Client Spotlight
Press Relations Contact:
Parry Headrick
Phone: (415) 591-8402
E-Mail: pheadrick@shiftcomm.com
Powerset, a company building a search engine based on natural language processing, wanted to make a big splash at the inaugural 2007 TechCrunch event in San Francisco. At the event, the company planned to reveal the launch of Powerlabs, a user community that allows consumers to experience Powerset’s natural language search engine and provide feedback that assists in the development of the final product. Powerset retained SHIFT to get buzz going around the show, both by securing meetings with key press that would lead to stand-alone coverage and by executing creative ideas to ensure Powerset would be a memorable presenter at the show itself. SHIFT’s efforts resulted in banner coverage of Powerset’s launch of Powerlabs at TechCrunch, garnering hits in AP, Reuters, BusinessWeek, and The New York Times, among others.
Additionally, Powerset’s “test tube” giveaway shots at the event generated even more buzz around Powerset’s presence at TechCrunch. Powerset was considered a highlight of the show, and the launch led to a significant amount of interest around the Powerlabs community.
Since RealNetworks Music joined forces with MTVN to form
Rhapsody America in August, 2007, Rhapsody has developed key partnerships with major players that have helped maintain its position as the ultimate music destination. As a leader in the music industry, Rhapsody has worked hard to demonstrate its stance as an elite subscription-based music service.
In just a few short months, Rhapsody has partnered with TiVo to offer Rhapsody-ready TiVo devices – providing consumers with an unparalleled music experience from the comfort of their living room – developed key marketing relationships with partners such as Best Buy and Wendy’s – offering one of the largest music download giveaways ever – and also partnered with a number of companies to offer consumers high-end devices such as Haier‘s Wi-Fi enabled ibiza Rhapsody.
With lead publications such as BusinessWeek, Rolling Stone and the Wall Street Journal recognizing Rhapsody’s advancements in the digital music industry, Rhapsody has proven it’s a force to be reckoned with.
RSA Conference is the world’s leading information security event. Throughout its 17-year history, the Conference has consistently attracted the world’s best and brightest in the field, creating opportunities for attendees to learn about IT security’s most important issues through first-hand interactions with peers, luminaries and both emerging and established companies.
Each year the SHIFT team works to secure in-depth coverage focusing on Conference specifics, such as its prestigious keynotes, real world educational tracks and annual theme. For the 2008 RSA Conference alone, SHIFT helped secure and track 283 unique pieces of Conference coverage, ranging from features in business press and technology trades, to blog postings. In 2008 SHIFT also helped expand RSA Conference’s reach within the blogging community by granting qualified security bloggers press credentials, a special RSA Conference “Blogger Badge” for display on their blog sites and access to exclusive pre-Conference news and materials – a practice that has since been adopted by similar conferences.
Currently, the SHIFT team is gearing up for a successful RSA Conference 2009 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Matchpoint, a company who is simplifying the way consumers search for local businesses, wanted to raise its visibility in the search/lead generation space with an anchor piece of coverage from a journalist who would take the time to understand each component of Matchpoint’s model, from the consumer, business and publisher perspectives. Phil Butler, a well-respected blogger who contributes to top sites such as Read/Write Web and Mashable, spent time getting to know Matchpoint’s president and the vision behind the company before writing an in-depth post for Profy, another widely read blog. Phil offered great insight into the company from different angles and his lengthy write up concluded with him noting, “I feel this service will take off and become something very useful. Email, or no email - relevance is the name of the game now and in the future.”
Click here for the story.
When SHIFT client,
Eurekster, took its swicki product out of beta attention from the blogger and search community was clouded by Google announcing a social media experiment (that directly competes with the swicki product) on the very same day. SHIFT took this perfect storm of timing and leveraged the news to make Eurekster’s out of beta announcement an even stronger story for the press. Using Google’s news as overall market and product validation and offering Eurekster executives to comment on what the Google goliath was really up to, SHIFT secured coverage highlighting the company’s news and positioning Eurekster as a leader in social search in top IT, search, VC and web trades (including eWEEK, Mashable, SearchEngineLand and VentureWire).
Yodlee is the “secret weapon” behind over 100 leading financial institutions and portals including Ameriprise Financial, AOPL, Fidelity, JPMorgan Chase, Merril Lynch, and MSN, who offer Yodlee-powered solutions to millions of customers worldwide. Yodlee’s proven consumer banking, payments solutions, wealth management, and risk management applications unify all personal financial account information to deliver a simple, centralized and secure way for consumers to manage all of their financial tasks – any time, anywhere. Despite the transformation happening in the bill pay market, Yodlee continues to garner coverage and recognition for their innovative technology.
