NEW YORK, April 1 /PRNewswire/ -- After the Internet meltdown of 2001, FindWhat.com ("FindWhat"), since renamed Miva NASDAQ: MIVA -- one of the most prominent pay-for-performance search companies of its time -- not only survived the dot-com shake out, it thrived. FindWhat emerged as the first profitable, publicly-traded Internet pay-for-performance search company, and it went on to generate more than $200 million in annual revenue. At its peak, FindWhat reached just under 1 billion dollars in market capitalization.
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Today, two of the original co-founders of FindWhat.com -- Courtney Jones and Robert Brahms, who both left FindWhat in October of 2004, with a market cap of $650 million, shortly after they had been named the 7th fastest growing Technology Company in North America (Deloite and Touche) along with Chase McKeague -- are launching their new, breakthrough Internet venture, LoyalTV.com. LoyalTV.com ("LTV") is a new video-sharing site with a unique model for marketing itself. It's a place where people will post video about things they are passionate about and brands they are loyal to. It's a place for people to find out about products, goods, and services from real people who have experienced those products firsthand.
It's clear to the well-chronicled, seasoned, and successful marketing and Internet entrepreneurs Jones, Brahms, and McKeague that personal broadcasting will play an enormous role in the future of the Internet and that the future of advertising is in personal broadcasting and personal recommendations.
In a recent Washington Post article, an MIT-affiliated, cultural anthropologist was quoted as saying, "participatory advertising represents a 'revolution' in thinking." Madison Avenue is just waking up to this reality - - that the "keeping it real" buzz is a call for a paradigm shift for all advertisers.
Now, LoyalTV.com is poised to take personal broadcasting and the consumer-generated video opinions of real people to a new level by making them simultaneously purposeful, targeted and entertaining. LTV's mission is to empower consumers to share information, passions, and brand loyalties via personal, online broadcasting and to enable people seeking such information to easily find it. As such, the site has the potential to expand the appeal of personal broadcasting to a far broader audience than currently exists.
LTV's corporate objective is to create the leading Internet destination for personal broadcasting, which focuses on real consumer experiences relating to brands, products, and services. In an era when advertisers are challenged to find effective and efficient ways to reach consumers who are tuning out of traditional mediums and are more responsive to "buzz" from their peers, LTV represents a smart and natural evolutionary step in the progression that's already begun to happen on the net.
Jones stated that "in the future, the peer groups themselves will be the Sheppards of the brands. We will seek out and watch other people's opinions and experiences, before making purchase decisions." Brahms adds, "Word of mouth is the world's best advertising. Brands call it loyalty. We call it LoyalTV."
LoyalTV.com is being launched as an Internet destination that will delight (and attract) advertisers and corporate sponsors, while empowering consumers to both share and learn about the products and brands they'd rather hear about from their peers.
Brahms, Jones and McKeague are riding the perfect storm -- the same kind of perfect storm that spawned the waves they rode when they started FindWhat. They're back for more!
Courtney Jones is available for interview.
Press pictures and site demo available upon request.
Contact: Eric Yaverbaum
914-834-2199
Website: http://www.LoyalTV.com/
Website: http://www.FindWhat.com/