Showing posts with label monetate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monetate. Show all posts

Stunning Tesla Model S Sedan: When a silent test drive can speak volumes

  April 30, 2009    

Thanks to good friend and fellow green car enthusiast, David Brussin, CEO of inherently green Monetate, I attended a great party last night, superbly hosted by New York mega-agency IAC, where the guest of honor was a stunning new emissions-free car, the all-electric Tesla Model S Sedan.

While David chatted with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, I had a chance to discuss the Tesla S design challenges with Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausenon. He said that in many ways the challenge was to avoid being too audacious, given the freedom afforded by an electric power train (like the absence of a large engine up front and a large fuel tank in the rear). The role of this sedan is to get mainstream consumers excited about an all-electric vehicle without coming across as far out.

In my opinion von Holzhausenon has succeeded on all fronts with this design. It would be a head-turner if it was a regular petroleum-powered car. As an electric it will turn even more heads, even though people won't hear it coming, or going.

Later in the evening we hooked up with Green Car Reports Editor-in-Chief John Voelcker and went for a test drive in the sedan. A very short test drive, but enough to leave a lasting impression, of amazing acceleration--accomplished in almost complete silence--and of terrific cabin space design. John has a more detailed write-up here.

BTW, during my chat with von Holzhausenon I was gratified to hear him acknowledge Coventry's continuing role as a source of automotive design and engineering talent. An excellent evening all round.

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Well That Was Fun: Monetate launches Smellr

  April 01, 2009    

There are many things I enjoy about working for Monetate and they all came together today: Cool technology, brilliant developers, cutting-edge digital artistry, crafty copy-writing, savvy leadership, and great camaraderie. All of this orchestrated in a concerted team effort to execute a good idea with skill, excellence, and a good laugh.

And we succeeded!

The web site Smellr got over 14,000 visitors. The Monetate Post-click Marketing Blog and the main Monetate web site both received at least 20 times the normal amount of traffic. We've been mentioned in the Associated Press, The Guardian, and many blogs, including blogs.com and the bostonist. We were even seen on CNN in the Netherlands!

I know some people get tired of April Fool's jokes, but I think one reason they still persist is that many people feel the need for a good laugh about this time of year. You've struggled through the Winter and it's still struggling to hold back Spring. The nights are getting longer but the skies are still too grey. It's time to take things a little less than seriously for a day.

Happy April First!

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Working in the Word Mine

  July 20, 2008    

Victor Kiam might be dead, but his slogan is still remembered: "I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company." That was his landmark ad for Remington. Well, I can now say "I liked the company so much, I went to work for it." That's right I am now working for Monetate.

What's Monetate? A startup started by two Davids, Mr. David Brussin and Mr. David Bookspan. It is also:

“A new way to create personalized site experiences for visitors to e-commerce web sites.”

And my job is to tweak that description, capture the essence of the product, and then make sure the world of online retailing knows all about it. Should be fun.

p.s. That's Victor Kiam in the photo, not me or one of the Davids.

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Cool Stuff for Online Stores

  July 13, 2008    

Had a very interesting chat today with David Brussin whose new company, Monetate, has developed a very powerful tool for online retailers. This tool/product is also called Monetate and what it does is pretty amazing. Suppose you’re shopping on the web, maybe for new boots. You visit a couple of sites that sell the boots you want. As you flick between sites to find the best price, an offer pops up, giving you 20% off on the exact product you want, if you order today.

If you're selling boots and your site that makes that offer, you may well get the order. Making that offer is what Monetate does.

Even better, from the site owners point of view, Monetate can extend offers like this based on very specific criteria, like "free next day delivery on big screen TVs" but offered only to customers who are within 50 miles of the warehouse. You might think online retailers already have the ability to do this sort of thing and a few do. But many are still struggling to implement this level of personalization. Monetate is relatively easy to implement (it's SaaS, but without the need for clients to code to an API). Plus, you can make personalized offers even to people who have never shopped at your site before.

How does Monetate do this? I'm about to find out. I will report back soon.

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Two Blasts From The Past In One Day: Monetate and IMCD

  July 11, 2008    

I got two exciting calls today from friends and former colleagues, David Brussin and Michael Miora. two of the guys with whom I co-founded InfoSec Labs and ePrivacy Group.

Mr. Miora is a seriously qualified information security and disaster recovery expert (as in Michael Miora, CISSP, ISSMP, FBCI). He has been working on a product that helps businesses recovery from disasters. It is called IMCD, from Incident Management CD, because one of its many clever tricks is to store, one on CD (or USB thumb drive or SD card) everything your company needs to know in an emergency: who to call, contact details, systems and software applications and data, by department, priority, location, and so on and, Wow, there really is a lot of stuff you need to get your hands on fast when the nasty stuff meets the whirling blades.

One reason I'm familiar with this product is that my brother (Mike Cobb, CISSP, ISSAP, MCDBA) was heavily involved, coding the interface and algorithms and such. The exciting news today was the availability of the new version, boxed and priced to sell, on places like Amazon, for $99.00. At this price it's a very cheap insurance policy and potential life-saver for owners of small-to-medium businesses as well as in charge of regional offices of larger companies. The next step in the marketing plan is to move into brick and mortar retail stores like Staples and OfficeMax. I look forward to seeing it on the shelves soon.

The news from Mr. Brussin was also very exciting--his new company's new product is ready to rock and they've just activated the first client. David is one of those people obsessed with making things work better through the appropriate application of technology. He was running his own networking company before he turned 20 and has been coming up with bright ideas ever since, like the anti-spam router, still the single most effective anti-spam tool you can buy. This latest company/idea is a means of making online retail sites work better (a by-product of spending too much time Internet shopping?). It sounds like David has put together an ace tech team to build this thing and I look forward to learning more about it.

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