Press Releases

Helsinki, Finland – September 24, 2008 – Xtract today named Timo Laaksonen, 46, Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. A top ICT industry executive, Laaksonen has more than 20 years of experience from First Hop (now Airwide Solutions), Sonera SmartTrust, Teamware (Fujitsu), ICL and Nokia.

“Timo is a strong leader and has a track record for driving growth and building world-class teams. I look forward to benefiting from his knowledge and experience,” said Kimmo Kiviluoto, Xtract’s Deputy CEO and Co-founder.

At Xtract, Laaksonen will be responsible for developing and executing company’s long-term growth and market strategies as well as leading the management team. “I am both thrilled and honoured to take on the position as Xtract CEO. Thrilled thanks to the significant market opportunities available to the company, and honoured because of the position and recognition Xtract has already won as one of the absolute top tier companies in social marketing and advertising intelligence” said Timo Laaksonen, Xtract’s CEO. “Xtract’s innate strength lies in its unique skill set, knowledge and technology. There are very few companies out there who would have as unique strengths and as much potential for competitive differentiation as Xtract does.”

Prior to Xtract, as CEO of First Hop, Laaksonen performed a central role in the company’s growth to become a leader in mobile service delivery and business management solutions through building a world-class team into First Hop, defining the market strategy and positioning, setting up and controlling sales and product operations, as well as directing the related corporate financing activities. He has also held executive and business management positions at Sonera SmartTrust, Teamware Group (Fujitsu), ICL and Nokia Data.

Laaksonen graduated with honours and gained a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Turku School of Business Administration in Finland. He is fluent in five languages.

Xtract’s Scenario Competition opens at Online Marketing Show in Düsseldorf

Helsinki, Finland and Düsseldorf, Germany – September 17, 2008 –If you could see the social connections between your website visitors and find out who are the most influential ones – how could you utilise the knowledge to your business benefit? This is the theme of Xtract’s first international social advertising and marketing competition announced today at the Online Marketing show in Düsseldorf, Germany. The goal of the competition is to recognize online marketing and advertising ideas that incorporate the importance of social networks. More information at: http://www.xtract.com/competition2008/.

“Marketers have known for a long time that peer-to-peer communication has a strong impact on consumer purchasing, but measuring and utilizing it for marketing and advertising has been very difficult. With new technologies we are now learning more about large scale consumer networks and are therefore capable of understanding their needs better,” says Jouko Ahvenainen, chief strategy officer of Xtract, a provider of social marketing and advertising intelligence products.

The competition is addressed to online marketers and advertisers from traditional media companies to in-house marketers at long tail social media websites, blogs and social networking sites.

Entrants are requested to submit a presentation summarizing how they would utilise insight about their most influential users and the way their user base is networked to improve their online marketing and advertising campaigns.

Applications will be judged on two criteria:
1. Visual and effective presentation (are the ideas presented in a visually appealing way that gets the message across effectively?)
2. Creativity and practical application (how innovative are the ideas presented? Are they plausible and applicable to online marketing and advertising campaigns?)

Prizes
• First prize receives a Wacom Cintiq 12 WX or cash price of Euro 1100
• Second prize receives an iPod Touch 32GB or cash price of Euro 400
• Third prize, receives a one year subscription to lynda.com premium training video or cash price of Euro 300.
Additional awards will be given to the Best of Marketing Scenario, Best of Advertising Scenario, Best User-centered Scenario and Best Visual Design.

Jury
The jury includes world class experts in advertising, marketing and web 2.0 communities:

Alan Moore
Alan Moore is the creator of the principles of Engagement Marketing and co-author of Communities Dominate Brands. His ideas and practices are at work within companies such as Nokia, Microsoft, T-mobile Germany, EMAP, Telia Sonera, SonyBMG, The Coca Cola Company, H&M, Hewlett Packard, IPG and News International. Alan’s blog was voted one of the top 20 most influential blogs in 2008.

Brian Jacobs
Brian has worked for over 35 years in media and advertising agencies in the UK, Europe and the USA. He has been International Media Director of Leo Burnett, MD of Carat International, and EMEA Regional Director of Universal McCann. Before launching BJ&A he was EVP of Millward Brown.

