Resignation from AdEffective
Yesterday, it was announced to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) that I have resigned from my role as Managing Director of AdEffective Limited.
The full release can be downloaded from the ASX website here.
As the announcement states, I have resigned from my role with AdEffective to focus on on a variety of unrelated investments that now require more of my time.
I continue to be a substantial shareholder in AdEffective and will work with the company to create new ideas and interesting concepts and opportunities.
As for my other interests, I will provide a more detailed update on 'whats next' for Whodeani over the coming weeks.
For now however, I can say my short term focus will be on opportunities in music, movies, fashion and hospitality.
Posted by Whodeani on 05/18 at 07:51 AM
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AdEffective Launches Domain Name Monetisation Platform, Yieldom
Yesterday, AdEffective Limited launched the second of its three major online advertising platforms, Yieldom.
Yieldom is a new online advertising platform for managing, monetising and reporting on parked domain names and domain portfolios.
It combines detailed reporting with ‘best of breed’ monetization sources – including AdEffective’s recently launched Footar platform. The proprietary platform improves yield on traditionally low-value parked domain names and/or domain portfolios.
The highlights of the launch were as follows…
• Yieldom formally launches in the US, 2 February 2011 at DOMAINfest.
• Yieldom launching with a portfolio of 20,000 domain names, growing to 150,000 shortly after launch.
• Yieldom is launched in partnership with Park Logic and Distribute Your Articles.
The Yieldom domain solution has been developed to better monetise the approx. 80% of domains that do not generate sufficient traffic to cover their annual registration and hosting costs. Yieldom customers will enjoy an instant insight into the true value of their domains while generating significant upside through industry leading monetisation and optimisation.
“At today’s launch, the Yieldom platform has over 10,000 domain names live with another 10,000 due online in the coming days,” said Dean Jones, Managing Director of AdEffective Limited. “By the end of February, we will have 150,000 domains running on the Yieldom platform.”
Yieldom is a wholly owned technology of AdEffective Limited, a publicly listed Australian company on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:ABN).
The full market update can be downloaded from AdEffective's ASX website here...
http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/displayAnnouncement.do?display=pdf&idsId=01147896
Posted by Whodeani on 02/04 at 05:41 AM
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ADEFFECTIVE INVESTOR PRESENTATION - MANAGING DIRECTOR’S ADDRESS
With the 2010 calendar year now complete, I thought it appropriate to provide the market with an update on the performance of AdEffective over the past year, our tracking for our operational business and most importantly, an overview of the exciting opportunities ahead for the 2011 calendar year.
In 1999 the Company made its debut on the ASX; recently it underwent a reorganisation and relisted in late May 2010, changing its name to AdEffective in December 2010 (ASX: ABN).
In 2010 AdEffective also acquired several businesses and commenced development of three innovative new online advertising technology platforms focused on delivering increased yield. The first of these platforms – Footar, was launched in December 2010, with the second platform, Yieldom, set to be launched next week at DomainsFEST in the US.
Earlier today, AdEffective released to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) AdEffective's Investor Presentation including an address to shareholders from myself.
The address and attached presentation covers 3 things namely,
1) a brief overview of AdEffective and the online advertising industry in which it operates;
2) AdEffective’s products and services; and
3) what shareholders and interested parties can expect from AdEffective in the future.
The full address and investor presentation can be downloaded from the ASX website here.
http://www.asx.com.au/asx/research/companyInfo.do?by=asxCode&asxCode=abn#headlines
The global online advertising space is growing rapidly and AdEffective’s depth of unique technologies, platforms and management experience puts it in an excellent position to continue growing over the next 12 months.
Needless to say, now that the significant task of re-structuring and re-building the company is behind us, and now that we are well down the path of launching our 3 new online advertising platforms, I am very excited about what the future holds for the Company.
Posted by Whodeani on 01/27 at 10:12 AM
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Swish Group Limited Now AdEffective Limited (ABN)
A short post to let you know that The Swish Group has successfully changed it's name and stock code AdEffective Limited.
From today, AdEffective Limited will be listed on the Australian Securities Exchange via the new code ABN.
You can find the AdEffective profile on the ASX here...
http://asx.com.au/asx/markets/priceLookup.do?by=asxCodes&asxCodes=abn
There is also a new website for AdEffective which can be found at...
http://www.adeffective.com
It's fair to say that I am excited about the future of the company now that it has all but completed the fairly substantial re-structure that started almost 12 months ago when I was invited to head up the company.
With one new technology platform already launched (Footar) and 2 more on the way, I'm looking forward to 2011.
All the best for the festive season and of course for 2011.
Posted by Whodeani on 12/13 at 07:50 AM
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Launch of Innovative New Advertising Platform Footar
As many of you would know, around this time last year I was invited to take on the role of Managing Director of The Swish Group Limited (ASX:SWG).
