Archive

Business Network Television comments that leveraging carrier data to calculate social revenue is a very interesting concept around your personal network usage and what your worth is to your peers and to the carrier. Follow the link to watch the interview with Xtract’s CEO Timo Laaksonen: http://www.bnettv.com

Xtract listed as one of the hottest 100 private companies in Europe at 2008 Mediatech 100: http://www.libraryhouse.net/mediatech/2008/mediatech100/

Customers’ Close Social Community and Influence Play a Significant Role in Purchasing Decisions and Defining Customer Value

Mobile Asia Congress, Macao, SAR of Republic of China – November 19, 2008 – Xtract Social Links’ new feature, Social Revenue, measures the value that a mobile subscriber brings by influencing his or her close social community in mobile purchasing decisions. With Social Revenue, mobile operators can estimate their customers’ value more accurately than with any other method used on the market today.

Consider, for example, an individual with large social community consisting of high ARPU customers versus another individual with a smaller social community consisting of low ARPU customers. Clearly, from a return on investment point of view, the individual having a large social community with high ARPU customers should be the focus of marketing activities for the mobile operator.

Our friends, family and social communities influence greatly our decisions to purchase goods and services. Often, we ask our friends for recommendation on which phone model we should purchase or on whether they have been satisfied with the new service provider. Word of mouth travels and has an impact on our decisions that is stronger than pure marketing and advertising by brands. Studies show that word-of-mouth is the most powerful selling tool, and 78% of people trust the recommendation of other consumers [Source: Trust in Advertising, A global Nielsen consumer report, October 2007].

“Companies are constantly trying to identify the revenue, profits and costs directly related to a customer. However, the traditional customer value measures do not take into account the social value that a customer brings”, says Hanna Kettunen, Product Manager at Xtract. “This leads to either overestimating or underestimating the real value of a customer.”

Xtract Social links takes into account whether a customer is influential or not when measuring how much that individual is worth to the company. In addition, not only the level of influence but who that influence can be inflicted on plays a role. With Social Links’ capability to estimate customers’ social revenue, mobile operators can include the indirect social revenue generated by a customer into the equation, therefore estimating much better the real customer value.

Helsinki, Finland – November 10, 2008 – How does your Social Network look like? This was the theme of Xtract’s Art School Competition where five international design schools from London, Helsinki, Tokyo, New York and San Francisco were invited to participate. Today, Xtract announced the winners and the finalists of the competition after a jury’s meeting was held on 28th of October 2008 at Helsinki University of Art and Design, UIAH. To see the works of art visit: http://www.xtract.com/yoursocialnetwork/gallery.html

Saku Heinänen, MA, Lecturer, Graphic Design, UIAH says: “The winners are good examples of student work. They have strong and clear messages, which are presented in an attractive manner. They work well as large posters, but are also applicable for other products, for example online presentations. The outcome of the competition was very positive.”
Xtract’s goal with the competition was to find new ways of viewing and displaying the real social networks of people who communicate, not just buddies on social networking websites. As human beings we are very social and networking species and so, social networks have existed since the beginning of the civilization. By utilizing the deep understanding of social interactions between people, Xtract derives valuable information from mobile operatrors’ large user data flows. Xtract’s products help mobile operators to deeply understand their customers’ social networks and accurately target their marketing and advertising initiatives. More on Xtracts’ products at: http://www.xtract.com/products

The winners are as follows:
First prize: Dancers by Katri Tikkanen, University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland
This work was an excellent example of the representation of a personal, real network. People are connected by a common interest and graphically by the shoe laces. The hidden typography adds an extra dimension. A Great execution of the brief overall.

Shared 2nd prize: Network Mike Integrity by Michał Sęk, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie, Warsaw, Poland
This was a pure and simple, strong image of a network. It interestingly combined very different individuals. Lively drawing, works surely in big size, too.

Shared 2nd prize: 1r0nmaid3n by Stefania Passera, University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland
The overall image is pleasing and beautiful with excellent graphic execution A clear medallist.

Honorary diploma: Rock, social colors of my life by Jacek Walesiak, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie, Warsaw, Poland
This work was more controversial and cryptic than the medallists. Intriguing and personal.

