Financial Times Unveils 70-Foot Interactive Wall in Grand Central Terminal

The Financial Times took the wraps off it’s latest U.S. marketing campaign in New York’s Grand Central Terminal Tuesday. The exhibit and accompanying campaign, which boasts both online and offline components, highlights the publication’s growing investment in data journalism.
Between now and Thursday, those passing by are invited to interact with a large, touch-sensitive floor mat positioned on the west end of Grand Central, in Vanderbilt Hall. With the help of three “brand ambassadors,” who will be positioned by the exhibit at all times, visitors can move around an FT-branded mat to interact with a series of 3D interactive infographics projected 70 feet high on the hall’s south wall.
The infographics touch on three central topics of the FT‘s coverage: the position of the U.S. relative to the global economy, the spread and growth of mobile technology, and the global recession and recovery, U.S. managing editor Rob Grimshaw said in an interview with Mashable. All three were designed by David McCandless, author of Information Is Beautiful (and this great TED Talk).

The online extension of the campaign resides at ftgraphicworld.com, where visitors can watch videos of the infographics in action and share their reactions through an embedded Facebook comment widget. Visitors can also take advantage of a free, one-week subscription offer from the FT.com.
While were impressed by the infographics and the data housed therein, it seems unfortunate that the FT didn’t develop infographics that could have worked on the website in addition to — or even instead of — the exhibit set up in Grand Central. The decision certainly limited the much wider reception the campaign might have enjoyed online, we think.
Images courtesy of The Financial Times, Mashable.

08:56 by Robert dawne · 0

LinkedIn Revenue Surges Over Analyst Expectations; Stock Jumps

LinkedIn has announced that revenue has more than doubled in the last quarter and they’ve increased their 2012 revenues, and the stock has jumped accordingly.  The social network reported $167.7 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, beating the average analyst estimate of $159.8 million in the quarter.  The good news also comes at a time where people are piling into social media stocks, with Zynga hovering around 30% higher than it’s IPO price and LinkedIn now almost 200% over it’s $45 IPO price, placing it’s market cap at $8.67 billion.
The non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $13.3 million which represents an increase in profitability.  For the fourth quarter of 2010 the net income was $5.2 million.  LinkedIn earns it’s revenue from a variety of products.  They have Hiring Solutions, Marketing Solutions and Premium Subscriptions.  Looking at the fiscal report, we can see that revenue increased in all three areas.  A promising factor here is also that they are a diversified company: they are increasing revenue on all fronts.
Hiring solutions, which are their tools which help recruiters find solid candidates using the network, increased over Q42010 by 136% to $84.9 million.  Marketing solutions increased 77% to $49.5 million.  Revenue from Premium subscriptions increased 87% to $33.3 million.
This is incredible news for LinkedIn but also for the social sector as a whole.  It’s clear that revenue is a real possibility, and LinkedIn is demonstrating that.  Facebook’s IPO is gaining steam and recently broke the $100B valuation mark, and with news like this investors are all going to believe in the power of the network.  The one factor here is that LinkedIn is a professional network who have excelled at keeping their user base professional and keeping distractions out of the way — it’s a great place to find quality people.  LinkedIn also focuses on hiring products that they are explicitly selling to companies which is not part of Facebook’s arsenal at this point.
However, Facebook has Facebook credits in the wings, and if they’re able to launch that it could become a huge force on the web for e-commerce.  That may be a driving force that could help Facebook increase their revenues in place of having a specific product.
LinkedIn has also announced it hit 150 million members and is continuing to grow at a staggering pace.

16:00 by Robert dawne · 0

DebtEye Changes Name to SpringCoin — An Intuitive Debt Management Tool

DebtEye announced Wednesday it is now SpringCoin, a learning-focused financial planning website that gets more intuitive as you use it.
John Sun, CEO of San Francisco-based SpringCoin, started the business under the name DebtEye in February 2011. It was one of the start-ups at the notable Y Combinator start-up incubator and funding machine founded by Harj Taggar. SpringCoin helps customers meet financial needs and figure out how to pay off their debts by improving their financial literacy and by creating goals.
“There’s a mentality that this stuff (finance) is above them and that’s just not true,” Sun says.
The integrated features and financial education aspect of SpringCoin is what differentiates it from DebtEye.
SpringCoin features adaptive bill setting and financial budgeting plans that change the more you use it.
“Kind of like how Netflix figures out what type of movies you like to watch, the site will pick up where you spend your money,” Sun explains. “We can actually get extremely targeted and say, ‘Last week you spent $30 at Starbucks. This week we recommend you spend $20.”
This is made possible by significant improvements to the software algorithms, he says.
To create SpringCoin, Sun and his team surveyed consumers to get feedback and find out what parts of the original site worked and what could stand to change. Sun says DebtEye engaged customers, but they wanted the name to focus more on the positive aspects of managing your finances. Rather than watching debt, focus on growing your coin. Probably the most important part of SpringCoin that could make it stand out from other debt management sites is its financial education element.
Financial education is integrated into users’ financial goals — “we really put that part at the heart of SpringCoin,” he says.
Sun and his team gathered content by speaking with financial bloggers, finance experts and using their own internal knowledge — Sun and his team are credit counselors.
SpringCoin also features automated budget alerts and bill reminders that can pull information directly from users’ bank transactions.
“It uses financial forecasting methods — the same methods that Fortune 500 companies use — to project and warn customers about future cash flow problems that could occur,” he says.
When users meet financial goals they are rewarded with points that measure their progress and entered into a weekly raffle to win Amazon gift cards or other prizes.
“If you just want a place to look at all your accounts in one place, we recommend something like Mint or Ready For Zero,” notes the website FAQ’s.
SpringCoin will not be free — but don’t fret, it’s a nominal fee at $8 per month for the basic plan. However, it costs $50-$120 per month for full service plans. Sun has a noble reason for shunning advertising. He didn’t want to create a conflict of interest that might arise if financial or credit companies that Sun didn’t approve of wanted to advertise, so he decided to forgo ads entirely. Some companies he stands behind, Sun says, but rather than going down that potentially precarious path, they went with a paid price model.
Every user gets a one month free trial before the monthly fee kicks-in. As a “limited time” promotion, Sun says, if you submit the email addresses of three friends (Sun promises not to spam them) even if your friends don’t respond, you can get three months free.
Sun says they plan to release an app in the future, but probably not until next year.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kizilkayaphotos

09:52 by Robert dawne · 0