NeoEdge Networks
Encyclopedia
NeoEdge Networks is a Silicon Valley
based technology and in-game advertising company that enables casual game
publishers and developers to deliver television-like commercials within their products - frequently in the context of free-to-consumer casual game play. NeoEdge currently powers advertising for a variety of game publishers including Yahoo. NeoEdge has provided services to game publishers in other areas - it pioneered both peer-to-peer
game distribution (to reduce costs of distributing games) and in-game advertising
(to help increase consumer game play and monetization).
, Jeromy Carriere
, Kelly Slough, Dave Simons, and Michael Babiak, former Netscape
and America Online entrepreneurs, under the corporate name "Kinitos". While at Quack.com
the founders created the first consumer-based Voice Portal, acquired by America Online in 2000. In 2007, Atari
co-founder Nolan Bushnell
, a noted game visionary, joined the NeoEdge board as Chairman.
Under the Kinitos brand, the company was a key Microsoft
partner in their Smart Client
efforts. Smart Clients were a Microsoft initiative to help companies deliver a new class of Web 2.0
Internet services. These services were intended to help companies deliver consumer services that transcended traditional browsers - helping to provide downloadable application-style capabilities to consumer and enterprise companies without the past problems associated with installed applications. Downloadable games with embedded web services are one class of such solutions, the MostFun.com Game Player, owned by NeoEdge, is one example of such an application - others include all manner of browser extensions and plugins, or downloadable web services applications like instant messaging
, Google Earth
, Bittorrent, iTunes
, and many others.
In 2005, Kinitos reorganized to focus specifically on supporting game developers and distributors to deliver ad-enabled game play to consumers as an alternative to traditional "try and buy" models. NeoEdge became a leader in changing the current business model of the casual game industry. According to the Casual Game Association, 200 Million people worldwide play casual games every month. The industry struggled as a “hits” based business with a “Try and Buy” business model made long-term revenue generation difficult.
NeoARM
NeoEdge provides game publishers with integration of video advertising into their games, both in an online and downloadable environment.
NeoAds
As an open ad network, NeoAds provides digital rights management in an effort to reassure publishers. At the same time, it deals in advertising rights management, creating advertising inventory, and distributing revenue to partners based on clicks
and impressions
via ads embedded in a game’s pre-roll and interstitial
.
NeoConversation
NeoEdge uses casual game play to interact with consumers about a range of topics from advertising messages, ad creative, brand uplift, brand awareness
studies and current event opinions.
NeoMom
In December 2008, NeoEdge announced NeoMom, a research tool designed to continuously measure the preferences of women between 25 and 54 years of age. NeoMom leverages the relationship between NeoEdge and its casual gaming community to develop an ongoing database of consumer habits and purchase decision making. Players will be surveyed with quick polls and “poll of the week” type of questions, which can appear in any slot during the game experience (pre-, mid-, and post-roll) depending on the type of question and currently running video ads. NeoEdge has announced to share its data with current and potential new advertisers to help make better informed decisions and to optimize their online campaigns.
-based Jefferson Partnershttp://www.jefferson.com and Boston
-based VIMAC Ventures LLChttp://www.vimac.com.
In May 2009, NeoEdge was selected as a winner of the Red Herring
100 North America Award. Awards are given out based on companies' potential for dramatic growth and all aspects of business, such as quality of management, business model, financial performance, technology innovation, global strategy execution, and ecosystem integration. Over 1,000 private companies were nominated for the award. 200 finalists underwent rigorous evaluation by Red Herring's editorial staff.
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
based technology and in-game advertising company that enables casual game
Casual game
A casual game is a video game targeted at or used by a mass audience of casual gamers. Casual games can have any type of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games...
publishers and developers to deliver television-like commercials within their products - frequently in the context of free-to-consumer casual game play. NeoEdge currently powers advertising for a variety of game publishers including Yahoo. NeoEdge has provided services to game publishers in other areas - it pioneered both peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
game distribution (to reduce costs of distributing games) and in-game advertising
In-game advertising
In-game advertising refers to advertising in computer and video games. IGA differs from advergaming, which refers to a game specifically made to advertise a product.The IGA industry is large and growing...
(to help increase consumer game play and monetization).
Introduction
NeoEdge is focused on providing an advertising and consumer experience inside online casual games. The company has helped revolutionize the casual game industry by providing a platform for game developers, publishers and portal partners to derive long-term revenue. The online video advertising platform provides advertisers a medium that reaches a key demographic (adults over 18 years of age) with television-like commercials in an engaged environment that casual gamers have accepted in exchange for free game play.History
NeoEdge was originally founded in 2002 by Steven WoodsSteven Woods
Steven Gregory Woods is a Canadian entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Quack.com, the first popular Voice portal platform, in 1998.- Career :...
, Jeromy Carriere
Jeromy Carriere
Jeromy Carriere works for Fidelity Investments, in Boston, USA, as an architect in their Enterprise Application Architecture group. Before joining Fidelity, Jeromy worked for several years as a senior architect advisor with Microsoft...
