101) Freeway Tech Corridor.
FortuneLab LLC will invest up to $500,000 in each company it chooses to incubate, and is currently in negotiations with entrepreneurs wanting to start their businesses under its umbrella. The company plans to have three companies under its roof by the end of the year.
“The analogy I use is that incubators are like radio stations. They have a single strength that only goes so far,” said Peter Hartz, a partner at FortuneLab. “Our focus is the geographic area along the 101 Corridor, so Burbank to Ventura or Santa Barbara. While there are incubators like Idealab in Pasadena, and a new start-up incubator in Santa Barbara, we’re the main incubator between those two points.”
In addition to regular incubator functions, the company will also have a somewhat unusual feature to help aspiring tech entrepreneurs.
When the partners find an entrepreneur they like but who has a business plan they’re not sure will succeed, they will invite the entrepreneur into a program in which FortuneLab executives and the prospective business owner work together to create a better business plan. If, after 90 days, the group cannot come up with a viable idea, the entrepreneur can leave and neither side has any further obligation.
Criticism from analysts of the incubator model did not deter Hartz and his partners, Peter Jonas and Lawrence Field, from founding their new company.
“What this is all about is trying to accelerate the ideas of entrepreneurs. I’m a firm believer that that can occur,” Hartz said. “We’ve been involved in this process from start-up companies to public companies, and the funding ranges between those two events. That kind of experience, when given to an entrepreneur who may have a good idea but hasn’t built a company before, has a very meaningful impact.”
Occidental Gets JobTrak
L.A.-based Jobtrak.com announced last week that it will offer an online job and internship recruiting service to Occidental College, the latest in a long string of colleges across the country to sign up for the service.
Jobtrak.com is best known for its job listing databases that target college upperclassmen and recent graduates.
The company’s InterviewTrak simplifies the process of transmitting resumes, and scheduling and coordinating on-campus interviews with prospective employers. Jobtrak.com has offered InterviewTrak to colleges since 1996, but the product seems to be gaining momentum as more colleges and universities become comfortable with the Internet.
“Over this past year, we just signed on our 100th college career center using this service,” said Scott Holcomb, vice president of operations at Jobtrak.com.
After signing up just six clients during the service’s first year in 1997, 23 schools participated in 1998, and 63 schools participated last year.
Staff reporter Laura Dunphy can be reached at [email protected].