Ajit Jaokar
Ajit is author of Mobile Web 2.0 and OpenGardens books and founder of the London- based publishing company futuretext. Currently, he plays an advisory role to a number of mobile start-ups in the UK and Scandinavia. He is also a member of the web2.0 workgroup and chair for Oxford University’s next generation mobile applications panel. His thinking is widely followed in the industry and his blog, The OpenGardens Blog

Jouko Ahvenainen
Jouko Ahvenainen is co-founder and chief strategy officer at Xtract. He is regarded in the industry for his knowledge in Social Advertising Intelligence. A veteran international business management consultant, Jouko has worked and lived in several countries including UK, Finland, Malaysia and U.S. where he held senior positions at Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young, Powerwave Technologies Inc., Nokia and Sonera.

How to participate
1. Enroll at: http://www.xtract.com/competition2008/
2. Create a (pdf or ppt) presentation of a detailed scenario on how you would utilise information regarding social connections between your website visitors and who the most influential users are in your online marketing and advertising campaigns.
3. Submit the file using the following file naming convention. The proposal of tom.jones@company.com would be tom-jones-company-com.pdf
4. Share your final presentation with us (competition2008@xtract.com) using the free service www.slideshare.net by October 20, 2008. Check the option that makes it possible for us to download it.

Winners will be contacted by October 27th, 2008 and announced during Adtech, NY, November 3-6th, 2008.

Xtract at Online Marketing Dusseldorf: Booth # 11 / B45.

The newest software module brings more customer insight for effective mobile marketing campaigns

Helsinki, Finland and San Francisco, USA – September 10, 2008 – Marketers in the telecom industry are faced with the challenge of ever-changing market conditions that lead to shortage of customer insight, especially in the pre-paid markets. Today at the CTIA wireless show in San Francisco, Xtract announced expanded U.S. availability for its Social Links software, as well as a new module to help mobile operators worldwide better understand their customers in order to deliver more engaging marketing and advertising.

Now playing across the USA
Xtract’s Social Links is the world’s first commercially available software for analyzing social network interactions within large scale mobile communication networks. Social Links ability to deliver a far higher return on investments for its clients has been proven in a series of trials and full-scale projects with mobile operators around the globe. Starting today, Social Links is available to additional mobile operators in the U.S.

Xtract Social Links turns raw customer data into a vital marketing tool for mobile operators. By analyzing the social networks within large scale mobile communication networks it identifies the underlying social network structures within the subscriber base and the most influential people in the network, which Xtract calls Alpha Users. The result is a completely new layer of customer insight and a tangible tool for increasing the efficiency of targeted marketing and advertising.

The add-on modules combine social network with demographic and behavioral information, providing a Three Dimensional (3D) view of the customers for specific business applications including marketing activities by mobile operators as well as targeting for mobile advertising. These modules include: Churn Prediction, Customer Acquisition, Product Marketing, and now Customer Insight. Customers benefiting from Xtract Social Links range from top-tier operators such as T-Mobile and Vodafone to innovative challengers such as Blyk and Fonecta.

New module offers more customer insights, better targeting at a lower cost
To help mobile operators create more effective and relevant marketing and advertising campaigns, Xtract has developed a new Customer Insight Module for Xtract Social Links that can predict the customers’ demographics and behavior based on a known customer sample. In addition, the Customer Insight Module brings customers’ demographic information to the marketers’ fingertips through an easy to use network visualisation tool.

In just one easy-to-install module, Social Links customers can:
• Predict customer demographics such as age and gender for the whole customer base. Knowing age and gender of a fragment of network customers enables the module to accurately predict the same information for the rest of the customer base.
• Adapt the module to their specific markets based on demographic characteristics of these given markets.

By using the Customer Insight Module, mobile operators are able to quickly and easily develop more focused targeting for the marketing and advertising campaigns, and achieve their marketing objectives at a lower cost.

Always ready for the close up
Social Links Customer Insight Module comes with a network visualizer tool which enables visual analyses and viewing of subscribers’ social network. Mobile operators can observe their whole subscriber social network in real time, highlight the Alpha Users (influencers) and select certain communities within the network. They are also able to zoom in and out in order to gain detailed insights about specific customer qualities.

Integration and Availability
Xtract Social Links Customer Insight Module integrates seamlessly into the Social Links base and is available for all customers globally.

About Xtract
Xtract is a trusted partner and innovator in social advertising intelligence enabling mobile and media companies to monetize their digital communities. Our core strengths are in social network analytics. Xtract has developed a unique set of automated products that, based on social interactions, behavior and demographic data, can create accurate and real time consumer profiles for mobile and online marketers and advertisers. Xtract operates across Europe and Asia, working with over 50 blue-chip companies with intensive customer data. Headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland. For more information, visit www.xtract.com.