, Kelly Slough, Dave Simons, and Michael Babiak, former Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
and America Online entrepreneurs, under the corporate name "Kinitos". While at Quack.com
Quack.com
AOLByPhone was an AOL interactive voice service that began in 2000. It was offered to millions of consumers. AOLByPhone started with the America Online acquisition of Quack.com, evolving through the subsequent relaunching of Quack.com's Voice Portal as AOLByPhone. AOLbyPhone expanded as AOL...
the founders created the first consumer-based Voice Portal, acquired by America Online in 2000. In 2007, Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
co-founder Nolan Bushnell
Nolan Bushnell
Nolan K. Bushnell is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain...
, a noted game visionary, joined the NeoEdge board as Chairman.
Under the Kinitos brand, the company was a key Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
partner in their Smart Client
Smart client
Smart Client is a term describing an application environment which:* delivers applications over a web [] connection* does not require installation * automatically updates without user action...
efforts. Smart Clients were a Microsoft initiative to help companies deliver a new class of Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
Internet services. These services were intended to help companies deliver consumer services that transcended traditional browsers - helping to provide downloadable application-style capabilities to consumer and enterprise companies without the past problems associated with installed applications. Downloadable games with embedded web services are one class of such solutions, the MostFun.com Game Player, owned by NeoEdge, is one example of such an application - others include all manner of browser extensions and plugins, or downloadable web services applications like instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
, Google Earth
Google Earth
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...
, Bittorrent, iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
, and many others.
In 2005, Kinitos reorganized to focus specifically on supporting game developers and distributors to deliver ad-enabled game play to consumers as an alternative to traditional "try and buy" models. NeoEdge became a leader in changing the current business model of the casual game industry. According to the Casual Game Association, 200 Million people worldwide play casual games every month. The industry struggled as a “hits” based business with a “Try and Buy” business model made long-term revenue generation difficult.
Products and services
NeoEdge offers consumer-facing portals a menu of services including advertising-enabled games, detailed back-end metrics, the ability to ad-enable games under license, advertising sales, and games in the 700+ NeoEdge game catalog.NeoARM
NeoEdge provides game publishers with integration of video advertising into their games, both in an online and downloadable environment.
NeoAds
As an open ad network, NeoAds provides digital rights management in an effort to reassure publishers. At the same time, it deals in advertising rights management, creating advertising inventory, and distributing revenue to partners based on clicks
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
and impressions
Impression (online media)
An impression is a measure ofthe number of times an ad is displayed, whether it is clicked on or not.Each time an ad displays it is counted as one impression....
via ads embedded in a game’s pre-roll and interstitial
Interstitial webpage
On the World Wide Web, interstitials are web pages displayed before or after an expected content page, often to display advertisements or confirm the user's age. Most interstitial advertisements are delivered by an Ad server....
.
NeoConversation
NeoEdge uses casual game play to interact with consumers about a range of topics from advertising messages, ad creative, brand uplift, brand awareness
Brand awareness
Brand awareness is a marketing concept that enables marketers to quantify levels and trends in consumer knowledge and awareness of a brand's existence...
studies and current event opinions.
NeoMom
In December 2008, NeoEdge announced NeoMom, a research tool designed to continuously measure the preferences of women between 25 and 54 years of age. NeoMom leverages the relationship between NeoEdge and its casual gaming community to develop an ongoing database of consumer habits and purchase decision making. Players will be surveyed with quick polls and “poll of the week” type of questions, which can appear in any slot during the game experience (pre-, mid-, and post-roll) depending on the type of question and currently running video ads. NeoEdge has announced to share its data with current and potential new advertisers to help make better informed decisions and to optimize their online campaigns.
Funding
NeoEdge is funded by TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
-based Jefferson Partnershttp://www.jefferson.com and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
-based VIMAC Ventures LLChttp://www.vimac.com.
Awards
NeoEdge has won a variety of awards. The two most significant awards were awarded in 2009. In January, NeoEdge was selected to the 2009 OnMedia 100 List. NeoEdge also co-won the category of "Digital Publishers". The OnMedia 100 Award is given based on factors such as growth and market opportunities, innovation potential, and customer satisfaction. It is generally given to privately-owned emerging technology companies. Winners were selected based on nominations by journalists and industry insiders as well as investors and bankers.In May 2009, NeoEdge was selected as a winner of the Red Herring
Red Herring (magazine)
Red Herring was a technology business magazine, which flourished during the dot com boom, with global distribution and bureaus in Bangalore, Beijing, and Paris. It also sponsored conferences designed to bring venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and technologists together. But the magazine went into...
100 North America Award. Awards are given out based on companies' potential for dramatic growth and all aspects of business, such as quality of management, business model, financial performance, technology innovation, global strategy execution, and ecosystem integration. Over 1,000 private companies were nominated for the award. 200 finalists underwent rigorous evaluation by Red Herring's editorial staff.