June 19, 2000
Interview
|
SUMMARY:
No summary available
|
|
Practically nobody knew who Moreover.com were when they
launched last December after several months of beta
testing. Today, more than 50,000 Internet sites,
including NetMarketMakers, a division of Jupiter (one of
the most influential US companies on the Net), rely upon
them daily for customisable news feeds that link in near
real-time to full text articles from over 1,500 sources
around the Net.
Interested to hear how Moreover.com, who have just
closed $21 million in second round funding, got
themselves on the path to world domination so quickly,
we rang Nick Denton, CEO and Thomas Korte, Head of
Interactive Marketing, at their office in San
Francisco where, apparently, it was very, very hot...
Q: You’ve gone from nought to a million miles per hour
in six months. How, exactly?
ND: It’s a bit of a ‘no-brainer’ really. Firstly, when
we say we provide a free headline service, we mean just
that. We do not sell news content: we generate our
revenue by providing links to it and keeping tracking
traffic across our network. And we offer a targeted,
high quality service, which saves webmasters time and
effort. If you offer a quality service for free, people
are bound to subscribe to it. Secondly, each site that
takes our webfeeds displays a link back to Moreover saying
‘Free headlines – click here’ – so far we’ve grown virally
without having to make too much effort. Currently we have
50,000 customers – that means 50,000 salespeople - and our
network doubles in size every 45 to 60 days.
Q: What marketing strategies do you find work best for
you?
TK: We have avoided splashing out money on traditional
media – banner campaigns and so on – we don’t find them
cost-effective. Working with Commission Junction, a
Web-based commission management service, we came up with
an affiliate program. Registered affiliates include a
button, text link, or news feed on their site which
guides visitors to our Webfeed Wizard. Affiliates are
paid $1.30 for each unique visitor who completes the
Wizard and signs up for our service - $2 if the link is
on their front page. It’s a pretty easy way for people
to make commission, and it currently accounts for about
20% of new sign-ups.
Q: Links to your site are very unobtrusive. Why is that?
TK: Moreover.com isn’t looking to build a brand - that’s
a major plus point, and it earns us more subscribers.
Our service is designed to enhance our customers’ sites,
not pull traffic away from them. The Webfeed Wizard
allows webmasters to customise the news feeds to blend
in with their own pages. It takes about a minute. Our
high-end clients pay upwards of $1,500 per month for us
to tailor feeds specifically for them – in these cases
there isn’t even a Moreover.com button to interfere with
their branding.
Q: How much are you having to adapt your operation as
you expand?
ND: Very little. Back in November we had 16 people on
the team. Now there are 34. The key to success is the
efficiency of your operation, not the size of it. I’ve
always taken care to employ the most determined people,
who are able to offer long-term commitment. The
technology we have is unique, and incredibly smart –
it’s designed to sift out all the rubbish for us. All
of that makes for a highly efficient model. And if you
can demonstrate an efficient model, you’ll find it
easier to make partners and alliances.
Q: You are a British company but your operations are
based in America. Why?
ND: The partnership deals we make need to happen
physically, face-to-face - not by email. So while our
technology is in the UK, we’ve made a base for ourselves
in the US. And we intend to use this new funding to
extend our presence in the US even further. We expect
to be featured on at least 400,000 sites by the end of
the year, and we want to start diversifying and
distributing other types of dynamic content – audio,
video, book reviews, last-minute special offers. I
believe that, in this day and age, being pan-European
isn’t enough – you need to be a global player just to be
taken seriously.
Publisher’s Note: MarketingSherpa.co.uk’s sister
newsletter ContentBiz.com will be throwing a cocktail
party in Greenwich Village when the MoreOver New York
office opens this Fall. (Any excuse for a party.)
Watch this space for your invitation!