Yodlee announced a partnership with Western Union offering consumers, for the first time, the ability for same-day and next-day online payments. SHIFT secured coverage of the announcement in key trade and consumer outlets like American Banker and MSN Money.
When information leaked that RealNetworks’ gaming division, RealArcade acquired GameTrust, SHIFT took the initiative to quickly and efficiently conduct outreach with top-tier gaming press. SHIFT secured coverage of an exclusive report in a top online gaming publication, Gamezebo.
The coverage, which included an exclusive interview with Erik Goossens, VP Games Content, positions RealArcade as an integral player in the casual games industry. Gamezebo’s Joel Brodie wrote: “Acquisitions are all about how well the two teams work to integrate together. If Real can succeed in integrating this technology in their product line, they will be able to offer multiplayer casual games much faster than if they built it themselves.”
An acquisition is always grounds for media attention, but a Google acquisition results in a media frenzy. Tumbleweed’s competitor, Postini, was acquired by Google, and the media quickly jumped on the story. Wanting to capitalize on the media attention this acquisition would bring to the space, SHIFT drafted a media alert offering insights related to the acquisition and immediately hit the phones.
Knowing all the major business press would be interested in this story, SHIFT offered Tumbleweed as an expert industry opinion for their piece. As a result, publications such as
Forbes.com,
The Street.com, The San Jose Mercury News,
BusinessWeek.com and
SC Magazine spoke with Tumbleweed executives and included Tumbleweed in their stories. The highlight of this rapid reaction campaign was the fact that Tumbleweed was the only messaging security company besides Postini included in the article for comment. Talk about ruining the reprint!
Being a start-up in a new market that straddles several different technology categories, Varonis has managed to ramp-up more than 120 customers in just two years. Backed by solid data governance software and the tenacity of the SHIFT team, Varonis has received awards, accolades and industry recognition atypical for such a new company. In a matter of eight months, Varonis’ coups include a laundry list of the following: Gartner “Cool Vendor in Data Management” recognition, a Computerworld Honors Program Laureate victory, a winner of the Morgan Stanley Innovation and DM Review Innovative Solution Awards, being named a “
Top 10 Storage Startups to Watch” by Byte and Switch and one of the "
10 Enterprise Software Companies to Watch" by Network World.
SHIFT congratulates Varonis for its truly innovative data governance solution, and for the recognition they have received thus far. We’re looking forward to an onslaught of wins in the future!
The press (both traditional and new media) has been abuzz recently about the future of email in the face of emerging Web 2.0 applications. SHIFT client ExactTarget, a leading email marketing company, is confident the demise of email is as far-fetched as the boogie man and wanted the world to know it! To make sure this message resonated loud and clear, the SHIFT team went straight to BusinessWeek for a head–to-head debate between ExactTarget’s co-founder and CEO, Scott Dorsey, and Robert Scoble, social media guru and co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.
The showdown took place in a BusinessWeek Debate Room on October 13. In the article,
“Email is Dead; Long Live Email!”, Dorsey acknowledged social media tools as an emerging form of communication, but provided a clear case for why email remains the number one business application today. This sparked a passionate conversation from readers, which eventually made its way out to the blogosphere. The Debate Room itself gets approximately 16,000 unique hits daily.
In an effort to not only support the launch of Akamai’s
HD Web but also solidify blogger relationships, SHIFT met with Geoff Daily of App-Rising at Fall VON 2007. SHIFT dug into the journalist’s interests and professional drive while showcasing Akamai’s continued momentum in multiple verticals.
The meeting resulted in—not one, but two—highly positive posts within one week’s time. The journalist’s thoughts on Akamai’s latest innovation: “Wow, I’m at a loss for words… It was undoubtedly one of the most transformative experiences I’ve ever had online.”
Actuate Corporation launched BIRT Exchange, a community website for their Open Souce BI project (BIRT). SHIFT conducted not only the traditional media outreach for the launch, but also engaged industry influencers including open source thought leaders and the blogger community. As a result of SHIFT’s work promoting BIRT and BIRT Exchange leading up to the official launch, Actuate received coverage in more than 60 outlets including a Q&A with Actuate’s CEO in
Investor’s Business Daily and a blog posting on
CNET!