Finalists in a random order:
• Network_Mike_Mind_Identity by Michał Sękh
• Hex004 by Jan Estarda-Osmycki
• ME8449 by Eva Neeseman
• Stay at the Surface by Jue Feng
• Toqueville by Veronika Schmidt
• Bookclub by Kirsti Maula
• Colorslide by Liisa and Lotta Nieminen
• Codename City 2 by XXXX?
• Reading together by Wensi Zhai
• 23PR by Paulina Rek

Awards
First prize: 1800 €
Shared second prizes: 500 € each

Participating schools are:
London School of Communications, London, UK
University of Art and Design Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Akademia Sztuk Pieknych w Warsawie, Warsaw, Poland
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA
California College of the Arts, San Francisco, USA
Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan

Jury
Saku Heinänen, MA, Lecturer, Graphic Design, UIAH
Ilona Ilottu, MA, Graphic designer, illustrator
Alan Moore, Member of the board, Xtract
Christoffer Langenskiöld, User experience designer, Xtract

About Xtract
Xtract delivers software products for social marketing and advertising intelligence. The company refines social interaction, behaviour and demographic data to create accurate 3D user profiles. These profiles for the first time utilise data as a dynamic tool in the day to day marketing for effective and intelligent targeting of advertising, viral campaigns and predictive churn management. Xtract’s Social Links product is automated, self-learning and capable of analysing billions of mobile transactions with easy to use and actionable tools for operators to define and manage their marketing campaigns. Xtract works with over 50 companies with intensive customer data. www.xtract.com

We have a brand new white paper online on the topic Brands need People and People need Brands: How social analytics benefit consumers while protecting their privacy.

Using new social tools, consumers can decide, what information they want to reveal to the advertisers and what to keep private. For marketers and advertisers, this is a unique opportunity. They can concentrate on promoting their products and services to those who have already shown interest to them.

In the white paper, we analyze ways of making marketing relevant and useful for the end users. This can be done by targeting the Alpha users, the most influential persons in a social network.

We list six topics to consider when planning social analytics:

1. Provide simple opt-out
2. Inform users on data usage
3. Protect customer information
4. Respect industry guidelines
5. Let users control their privacy
6. Advertise to youth with care

The white paper also presents, how mobile operators can use Xtract Social Links to find effectively the targets for marketing campaigns. The Product Marketing Module for Xtract Social Links can bring this power to targeting specific products effectively to the influential users.

Did you find the white paper useful? Was there something missing? All feedback is welcome!

Download the white paper here.

Helsinki, Finland – 30 October, 2008 – Xtract announced today that the GSM Association (GSMA) selected its Social Links solution as a top finalist for the 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Awards Competition – APAC Tournament. The Mobile Innovation Global Awards Competition encourages breakthrough technology, applications and services in the mobile industry by bringing together innovative mobile products, industry investors and mobile operators. Xtract with its Social Links solution, a social marketing intelligence product, has been selected as one of three finalists in the ‘Most Innovative Carrier Infrastructure or Platform’ category.

Timo Laaksonen, CEO of Xtract said, “We are very proud to be recognised by the GSMA for the second time this year. This shows again that the operator community is starting to utilise their rich user data for marketing, making it more flexible, cost efficient, accurate and relevant to their customers. With Social Links, mobile operators can utilise their marketing budgets more effectively to tackle churn, acquire new customers and launch new products to the market. Operators that have already adopted Social Links are gaining tangible returns on their marketing investment right from the start of taking the solution into use.”

Xtract was a finalist for the 2008 Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last February, and has now been recognised for the second time for the APAC tournament.

About Xtract Social Links
Xtract Social Links is the first carrier-grade product that analyzes customers’ real social networks from massive amounts of calls and messaging data. It utilizes this information to better predict the behaviour of customers in operators’ networks. Social Links can be extended with its add-on modules that are designed for specific business applications including: customer insight, customer acquisition, product marketing and customer loyalty. Social Links has already been successfully deployed by several top-tier mobile operators worldwide with very positive results. Xtract’s customers range from top-tier operators such as T-Mobile to innovating challengers such as Blyk.

About Xtract
Xtract delivers software products for social marketing and advertising intelligence. The company refines social interaction, personal behaviour and demographic data to create accurate 3D user profiles. These profiles for the first time enable companies to utilise data as a dynamic tool in the day to day business of marketing for effective and intelligent targeting of digital advertising, viral campaigns and predictive churn management. Xtract’s products and solutions are automated, self-learning and capable of analysing billions of customer transactions. They make complexity simple with easy to use and actionable tools for marketers and advertisers to define and manage their campaigns. Xtract works with over 50 blue-chip companies with intensive customer data. Headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland.