Since accepting the role I, along with the board of directors and senior management have been busy for the early part restructuring the company and getting it re-listed.
Since re-listing in May 2010, the key focus has been on developing the online advertising parts of our business and a range of new technologies.
Today the company was pleased to announce the official launch of the first of these technologies into the marketplace, an innovative new online advertising platform called Footar (short for ‘Footer Toolbar’).
Footar is the first of 3 new advertising platforms the Company is launching over the coming months.
Footar is a fully customisable ‘digital’ search, content and advertising delivery platform that is launched via java-script, and anchored to the base of a web browser by a technique known as ‘absolute positioning’.
More information on the launch and the full market release can be found on The Swish Group’s ASX profile.
Posted by Whodeani on 12/01 at 10:30 AM
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The Swish Group - Re-listed on the ASX (ASX:SWG)
Almost 2 months ago, I mentioned my new role as Managing Director of The Swish Group (ASX:SWG) and our efforts to re-capitalize the company and have it re-listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). That post can be found here.
I'm very pleased to report that last Friday (May 28th, 2010), The Swish Group was officially re-quoted onto the ASX.
Later that same day we also announced the acquisition of Mp3.com.au (http://www.mp3.com.au), TheScene (http://www.thescene.com.au) and NiceShorts (http://www.niceshorts.com.au).
These 3 websites were formerly owned by Destra corporation and between them have a collective audience of around 130,000 unique visitors per month. More impressively, they boast over 100,000 original songs from around 20,000 unsigned artists.
As I stated in the announcement...
"We see a significant opportunity to increase the sites online audience, membership and use as well as grow revenues by exploiting the large pool of original content through the rapidly expanding range of online distribution platforms now available.”
You can access the above mentioned announcement and all other Swish Group ASX announcements on the ASX website (http://asx.com.au/asx/research/companyInfo.do?by=asxCode&asxCode=SWG#headlines).
For more information on The Swish Group visit the official website here (http://www.theswishgroup.com.au).
Posted by Whodeani on 05/29 at 12:04 PM
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The Swish Group - Update
You would probably have realised from my numerous blog posts, tweets and fan page updates that I’ve been very active of late.
Back in December 2009 I made mention of the announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) that an agreement had been reached to recapatilise The Swish Group (ASX:SWG). I was also appointed Managing Director of The Swish Group at this time.
First and foremost my focus as the recently appointed MD of The Swish Group has been to work with the Board of Directors of the Company to restructure if and get it back on to the Australian Stock Exchange.
I’m pleased to report that the stated aim of having Swish re-listed moved one step closer last week with the announcement to the ASX of the Notice of Annual General Meeting.
The full announcement can be downloaded directly from the ASX here.
Should 'all' the proposed resolutions be passed (and subsequent to this, the Company succeeds in raising working capital in the weeks following) then the Company could be re-listed as early as the middle of May, 2010.
For more information on The Swish Group visit the official website here.
Posted by Whodeani on 04/07 at 05:41 AM
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50 Songs in 50 Weeks aka the ‘Final Five’
Whodeani, aka yours truly, has caught a case of the ‘muso’ bug.
Those close to me would know that I have long harboured a desire to be more involved in the music business, less so from a performance perspective and more to with the whole creative process bringing musical ideas from just that, ‘ideas’, through to being released commercially.
Back in the mid 90’s I was heavily involved in the nightclub industry moving from being a DJ to then designing and managing a very popular nightclub in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne known as Jooce.
As outlined in an earlier post (Anatomy of a Hit), I got together with a couple of friends of mine and created a jingle for this nightclub that was then turned into a full length club track that was quite popular in its day (climbing to the top of the club charts and breaking the regular top 50 here in Australia.)
Since then my musical aspirations have taken a back seat to more ‘regular’ pursuits. That was until mid last year when I was ‘inspired’ to bring to market a track called ‘Tweet Me’, a track originally called ‘Release Me’ and created with some friends back in the mid 90’s. http://blog.whodeani.com/tweet-me-by-whodeani
The release of Tweet Me was a lot of fun, enough so that I have decided to significantly expand my musical aspirations ‘and’ output with a project called ’50 songs in 50 weeks’ (or as a good friend of mine refers to it… ‘The Final 5’.)
As the project name ’50 tracks in 50 weeks’ suggests, my aim here is to produce 50 ‘release ready’ tracks in 50 weeks… ie 1 track per week for the next 50 weeks.
The inspiration behind this concept of ’50 Songs in 50 Weeks’ comes from Stock Aitken Waterman, the UK song writing and record producing trio made up of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman.
With great success during the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s the three are considered to be one of the most successful song writing and producing partnerships of all time, scoring more than 100 UK top 40 hits, selling 40 million records and earning an estimated $103.78 million (source: Wikipedia).
