Cool mobile application for ad enabled calls convinced international jury
Mobile World Congress 2009
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Smaato Inc., a pioneering provider for mobile advertising solutions announced the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award 2008. San Diego based DialPlus won over the jury with its application that is showing visual information from the web for a phone number before, during and after a call.
“Congratulations to DialPlus for their outstanding product and thanks for the jury to select the winning companies. With more than 100 entrants in its first year we could not ask for more positive feedback. We think this is a clear indicator that there is a lot of creativity and positive energy in the mobile ecosystem. The best is yet to come!” stated Harald Neidhardt, CMO & Co-Founder of Smaato Inc.
108 companies participated in the Smaato Award and in the quest for the coolest ad-enabled mobile application, website or game. Smaato organized the award together with Silicon Valley based vator.tv and with the support of the INmobile.org community.
“We are honored to be selected by the judges as the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award. This is a strong validation of the DialPlus product vision and mobile advertising capabilities,” said Lisa LeVasseur, CEO of DialPlus. “In a very short time, DialPlus has gone from concept to product and become a world class advertising partner.”
As the winner of the Award, DialPlus will receive free booth participation at the 2009 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and introductions to four first-class VC partners from the U.S. and Europe.
“DialPlus is the type of company that provides a very simple and useful solution for a problem that is common for cellphone users. I believe this company has the opportunity for wide acceptance, and I personally will be trying out the application,” comments jury member Bambi Francisco (Co-founder & CEO of vator.tv)
Finalist company Aka Aki will receive a special prize for participating with a free booth at the M-Days taking place in January in Munich, Germany – selected by the events organizer. The other finalist companies are: Buzzd, FISHLABS, fring, FunkySexyCool, Peperoni, Qeep, Skout, Tourspot and Vayyoo.
“We are honored to help grow the recognition of young and innovative startups in the mobile advertising space. Together we can make the mobile advertising ecosystem better and enhance the customer experience significantly,” said Ragnar Kruse, CEO & Co-Founder of Smaato Inc.
About DialPlus:
DialPlus (www.dialplus.net) enriches the standard phone call experience by automatically and simultaneously providing dynamic, contextually relevant visual information about the called or calling party before the call is answered, during the call and after the call is over. DialPlus makes it easy for users to engage in mobile social networking or to get information about a business they’re speaking with, such as directions, menus and reviews.
About the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award:
The award honored mobile publishers or developers with an outstanding mobile ad-enabled solution either in-app or mobile web app/widget. Developers should provide a video pitch of about 1 min 30 sec. and upload it to the award section at vator.tv (http://www.vator.tv/competition/show/smaato-inmobile-and-vatortv). In addition they might provide up to 3 PDF pages of screenshots and supporting materials.
For further information and to download a brochure please visit www.smaato.com/award.
The jury members 2008: Adam Zawel (INmobile.org), Bambi Francisco (vator.tv), Bena Roberts (GoMoNews), Caroline Lewko (WIP), Giselle Abramovich (Mobile Marketer), Jim Cook (MobiAdNews), Lubna Dajani (Mobile Monday, NYC), Mark Wächter (Mobile Monday, Germany & BVDW), Michael J. O’Farrell (dotMobi MAG), Ragnar Kruse (Smaato Inc.) and Tim Draper (Draper Fisher Jurvetson).
The Venture Capital partners introduced to the winning company are: Frédéric Veyssiere, (Innovacom Venture Capital, France / San Francisco), Howard Hartenbaum (August Capital, Menlo Park), Niall Davis (aeris CAPITAL, Switzerland / San Francisco) and Tim Draper (Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Menlo Park).
About Smaato Inc.
Smaato Inc. is a leading mobile advertising technology company that provides the open mobile advertising platform called SOMA (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) and partners with mobile publishers, developers, ad sales networks and operators.
SOMA’s unique feature is the aggregation of multiple leading ad sales networks globally to maximize mobile advertising ARPU. SOMA can be easily integrated with ad sales networks, ad inventory owners (developers, publishers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.
Smaato is an active member of the Mobile Marketing Association, the dot.mobi Advisory Group and the German Digital Media Association BVDW. Smaato received a Top 100 Private Company Award by AlwaysOn Media (2007) and was an Andrew Seybold Choice Awards finalist at CTIA 2008 for best Newcomer, among other awards.
Smaato Inc. is based in Redwood Shores, California. The privately held company was founded in 2005 by an experienced International management team. The European headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany.
