Meet the 20-Year Old CEO Redefining Mobile Advertising

http://techland.time.com/2011/04/23/meet-the-20-year-old-ceo-redefining-mobile-advertising/

by Byliner • 15 years ago

17 12 15 years ago

techland.time.com

cglee• 15 years ago

tl;dr: he's young, he just got 4 mil, he's building an achievement-based mobile ad product. And once he becomes a millionaire, he's going to be a space tourist.

ippisl• 15 years ago

tl;dr achievement based mobile ads : when you a game achievement and you felling good , give you a real life product coupon both as an a reward and an ad.

worldvoyageur• 15 years ago

For you tl:dr types, here is the epiphany:

“One of things that I realized is that with traditional advertising, like when you see something like Mad Men or when you see Ogilvy — the geniuses of the ad space — it was all experience, it was all about emotion. It was never about, ‘Hey how can I reach you in real time and blast you with messages.'”

One of the ways Kiip makes this core insight real is not to slam a gamer with broadcast ads in-game, but to make the ads a reward. A coupon for Pepsi as a reward for defeating the boss, for example.

The firm (kiip.me) builds the tools so that developers can design that sort of advertising into their products.

necrecious• 15 years ago

Man, way to cheapen your emotional experience. I was never a fan of achievement anyway, too often it cheapens the experience of playing the game.

Microsoft should just make achievement points a virtual currency that you can buy coupons with.

lian• 15 years ago

"The first thing you notice about Kiip CEO Brian Wong is how decidedly un-CEO he actually looks...In nerdy black glasses and a halfway zipped navy hoodie (flecked with kaleidoscope colors on closer inspection), the young man who graduated from college as a fresh faced 19 year old could've very well been, you know, anyone."

Has the author never seen a tech CEO before? Or the Social Network? Are you totally kidding me? This is no longer "un-CEO," my friend, this is de rigueur.

omouse2• 15 years ago

What Kiip does is so brilliant it's almost shocking. The rewards network provides game developers with a targeted advertising system that aligns in-game achievements with brands. In other words: score a thousand points, and a voucher for a bag of Pop Chips comes up onscreen.

Awesome, I can't wait till they combine this with real-world achievements; "Brushed your teeth 3 times today! Save 50 cents on Colgate toothpaste! TOOTHPASTE UNLOCKED"

Yet one more method for the profit motive to seep into our lives. Instead of enjoying life, this 20 yr old is figuring out how to make our lives more about the money -_-'

Mz2• 15 years ago

At the opposite end, I am doing something of value and not making money at it. How do you do something of value and also make money? (And not elicit this kind of criticism -- is it even possible to make money without someone bitching you are doing it wrong and making the world a worse place?)

I have been considering starting an "Ask HN" post but my posts of that sort get little or no response. I am in desperate need of money, getting myself and my sons well when the world says it cannot be done has all come out of my pocket and my pockets aren't deep. I'm deeply in debt and cash flow in recent months has been very ugly. What I am doing is both cheaper and more effective than conventional medicine and some people are benefiting from the information on my website(s) but it isn't paying me anything. It feels incredibly unfair because if I were going the conventional medicine route, the costs would be a great deal higher but much of it would be covered by state aid, federal aid, insurance, etc. So I would get all kinds of "support" and money thrown at my problems for staying sick and getting sicker and sicker until I qualified for disability. But get myself well? On your own b*tch. I have estimated that medical care for people in the US with my condition runs around $3 billion/year. An article I saw recently would put it at roughly $1.5 billion/year. I think that's low, but it's still a lot. There is a recession on. I think I have something of value to offer. But how do you monetize something of value? Maybe this guy is helping folks pay the bills so they can keep offering something of value. Is that such a bad thing? I have often considered yanking my websites because they make no money. People seem to find value in them yet I'm not making anything. I resent that. Why should I benefit others and cut my throat to do so?

omouse2• 15 years ago

Making money is ok, you do have to acquire resources. But you can do it without resorting to creating an advertising network ;)

I'm not sure what the solution is to your problem, but start charging money for some of the information somehow, market it better, put some ads up, I don't know.

If you can get any sort of help from the local community, the state or federal governments, then go for that.

It's hard to help other people or even offer advice sometimes because we have our own personal troubles to deal with.

dools2• 15 years ago

What's with the TL;DR attitude? I thought this was a great read, and I look forward to hearing more about this company. I'd also like to read more about this guy as he sounds like an interesting and innovative character.

HN is the last place I'd expect to get a whiff of Tall Poppy Sydnrome.

chc• 15 years ago

I think you're misunderstanding the animosity. It's not envy or rivalry as with Tall Poppy Syndrome. It's that there's this annoying tendency among journalists to take 20-year-old entrepreneurs and write these very condescending pieces that make it sound like the amazing thing about them is that they're 20 years old. The first two paragraphs of this story are all about his youth.

And then when it gets to the product, it doesn't really sound that exciting (in today's ad-saturated society, it's kind of hard to excite people by telling them you want to show them ads). Like, if a 40-year-old father of four were doing this, would they care? Or are they just amazed that there are young adults in Silicon Valley?

The same thing happens to Jessica Mah. It took me reading several articles about her to figure out WTF InDinero actually is, because all the reporters seemed to be so gobstruck by the fact that she's young.

dools2• 15 years ago

Yes, I know the style and also find it annoying. However I would say it's quite likely that the press release issued by the team at Kiip.me used this as an eye catching headline, too.

If a 40 year old father of 4 launched Kiip.me and put that angle on a press release then I think it's highly likely it would end up in the headline of the story that covered it :)

Meet the 20-Year Old CEO Redefining Mobile Advertising

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