Their standard method for creating the music was to first write the songs, next they would record the music with extensive use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers and then finally bring in a singer solely to record the vocal track.
Their remarkable ‘production line-like’ output and similar song structures had the trio being referred to as the "hit factory".
My thinking is to ‘2.0’ their model using todays relatively inexpensive music recording and production technologies ‘and’ potential global exposure via Social Media.
I’ve teamed up with Paul Brandoli (from Psyked) who I met through his work as producer/arranger on the Tweet Me project. Since Tweet Me, Paul and I have worked on 2 more tracks and are about to start a 3rd.
Am extremely happy with his work and more importantly how we are working together on these new tracks. Enough so that I have committed to have Paul work as producer/arranger and sometimes ‘writer’ on all tracks in the project.
We’ll notify you as the magical tracks come to life week by week and from time to time release snippets of the tracks we are working on. Exciting times.
UPDATE: With the planned re-listing of The Swish Group gathering momentum (and my role as The Swish Group's Managing Director occupying the lions share of my time moving forward), I have handed over the day to day management of the '50 songs in 50 weeks' project to Paul Brandoli.
Much has been done in the weeks since announcing this project and I am extremely happy with the work Paul has been doing. The project is in good hands.
Posted by Whodeani on 03/10 at 04:29 AM
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Remix the Drink
An artist takes a song… re-develops it… and you have a remix.
Whodeani takes a standard drink… re-invents it… and ends up with something pretty cool.
In 2002, Dean thought, “surely its time for another cool gimmicky alcoholic beverage to hit the market…” Remix was his gem of an idea.
“Shake it and break it”, no he was not writing a one hit wonder hip-hop song, this is the gimmick behind Remix.
Remix is an idea that brings some pizzazz to your standard pre-mixed cocktails. The base of the drink is vodka & soda and the smaller top portion of the bottle is flavoured with fresh juice i.e. Cranberry. Simply shake the bottle causing the membrane holding the flavour to break and distribute through the alcohol mix.
Enthused by his idea, Dean had the concept (see below) drawn up by a graphic designer.
If you know Dean Jones like I know ‘Dean Jones’, you’ll know that unless he’s detoxing… he consumes a lot of soda. But it’s Coke Zero or Sprite Zero, so it’s healthy right? Yeah right!
Anyway my point here is he loves his soda beverages hence all the ideas that revolve around them 
In 2003 DJ dreamt up ‘8 Ball’. The idea being to take a base flavor alcoholic/non-alcoholic drink (such as lemonade) in a standard 375ml bottle, but with a twist. Each bottle ‘lid’ has a flavour ball hidden inside it. The reason it is called ‘8 Ball’ (aside from being a reference to pub pool) is that there are 8 flavors: Strawberry, Lemon/Lime, Orange, Blueberry, Etc, & Cola (the black ball).
The game element comes from the server of the drink - if the black ball drops into the drink, the drink is free or a prize is awarded (a 1 in 8 chance).
Fast forward to the year 2009… and Berocca has introduced their new on the go version ‘Twist N Go’. A very similar concept to DJ’s ‘Remix’ and ‘8 ball’ ideas.
The moral of the story folks… is simply that Dean is a visionary. He envisioned it before its physical conception.
In this case though, one mans idea is another mans money maker when not acted upon.
So in my Bossman’s famous words I’ll end this post by quoting him “well you snooze… You lose”.
Posted by Lindy Waldeck on 02/11 at 02:18 AM
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Midem 2010, Cannes France
Bonjour mon nom est Dean Jones… Vous pouvoir me dirige à la barre la plus proche s'il vous plait?
Well I haven’t quite managed to fit learning French into my hectic schedule (www.freetranslation.com) so my polished English will have to do at the Midem conference 2010 in Cannes.
Midem (short for Marché International du Disque et de l'Edition Musicale) is the world’s largest trade show for the independent music sector.
Since 1967 Midem has been held annually at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.
To give you an idea of it’s scale Midem 2008 was attended by 9,093 delegates from 4,545 companies (of these 2,233 had stands or pavilions of their own) and 482 journalists, from a total of 88 countries.
With my return to music production and also my recently appointed position of Managing Director for Swish Group Ltd, Midem will be an invaluable networking opportunity.
For Swish I hope to meet digital music businesses that are looking to have their products/services represented in the Australian and South East Asian regions.
An extensive conference schedule providing 5 days of back-to-back keynotes, seminars and tradeshow, it’s set to be a very busy trip.
If you’re reading this and have plans to attend Midem 2010, drop me a line and let me know. Lindy is in the process of scheduling meetings on my behalf in between the many keynotes and networking op’s I plan to attend.
Avoir un grand jour!
Posted by Lindy Waldeck on 01/20 at 03:06 AM
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