SHIFT’s efforts to drive awareness of Actuate’s open source story and the launch of BIRT Exchange through traditional PR tactics, paired with social media tactics - including the development of a Social Media News Release and ongoing commentary on the company’s Del.icio.us page - helped increase interest in and knowledge of Actuate and BIRT, as well as significant recognition among the company’s top media contacts and bloggers.
CipherOptics came to SHIFT Communications with a goal of building awareness in an increasingly crowded market – the Company needed to create visibility as a “data in motion” encryption player in a network security market focused primarily on encrypting “data at rest.”
Through an aggressive rapid response campaign that positioned CipherOptics executives as expert resources and a continuous stream of bylined articles, SHIFT promoted the Company’s thought leadership on a number of industry issues. Since working with CipherOptics, SHIFT has secured ongoing coverage in key publications such as Red Herring, Computerworld,
SC Magazine, Information Security Magazine and Network World.
The supposed “slow month” for news, CipherOptics enjoyed 18 pieces of coverage including a stand alone customer case study in
Network World, co-branded analyst research covered in
Dark Reading and thought leadership commentary secured in a 2-part
E-Commerce Times feature story!
What's next? According to Business 2.0, it's Shimano Coasting's collaboration with Ideo that resulted in a very usable "bike for everyman." And it's also Ugobe's adorable Pleo, "an advanced robotic dinosaur [that] could soon make Furby extinct."
SHIFT congratulates both Ugobe and Shimano for their innovation and well deserved recognition.
SHIFT congratulates client UGOBE for being named on Fortune's list of 24 Top innovators.
UGOBE, maker of the Pleo dinosaur, develops and markets revolutionary robotic technology that transforms inanimate objects into lifelike creatures exhibiting stunning, organic movement and dynamic behaviors.
To gain visibility in the growing free directory assistance market, SHIFT focused on an unrelenting media campaign for client Jingle Networks, operator of 1-800-FREE411.
The company’s continued momentum against competitors like Google and AT&T is evident with coverage appearing in BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal, as well as FOX News and ABC 7 Chicago.
1-800-FREE411 has a simple message: “Why pay for directory assistance, when it should be FREE?”
SHIFT supported the launch of Tiny Pictures’ new cameraphone picture-sharing service called Radar, which intends to completely transform the way consumers think about cameraphones and social media.
Since Tiny Pictures teamed up with SHIFT in May 2006, Radar’s user base has increased by 1600%, with the product still in beta.
Radar has been covered by wire services Reuters and United Press International, newspaper dailies Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury and San Francisco Chronicle, and consumer and industry blogs Cool Hunting and GigaOM.
Transparency Key To SHIFT’s Win From
WebProNews
"SHIFT Communications, home to social media advocate
Todd Defren, was named agency of record for Novell, largely on the strength of SHIFT's well-documented social media chops.
"Social media like blogs can help make decision-making processes that were once conducted behind closed doors more visible to audiences like industry analysts… A closed approach caused analysts to wonder what the heck Novell was thinking, leading to a lowered valuation ... Now striving for transparency, the company sees opportunities for 'engagement with the market-both media and the broader universe of Novell watchers,' according to (Novell PR director) Bruce Lowry."
When telecom equipment vendor Excel Switching purchased Brooktrout Technology. SHIFT supported Excel through the merger with editorial outreach, resulting in coverage in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Telecommunication, VON Magazine, and radio coverage on WBZ in Boston. SHIFT also stepped in when the companies decided to re-launch with a new name and message. Cantata Technology was unveiled at VON Spring in San Jose, California. With a marching band in tow, a grand booth unveiling, and a packed press conference, SHIFT was there to see Cantata through a successful launch.
To position Oakley’s THUMP 2 wearable electronics (MP3 sunglasses) as “must-haves” among new media influentials, SHIFT launched an aggressive “blogswell” – a 2-week “listening tour” of 50 key blog targets.
SHIFT’s blogosphere strategy resulted in big-time success. According to Google BlogSearch, about 10,000 bloggers wrote about the THUMP 2 sunglasses, all stemming from the original blog campaign. Moreover, Oakley enjoyed over 80 media placements in publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine.
In an effort to support Claria's exit out of the adware business, SHIFT launched an aggressive campaign to showcase the company's continued momentum and solidify Claria's position in the behavioral targeting space.
As a result, Claria received coverage in over 50 articles and feature stories, including hits in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, The Associated Press and WashingtonPost. Claria's new product, PersonalWeb, was positioned against portals like Yahoo, Google and MSN, successfully highlighting Claria's keen understanding of online consumer behavior.
