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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

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.