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Rockfish's Jeannine Wheeler recognized as "Fast Tracker"

Posted by Rockfish Interactive on Thursday, May 19, 2011 in Happening At Rockfish

 The Northwest Arkansas Business Journal just celebrated the accomplishments and perhaps more importantly, the potential, of fifteen “fast trackers” in their twenties.  We couldn’t be more proud that Jeannine Wheeler, Rockfish’s Controller, was included in that list of high potential professionals.  Jeannine has made a huge impact at Rockfish and we look forward to her future accomplishments.  She has kept pace with Rockfish’s rapid growth in revenue.  She’s been the driver in implementing a new accounting and payroll system and has grown her team from one employee to five- all to keep pace with the growth.

“We could not be more proud of Jeannine, her success, and her contributions at Rockfish.  Jeannine embodies our core values; she’s driven and versatile and an integral part of our team.” Said Jeremy Wilson, Rockfish’s CAO. 

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?aID=126692

 

Mobile Advertising Platform Tap.Me Reels in Rockfish Brand Ventures

Posted by Rockfish Interactive on Thursday, May 12, 2011 in Rockfish Brand Ventures

Today is a big day at Rockfish as we announce Tap.Me as our first investment out of Rockfish Brand Ventures.  Based in Chicago, IL, Tap.Me has created a new mobile advertising platform that truly defines digital innovation.  They have put together an amazing team and we are looking forward to Rockfish joining them as a Digital Innovation Partner.  You can read more about the deal in the press release below.

 

MOBILE ADVERTISING PLATFORM TAP.ME REELS IN ROCKFISH BRAND VENTURES

Rockfish’s Venture Capital Capability Partners with Tap.Me as First Investment Opportunity

CHICAGO, IL – May 12, 2011 – Tap.Me, creators of a new mobile advertising platform, received the distinction of being named as Rockfish’s first investment by their newly created venture capital capability – Rockfish Brand Ventures. In this latest round of fund raising, Rockfish is joined by existing Tap.Me investors the likes of David Cohen’s Bullet Time Ventures, the i2A Fund and Hyde Park Angels.

Rockfish Brand Ventures, a new model of agency ventures, brings emerging digital innovations together with agency capabilities and client relationships. By securing this partnership, Tap.Me will benefit from access to the diverse client network and services Rockfish provides as an award-winning agency, as well as guidance from experienced and connected Brand Ventures executives. Tap.Me attracted Brand Ventures with a combination of a strong development background, a gamer-first model and a fluid platform with opportunities for virtually any brand to partner with.

“The Rockfish Brand Ventures team brings us more than financial backing, but crucial knowledge of the digital space that is literally priceless” said Joshua Hernandez, CEO of Tap.Me. “Their collaboration with our team has given us insight into the mobile space that, partnered with our development experience, will make Tap.Me the next evolution in mobile advertising.”

“Rockfish has long been on the bleeding edge of digital innovation since we began, and we see Tap.Me as a great opportunity to continue building our capabilities in that market,” said Kenny Tomlin, CEO / Founder of Rockfish. “We’re excited to work with the Tap.Me team and offer our digital expertise to their already impressive platform.”

Tap.Me is a new breed of mobile advertising platform that allows game developers to directly connect gameplay with branded rewards and achievements from any advertiser. Putting the power directly into the developer’s hands, Tap.Me ensures that gamers are never taken out of the gameplay experience, but are rewarded for their achievements and given instantaneous rewards both in-game and in the real world.

About Tap.Me

Tap.Me is a Chicago based start-up focusing on innovating the in-game advertising space. Founded in 2009 with game development roots, Tap.Me, Inc. is channeling the teams experience in advertising and game design to develop a set of products that will disrupt how advertising has traditionally been approached in video games. For more information, visit http://tap.me. Game developers please contact dr@tap.me to find out how to get involved. For press inquiries please contact press@tap.me.

About Rockfish

Rockfish is a Digital Innovation Partner for brands such as Walmart, Sam's Club, Cisco, and Tyson Foods. Through a company purpose of “building a better world through the power of digital innovation,” Rockfish helps clients find solutions that are meaningful to their customers and measurable to their business. Rockfish has been recognized as the OMMA 2010 Agency of the Year for Web Design & Development, ranked third on the 2009 Ad Age Agency A-List that recognizes the ten best agencies in the world, and placed in the 2010 Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies. Rockfish is headquartered in Rogers, AR, with offices in Dallas, TX, Cincinnati, OH and Little Rock, AR.

 

This Week in Social - May 6, 2011

Posted by Rockfish Interactive on Friday, May 06, 2011 in Digital Innovation

Featured Article: See photo, shop photo

Every day, billions of photos are seen through thousands of portals across the Web, and most of those will include some kind of product. From the shirt he’s wearing, to the bag she’s carrying, to the food they’re sharing, there are brands all over the images we see every day. But let’s say you really like that bag and want one just like it—how would you find it? Sites like PleaseDress.Me have tried to help, offering users different ways to search for their fashion using colors, tags or keywords. But even if you have the most tricked-out of search engines, you’re often stuck finding a product just “sorta like” the one you were looking for.

Enter Stipple, a new startup helping users get more out of photos. Stipple uses metadata to tag each photo with information about products, people and who captured the original photo. Brands can then use the same network to further identify their products and add e-commerce information for each, showing consumers exactly how to buy them. For publishers, the experience is completely passive—one line of code enables all the functionality for any Stipple-tagged photo. In fact, publishers can even copy and paste photos into their sites and the hot-spots still work—Stipple metadata tags are embedded within the photo file itself and the ads can “follow” the photo wherever it goes.

What this means for brands:  In-image advertising is a rapidly growing technology, because engagement rates are much higher than in other display media (Stipple says that users mouse over a photo with a hot spot 46% of the time, and of those, users hover over a product spot 12.48% of engagements). Photo agencies are also in favor because the technology can track down a “lost” photo through the metadata tag, and funnel image creators get a cut of advertising revenue. Brands should definitely begin introducing this in their experimental ad media budgets, as it’s an extremely intuitive interface for directing high purchase intent visits towards e-commerce.

Links, News and Notes

Twitter buys an app: Twitter power-user favorite TweetDeck has been acquired by the microblogging service, for a total rumored to be between $40 million and $50 million. Many new Twitter app developers may see this as a signal that if their apps become popular enough, getting bought out by Twitter could be their exit.

The meaning of a modern family: The New York Times recently investigated the effects of hyper-connectedness on family time, quoting from experts on both sides of the issue. The multi-screen living room has become a genuine reality, and an environment marketers must rapidly master.

Facebook Open Graph, one year later: Open Graph is the updated suite of APIs and supporting tools that includes Facebook Connect. The service turned one year old this April, and Mashable explored how marketers have adopted it so far.

How I learned to love the backchannel: A List Apart provided a great explanation of the origins of Donahue, a Web app designed to integrate the common presentation backchannel of Twitter into the conference experience by tying slides shown to tweets sent in the same time period.

So what IS Google’s social strategy? Serial entrepreneur and Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon broke down what he saw as Google’s three strategic choices as it gets serious about social. The growing threat of Facebook will inevitably pressure Google into making one of these choices, and marketers will benefit from seeing this map of the road ahead.

This Week in Social is a new publication from Rockfish that focuses on the latest in digital innovation.

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