In an effort to solidify WebTrends' position as the Web analytics leader, SHIFT launched an aggressive campaign of "factoid" releases, market confidence surveys, byline articles and a holiday readiness report examining the merits of first- and third-party cookies.
SHIFT's aggressive campaign resulted in over 50 articles and feature stories, including hits in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and CBS MarketWatch. Without any mentions of WebTrends' competitors, this campaign positioned the company as the leading authority on the "cookie issue" and a credible source of information for prestigious publications in the marketing and advertising industry.
When more than 40 million Visa and MasterCard numbers were stolen in June, SHIFT reacted fast and placed the CEO of Vernier Networks, Simon Khalaf in the spotlight.
SHIFT's rapid reaction campaign put Mr. Khalaf in touch with nearly a dozen reporters on topics ranging from how the hackers were able to hack in, to how businesses can protect enterprises from falling victim to these types of attacks. As a result, SHIFT secured more than 30 articles worldwide, including hits in USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and several stories for newspapers in France, Spain and Germany.
To position Phase Forward's executives as innovators with breakthrough strategies, SHIFT worked with PharmaVOICE magazine to showcase the accomplishments of the company's chairman and founder, Paul Bleicher, M.D., Ph.D.
As a result, Dr. Bleicher has been recognized as "one of the 100 Most Inspiring People in the Life-Sciences Industry " and named to the PharmaVOICE 100. Sponsored by PharmaVOICE Magazine, the listing recognizes the people in the life sciences industry who have the greatest influence on corporate leadership, research and development, technology, creativity and strategy.
In an effort to showcase Claria's continued momentum, SHIFT set up interviews with top business press such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
The Wall Street Journal briefing resulted in a highly positive stand-alone feature story. The article revealed multiple testimonials and quotes from advertisers, privacy experts, analysts and consumers – testifying that Claria was run by "a lot of smart people" and “well-positioned for success.”
(Read the article.)
Claria was also profiled in another powerful piece from The New York Times that effectively positioned our client as a company that could give Google a run for its money!
(Read the article.)
When data-warehouse vendor
Netezza teamed up with SHIFT Communications, the company made it clear that it expected big things. And that’s exactly what it got when SHIFT leveraged its No Fear media-relations attitude to immediately score a two-page profile of Netezza in
Forbes magazine. The article, entitled “Speed Demon,” positioned Netezza as a data-center David taking on Goliaths like Oracle, IBM and Teradata.
The story and accompanying photo of Netezza CEO Jit Saxena were the result of a highly finessed media-outreach campaign, designed by SHIFT to spotlight Netezza’s corporate momentum against much larger technology stalwarts.
To gain visibility in the overcrowded anti-spam market, SHIFT embarked on an aggressive campaign of "factoid" releases on spam volumes for client FrontBridge Technologies. A November factoid on spam predictions also included a list of ways to avoid phishing scams for the upcoming holiday season. SHIFT contacted several business and trade press outlets, such as CNN, Forbes, CMP and IDG, with the news.
As a result, the factoid was not only picked up by several CMP sites, CNN's Money section carried a complete story on FrontBridge's predictions and anti-phishing tips, calling FrontBridge "a leading computer security company" and quoting a key FrontBridge executive. Without mention of a single competitor, the article positioned FrontBridge as a leading authority in the anti-spam space and a source of credible information for prestigious news outlets like CNN.
Click here to view the story
In an effort to highlight Quantum's company momentum, including positive financials, SHIFT contacted top business press and secured high-level briefings with Reuters, CBS Marketwatch and CNBC SquawkBox.
Rick Belluzzo's meeting with Reuters resulted in a highly positive feature, highlighting Quantum's successes under the CEO's leadership. The piece was also picked up by other national press like Forbes, USA Today and CNET. Belluzzo was also profiled in live broadcast segments on CNBC SquawkBox and CBSMarketwatch. In both live broadcasts, Rick was able to tout Quantum success milestones and relay vision for the company moving forward.
SHIFT rolled the national media spotlight -- including NBC’s The Today Show, The New York Times, and CNN for start-up client uLocate Communications. uLocate is launching a new service that enables parents to pinpoint their children's whereabouts - around the clock - using their cell phones, the Internet, and the latest in GPS satellite technology.
Reporters at CNN put uLocate to the test in the Big Apple.
View the video
