An Internet shakeout and choppy economic market don’t necessarily spoil holiday cheer. Despite a new emphasis on tightening their budget belts, some Los Angeles Internet companies still managed to party in style this month.
Here are some highlights from the e-party scene.
Business.com, the business portal backed by recently re-restructured eCompanies, held its first holiday party at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.
There were no Christmas bonuses given out at the semi-formal event or at all, according to em-ployees but the 100 partygoers were handed $1,000 in fake gambling money. The staffers, who seemed less interested in the dance floor and more interested in the roulette and blackjack tables, could spend the bogus money on raffle tickets for gift certificates and other prizes.
Business.com’s Santa Monica neighbor, Launch.com, held a laid-back holiday bash at Q’s Billiard Club. The 260 employees of the music portal were treated to free beer and burritos at the event, which lasted past 1 a.m.
At the bar, Launch CEO Dave Goldberg handed out a fitting symbol of the Internet economy: a yo-yo with a light that turns on and off.
GenesisIntermedia.com Inc., the consumer products marketer that operates “Centerlinq” kiosks in malls, threw a party at its headquarters in Van Nuys.
CEO Ramy El-Batrawi said the 87,000-square-foot headquarters was an ideal party space for the 300 employees of the company, which has been ranked high on several national fastest-growing company lists for the year 2000.
El-Batrawi said the firm has kept employees busy through November and December, leaving little time to plan the holiday party.
Indeed, GenesisIntermedia has been busy recently rolling out kiosks in 16 more malls, including Santa Monica Place.
There was, however, time to plan the options and bonus packages, which were given to GenesisIntermedia employees at the party.
Homestore.com, the online real estate giant, topped lots of other e-companies with its massive rave party in Venice. The Thousand Oaks-based operator of real estate-related sites provided an oxygen bar, body-painted bartenders and dance music from three deejays, who were flown in from Europe.
In fact, you couldn’t see the throngs through the artificial smoke and rays of beaming lights, but there were some 700 Homestore ravers at the club, including CEO Stuart Wolff, who showed off his rave moves.
Alas, the city’s most famous e-tailer, eToys Inc., hasn’t had a chance to even plan a holiday shindig, according to the company’s senior director of communications Gary Gerdemann.
Other than “a few departmental kinds of things,” there has been no celebrating at the Santa Monica online retailer, and there probably won’t be until January. That is, if there’s an eToys in January, seeing as the company has hired Goldman Sachs & Co. to identify “strategic alternatives.”
The staff has been “100 percent” dedicated to handling customer orders for the holiday season, Gerdemann said.
A sake bar, Asian delicacies by Patina, a fortuneteller and henna tattoo artist kept the attention of nearly 250 Xdrive staffers and guests.
Banners Be Gone
Banner ads. Hah! They’re as easy to ignore as a boring billboard, and advertisers know it. The future of online marketing, some say, lies in ads delivered via wireless devices.
Jupiter Research predicts that wireless advertising will become a $750 million market by 2005.Why? The ads seem to work.
“It’s about providing the consumer with benefits, with value,” said Mathew Dusig, founder and president of Encino-based goZing.com, which broadcasts commercials over its wireless network.
The founder of goZing is, not surprisingly, bullish on the future of wireless marketing. “For consumers, there is an opportunity to earn rewards for being attentive to commercial messages received on wireless devices,” Dusig said. “The ads they receive are targeted to personal interests, and security and privacy is assured.”
Here’s how it works. While users are waiting for information to upload onto their mobile phones, a text ad can scroll across the screen. The ads can target users based on their interests or even by their location, if the device is equipped with a global positioning system (GPS). In the not-too-distant future, sound and video will be streamed to the devices, adding an element of entertainment to the ads.
But the real coup is not the technology; it’s the consumer acceptance of the ads. “Users like ads that they have an interest in,” Dusig said. “It’s wireless spam that they don’t like.”
Consumers are starting to warm up to the idea of wireless ads because, in many cases, they’re saving money on mobile services or receiving other discounts through the ads placed on their devices.
And advertisers like getting their hands on the rich demographic data. Mobile phone users who register with online services often surrender reams of personal information, data that can be used to craft campaigns with impeccable precision.
Currently, goZing has 50,000 subscribers who pick from broad categories of ads, like restaurants and entertainment. Soon, users will be able to choose the advertisers.
The company has partnerships with such advertisers as Subway, Wherehouse Music and New Line Cinema.
Dusig has his eye on Hollywood studios, which he believes could benefit more than most industries from wireless advertising.
“We can target an age group the weekend a movie comes out and stream discounts for tickets or for snacks, all in a time-sensitive fashion,” Dusig said.
The folks at Target Market Interactive Inc. (TMi), an L.A.-based online marketing firm, are less wowed by wireless marketing.
“It’s not scaleable enough for it to make sense for most advertisers yet,” said Jeremy Braud, TMi’s vice president of marketing. “There are just not enough people with the devices and the wireless technology. TMi is researching wireless marketing on a consistent basis, and we’ll do it if it makes sense for a client, even though the technology is still in its infancy.”
Staff reporter Hans Ibold can be reached at [email protected].