Meet us at GSMA Mobile Asia Congress Mobile Innovations Zone

“We are similar to oil refining business. There is crude oil but crude oil cannot be used as such. You need to refine it and then you can get useful products which you can use. And that’s what Xtract does. We take raw data from mobile or internet and we refine it so that marketers and advertisers can use it,” says Jouko Ahvenainen, founder of Xtract while speaking in front of a large audience at Marketing Communications Week in Helsinki.

The user data is becoming more and more important as media is becoming more interactive and as advertising is shifting from traditional media to online and mobile. One of the most valuable aspects of using user data for marketing is that we are able to visualise, group and measure customers’ social networks. This has created an opportunity for marketers to utilise word of mouth marketing which is the most powerful selling tool (Nielsen 2007). Mobile operators have the largest social network in the world today. Xtract can refine that rich customer data to create 3D user profiles based on social network, behaviour and demographic information. These profiles for the first time utilise data as a dynamic tool in day to day marketing for effective and intelligent targeting of advertising, viral campaigns and predictive churn management. History has shown that companies who market more and more efficiently are the ones that survive economic downturn. If that’s the case then, now is a good time to turn to a social marketing intelligence solution.

With Xtract Social Links Base, the foundation of Xtract Social Links, you can find the generic Alpha Users. These influencers are the most connected customers in the social network, especially great for customer understanding and feedback, but not directly related to any products. But what if you want to advertise two different products to Alpha Users: one about Mobile TV and a second one about push e-mail? Or, here’s another option, what if you wanted to advertise a new 12 months contract with cheaper rates to those about to churn, and a contract to those with a lot of connections outside the operator’s customer base? Xtract Social Links add-on modules enable you to find specific Alpha Users:

• Product Alphas are the influencers who have a highest probability to buy a specific product, the most receptive neighbours to this product and the highest effect on the product penetration rate.
• Churn Alphas are the customers who have a highest probability to leave the operator and take neighbours with them, so the ones you will want to keep at all prices.
• Acquisition Alphas are the customers who have the most connections to people outside the operator’s network, therefore the best to target for new customer acquisition campaigns.

Once you have the Alpha Users to target, you can for example create one or several personalised campaigns based on your segmentation. Read more about these add-on modules on the Xtract Social Links page.

Helsinki, Finland – October 16, 2008 – Xtract announced today that the company’s board of directors has appointed Michael Hallén as chairman of the board effective immediately. Hallén has a solid experience from several technology companies.

Michael Hallén’s most recent operational assignment was as president and CEO of Stockholm listed Boss Media AB, a leading systems supplier in digitally-distributed gaming entertainment. His team contributed in revitalizing the company and then to a successful public bid process resulting in Boss Media being acquired by US based GTECH in April 2008. Previously, Hallén was president and CEO of IFS AB, a provider of business applications, also listed in Stockholm and operating in some 50 countries. He played a key role in the company’s international expansion and has also been establishing its offshore capabilities.

“I am thrilled to be elected chairman of the board of Xtract and to contribute in building the next successful step in the company’s fast development,” says Michael Hallén. “Xtract has built a unique proposition and track record providing software products that enable highly accurate customer targeting and profiling for telecom operators and online social media. I am impressed by the results and the dramatic increase of return on marketing investment for the Xtract customers.”

In support of his interest in building entrepreneurial companies, Hallén has held board positions in a number of other technology companies. He is currently active in the boards of Extenda, a supplier of software for the retail industry; Cambio, provider of healthcare administration software; and XDIN, an engineering consultation firm.

“Michael is the right person to head Xtract’s board through these exciting and challenging times,” said Timo Laaksonen, Xtract’s CEO. “He brings hands-on experience combined with in-depth knowledge and vision of the market that Xtract needs to strengthen our long term strategy and execution.”

When I read Jay Alabaster’s article on the Japanese behavior on social networking websites, it made me realise how difficult it must be for some companies to get any customer insight from their customer base.

According to Jay, “the vast majority of mixi’s roughly 15 million users don’t reveal anything about themselves” and keep in tight groups, to which he adds that “fewer than half of Match’s paying members in Japan are willing to post their photos, compared with nearly all members in the U.S”.

Must be so frustrating to sit on so much data and not be able to get any useful insight extracted. I wonder how companies like pixi.jp handle it, considering users have fake profiles, or then companies like match.com considering how differently users behave from culture to culture around the same service.