Smaato on serving a global mobile ad network

Brian Prows · January 27, 2010 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/d6a

Harald Neidhardt, founder of Smaato, tries to find local ads for a global audience

Harald Neidhardt, CMO of Smaato

In May, 2009, Harald Neidhardt, CMO of Smaato, a world-class mobile ad network, appeared in a podcast interview on IM-Mobile, one of two main blogs I write, to discuss his vision of mobile advertising.

Smaato, a network of 20 advertising networks, works on behalf of a mobile publisher to find the right advertisement in a local market for that person watching the content. Essentially, Smaato matches, for example, an English publisher with a local advertiser in Belgium.

Talking with Harald during the podcast--and later meeting him in San Francisco at the Smaato mobile advertising events in October--confirmed in my mind again that people who are passionate about life and their professions invariably achieve personal happiness and successful careers.

I recall meeting Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in the late 80's who were very much like Harald, people who exuded optimism and plowed ahead in their ventures despite lack of funding, setbacks and naysayers.

Those who became successful, like Harald, had that spark in their eye, the drive, the optimism, the relentless "push" to climb their own mountains without looking down or pulling back. People like this are on a mission.

As I listened again to the podcast interview with Harald, he reminded me about those days here in the Valley when anything was possible given an inspired leader with followers who shared the same vision.

The 80's and 90's in Silicon Valley were very different from the dot-com boom and bust where many entrepreneurs blindly threw their time and money at intangible enterprises that never made any sense at all.

In a personal blog post called "Passionate People Colliding with Passionate People,"  written during the Smaato events, I commented:

"It’s very energizing to meet people who share similar interests. It’s like an auto collision without the damage…In our personal and business lives today, I see less passion and fewer collisions. Whether it’s the recession, friends and family splintered across the country or a re-alignment of the stars is up for grabs. It just is. I guess the point is: seek out people who are passionate about things that interest you. You might have more people collisions in your life–collisions that re-energize the spirit, encounters with people who care deeply about something important in their lives.

Harald is a man on a collision course with the future of mobile.

Enjoy listening to: "Passionate About Mobile Advertising: Smaato's Harald Neidhardt"

 

 

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Brian Prows

Brian is an active blogger, podcaster and Web writer, appearing on his own sites and elsewhere. He writes about technology's effects on people. He founded and runs MobileBeyond, a mobile media company and is active on many social media sites.

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Smaato Inc.

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Smaato provides Ads for Apps – operating the leading mobile advertising optimization platform called SOMA. More than 40,000 app developers and premium publishers have signed up with Smaato to monetize their content in 230+ countries.

SOMA’s unique feature is the aggregation of 70+ leading ad networks globally to maximize mobile advertising revenues. Through an open API and the widest range of SDKs, SOMA can be easily integrated with ad networks, ad inventory owners (publishers, developers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.

Smaato is an active member of the Mobile Marketing Association, Singapore Infocomm Industry (SITF), Singapore IT Federation and the German Digital Media Association BVDW. Smaato received a Top 100 Private Company Award by AlwaysOn Media (2011, 2009 & 2007), is one of the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners in the Mobile category (2011), was named a “company to watch in 2010” by Financial Analyst company GP Bullhound and recently was nominated finalist at the EMMA (Effective Mobile Marketing Awards), among other awards.

Smaato Inc. is based in San Francisco, California. The privately held company was founded in 2005 by an experienced International management team. The European headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany and the Asia-Pacific presence of Smaato has been established in Singapore.

 

MobileBeyond

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MobileBeyond is an online publishing site featuring blog posts and podcasts about mobile, marketing and media.

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Harald Neidhardt

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Brian Prows

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Brian is an active blogger, podcaster and Web writer, appearing on his own sites and elsewhere. He writes about technology's effects on people. He founded and runs MobileBeyond, a mobile media company and is active on many social media sites.

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