Silicon.com - a company portrait
Network Multimedia Television Ltd (NMTV) is the publisher of Silicon.com, the leading online TV news and recruitment service for IT professionals across Europe. Its vision is to build a next generation media business which delivers Internet-based business news and information products to supersede traditional controlled circulation B2B magazines.
Recent events such as the merger between Dow Jones and Reuters show that Internet-based services are fast becoming the preferred medium for business information delivery and have already begun to supersede traditional business publications.
The recent ABC//electronic audit demonstrates tremendous growth in Silicon.com over the past 6 months, proving that successful business-to-business publishing is possible over the Web. Silicon.com delivers over 40 channels of real-time, personalised news content, analysis, debates and interviews in a combined text and video on demand format.
NMTV and Silicon.com were founded by Rob Lewis, the creator and original publisher of Business & Technology Magazine, which as one of the UK's most successful IT magazines, was sold to Dennis Publishing in January 1996. Lewis is the winner of two Guardian media awards and holds a Degree in Economics from Jesus College, Cambridge.
Silicon.com has recalibrated the Internet as a publishing medium to create a sustainable, valuable online business.
It knows and understands its audience. The way in which Silicon.com was built means it accurately measures a) who its users are and b) what these users do on the site. Silicon.com is one of the only online media owners to do this. Independent auditor, ABC//electronic went on record saying that NMTV had delivered the most sophisticated audit ever thanks to its ability to tie rich demographic information to usage.
As a publisher this has obvious benefits a) for measuring site/content consumption patterns and b) from a revenue generating perspective - advertisers know precisely who they are targeting and can measure who has seen their ad.
Silicon.com has a huge market lead in that it enables "addressable" and accountable online advertising - a critical need for a business to business advertiser. A recent Forrester Research report commented that it is becoming vital for online advertisers to know precisely WHO they are communicating with and not just how many individuals are viewing their advertisements.
Personalisation has been built into Silicon.com from day one enabling it to build a loyal community of users. The benefits of personalising a site include: fosters loyalty amongst user base, enables a one-to-one relationship with users, better understanding of usage patterns and habits, augments "stickiness" of your site and enables targeted, one-to-one marketing for advertisers.
Industry experts believe that personalisation will play an increasingly critical role in online customer acquisition and retention. According to a recent report from Forrester Research (July 99), companies must face up to the challenge of offering personalised services to users of their websites or risk losing business - "Today's poor personalisers will fail to retain customers".
Understanding your audience is a key requirement in building a sustainable online community of regular site visitors. All value in terms of possible revenue flows from the community - including sustainable advertising revenues and likely future e-commerce revenues.
At the time of Freeserve's IPO, a single user was valued at anywhere between £1500 and £2000. The value of a user of a business to business service such as Silicon.com is significantly higher than this - they have much greater individual and corporate purchasing power.
Key revenue streams on Silicon.com are:Response banners - an industry first. Unlike other forms of banner advertising, which simply deliver impressions to an advertiser's web site, response banners actually deliver qualified sales leads. Silicon.com is unique in the media industry by actually guaranteeing a minimum level of response.
TV Style Advertising - an industry first. In March 1999, Silicon re-launched its daily news section as a TV style feature. To complement this, it pioneered the use of TV style advertising on the web. This enables advertisers to re-use existing creative designed for broadcast TV to be delivered to a 100% targeted audience in an extremely cost effective manner.
Contract E-publishing services - includes creation of Internet TV programmes and creation of promotional microsites for advertisers and sponsors of the Silicon.com site. Recent customers include Microsoft, Nortel and Kyocera.
http://www.silicon.com
http://www.nmtv.net