Company Overview
Summary
LightPole™ is a software and services company that creates carrier-grade back-end server infrastructure and applications that enable publishers to distribute geo-specific content to mobile devices.
In the next 5-10 years, mobile phones will supplant PCs as the primary interface to the Web. In addition, mobile phones are becoming increasingly popular as personal tools for social networking, calendaring, and location-based services.
LightPole’s mission is to bring the world of geo-contextual content to the growing population—now counted in hundreds of millions—of mobile phone users. LightPole publishing services make it easy for publishers, bloggers, and other content providers to distribute content to mobile device users, and to engage users in interactive communities. No special programming or expensive IT investments are required. LightPole enables publishers to easily extend the publishing systems they already have to reach new markets and build new communities.
The LightPole publishing service supports a variety of content distribution models, including subscriptions, transactions, and advertising. The company offers “location-aware discovery” of content, giving mobile devices users unprecedented access to a wealth of information about where they are.
LightPole was founded in January 2007. The company has corporate headquarters in San Francisco and a development center in China.
The Market
- Users are increasingly accessing Web content over their phone. By the end of 2005, 558 million mobile phone users were accessing the Web. By 2008, more users will access the Web by phones than by PC. (W3C.org)
- Users are increasingly searching for content from their phones. The content they’re searching for is often location-specific: users want information about where they are. Mobile phones are the obvious delivery platform for location-based services.
- The mobile phone market continues to grow at a dramatic pace. Over a billion mobile phones were shipped worldwide in 2006. In the United States alone, over 33 million phones were sold in Q2 2007 alone.
- Carriers have begun opening their mobile phone platforms (their “walled gardens”) to third-party developers.
- Advertisers are willing to pay 10x the price of Web ads for mobile phone ads. By reaching consumers on their phones, advertisers have an unprecedented opportunity to see their ads immediately convert to purchases.
- Mobile users accessed the BBC’s Web content 250 million times in 2005, a 100% increase over 2004. A full 28% of these users accessed BBC content only by phone, never by PC. (W3C.org). Publishers recognize the exciting potential of a growing mobile readership. Publishers are looking for new ways of reaching mobile users efficiently. Publishers would like to build dynamic online communities of loyal readers.
Business Strategy
For mobile phone users, we’re an easy-to-use service that offers a wealth of information about locations. We’re also an interactive, social environment—a place where mobile users can share insights, opinions, information about restaurants, hotels, museums, etc. We offer location-aware discovery that enables mobile users to research everything from restaurant reviews to weather reports to local histories, all from the convenience of a mobile phone.
For publishers, we’re the solution that enables them to “publish once, distribute everywhere.” LightPole Publishing Services offer one-step content delivery, as well as a platform for developing communities and growing businesses. LightPole enables publishers to reach millions of mobile device users, providing rich, geo-contextual content and related services. Through LightPole, publishers can distribute content to readers who are mobile, build online communities, and generate revenue through subscriptions, transactions, and ads.
LightPole’s business strategy includes:
- Enabling publishers to distribute LightPole clients with branded content and services.
- Enabling LightPole users to easily add new channels of content, for example, by visiting a publisher’s Web site.
- Enabling users to annotate content, post comments, compile their own “points of interest,” and share content with other users through text messaging and/or email.
- Supporting subscription services for publishers’ content.
- Distributing hyperlinked ads, including channel-specific ads to mobile devices.
- Supporting other types of business transactions for mobile devices.
Technology
The LightPole service makes publishing geo-contextual content as easy as blogging. Through LightPole, publishers can reach mobile users by leveraging the publishing tools already in place. No advanced programming or heavy IT investments are required. Distribution can be supported by ads, subscriptions, transactions, or other models. Mobile phone users can select channels of geo-contextual content, post comments and annotations, and record their own Points of Interest.
LightPole Publishing Services distribute content and manage interactions between publishers and mobile users. The publishing services are built on LightPole’s patent-pending Content Distribution Fabric™. Building on our engineering expertise designing route analysis solutions for major carriers and large ISPs, LightPole’s Content Distribution Fabric manages transactions in real time and ensures that content finds its way efficiently to end users. LightPole has designed its Content Distribution Fabric for scalability and reliability, using an open source, carrier-class software platform developed at the Ericsson Computer Science Laboratory.
LightPole Publishing Services enables publishers to distribute content using familiar Web mechanisms, such as XML, RSS, and Atom. LightPole services also enable publishers to receive content back from users, including reviews, photos, details and corrections, and other types of customer feedback. LightPole Publishing Services also support community functions, such as posting comments, bookmarking contents and locations, and communicating with other LightPole users.
The LightPole service already supports hundreds of models of mobile phones, including Blackberry, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, LG and most phones from leading carries such as AT&T, Sprint/Nextel and T-Mobile as well as the Blackberry on Verizon. LightPole continues to add support for new phones all the time.
The LightPole solution also features the LightPole GeoBrowser, a lightweight, universal client application for mobile devices. Unlike the traditional approaches of either forcing a browser with limited functionality into a handset or developing content- and publisher-specific applications ported to multiple handset platforms, LightPole has developed a client specifically optimized for the limitations and capabilities of modern handsets. The client is content-neutral, allowing for an intuitive, efficient user experience. Using a simple map-based GUI, the system optimizes the search experience by combining automatic location- and time-filtering with content from a “trusted source” (e.g., a branded publisher, a favorite blogger, or a group of friends).
Management
Doug Klein, Chief Executive Officer
Over 23 years’ experience in high-tech, including CEO and CTO of Vernier Networks; VP, Engineering and Product Development of Packet Design; President and COO of NuvoMedia; Co-founder, CTO, VP of Technical Support, and President and General Manager of NCD.
Marcus V. Colombano, Chief Marketing Officer
Over 20 years of street and online marketing experience and 10 direct years’ working with mobile computing products; helped Handspring/Palm launch the Treo by developing a community of influencers; co-Founder and marketing lead at NuvoMedia; managing partner of Avantgarde, a San Francisco-based marketing and brand-management firm, whose clients include Eastman Kodak Company, Xerox Corporation, Brøderbund Software, Live Picture, Packet Design and Vernier Networks.
Haobo Yu, Chief Technical Officer
Over a decade of technical expertise is designing and developing advanced carrier-grade network solutions; Distinguished Engineer at Packet Design, where he proposed the system architecture for the first commercial routing protocol analysis system, which is now deployed at major carriers and ISPs; Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Southern California in 2000, with a dissertation on design issues in large-scale application-level routing.
