The boss of Mi9 yesterday admitted the company had “made more mistakes than knocked it out of the park” in its first two years, and had a crack at competing news outlets saying NineMSN would stay “free for users, and free of an agenda”.
Unveiling products including “Polymorphic ads” CEO Mark Britt (pictured) admitted up until now they had “done a terrible job of telling the story of what our audience is doing”.
Claiming the company pulls in a million data points every 15 minutes, Britt said the company had made $4m from its data two years ago, but increased that to $25m this year – showing the boom in data in the market.
In terms of NineMSN he said they would be pulling in more data from the main network to work out what kinds of stories people want at different times of day, and were developing an app called NineMSN Now, which would increase sharability of stories.
The Jump In second screen app is also set to be made available on “any device”, and offer more catch-up TV services.
He described the relationships people have with their four main devices:
• TV – The Everyman. It’s laid back, the main screen people watch premium content on .
• PC – The Sage. Because it has a keyboard and is easy to direct people trust information sources from it more than other devices.
• Phone – The Lover. It’s tactile screen, intimiate nature of content and the fact it is on you all the time make it more deeply personal. “God help you if you serve an ad here uninvited”, said Britt.
• Tablet – The Explorer. People are still amazed by what they find and can do on these devices.
• Xbox – The Jester. The opposite of The Everyman, people are engaging all the time, playing games and actively seeking out entertainment.
He said the company would also do more to help marketers develop their campaigns over these various devices using what he described as “polymorphic ads”, pointing to a new service being introduced in January by the company called “Creative Sequencing”.
This, he said, “will help people understand how they can tell a story across all these devices throughout the day”.
