Serial entrepreneur and gWallet founder Gurbaksh Chahal sold his ad network BlueLithium to Yahoo for $300 million in 2007. At the time, Chahal’s company was the fifth largest ad network in the United States and the second largest in the United Kingdom. Chahal’s non-compete contract with Yahoo just ended last week, and he’s getting back into the online ad business. Today, he’s launching RadiumOne, an online ad network that aims to combine social and intent data to serve ads.
RadiumOne mines social data and use this information to identify relevant consumers for brands. Through what Chahal calls “social retargeting,” RadiumOne analyzes how users interact with one another on social networks to find the consumers that identify with a brand’s current customer base, and then serves advertisements to this audience. → Read More
Online monetization platform gWallet, which offers social gaming developers a variety of ways to monetize their apps and boost engagement, is debuting a new mobile ad offering today. Mobile app developers can now integrate virtual currency offers within their apps. However, instead of signing up for Netflix or other offers that gWallet uses on its web platform; the mobile offers ask for users to download an app in exchange for earning virtual currency.
For example, within an iPhone app, a user will be given the opportunity to earn virtual currency if they download the Netflix iPhone app. To expand reach of the new format, gWallet is partnering with mobile ad exchange Mobclix to allow developers integrate the branded offers within their apps. Developers purchase installs via a bidding system, with gWallet bringing in the brands to the platform. gWallet Mobile will be available on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and other smartphone platforms. → Read More
Online monetization platform gWallet, which offers social gaming developers a variety of ways to monetize their apps and boost engagement, is looking to put its money where its mouth is: the company is launching a $20,000 cash guarantee to any social gaming publishers that don’t generate more revenue when they switch from their current monetization platform to gWallet.
To participate, publishers are being asked to implement a simultaneous, head-to-head test over the span of thirty days (you can sign up starting today, with the 30 day window beginning August 1). At the end of that time period, if your revenues from gWallet aren’t higher than they are on you original implementation, then the service will pay out the guarantee. But you’ll have to be a pretty sizable game to participate: to qualify, gWallet says that publishers need to be new to the platform, and need to have at least 250,000 daily active users. That said, it sounds like the the company is willing to discuss a guarantee to apps with a smaller user base if you email their partner@gwallet.com address. → Read More
Editor’s note: The following guest post is by Gurbaksh Chahal, the CEO of gWallet, a virtual currency offers startup. Previously he founded BlueLithium, which was sold to Yahoo for $300 million in 2007.
Don’t be surprised if one day soon the must-have item of the season doesn’t even exist. Not in the real world, anyway. Then again, what did reality ever have to do with desire anyway? The psychology of the fast-growing virtual marketplace is turning out to be uncannily similar to the real one.
It’s been easy to overlook the rise of virtual goods and the virtual currency used to buy them. Tucked away in the back pages of social games, offer walls seemed like obscure alleyways frequented by only the most determined (or foolhardy) players—especially in the wake of the Scamville controversy. Talk of “gold farmers” toiling in sweat shop conditions to harvest coveted items in MMOGs like World of Warcraft and EverQuest added to the sense of shadiness hanging over the virtual economy. Sure, a few people might be willing to trade a chunk of their time—or even their cash—for products that exist only online, but how big could virtual goods ever really get? The answer is increasingly clear: really big—and getting bigger all the time. → Read More
Virtual currency platform gWallet is announcing a partnership with online privacy certification company TRUSTe to reinforce gWallet ethical guidelines in the virtual currency space. gWallet partners with both brands and game developers to bring users virtual currency offers on games within social networks.
Following the Scamville controversy in the virtual offers space, the startups which provide these offers on games have been working to rid their platforms of misleading offers. In fact, Offerpal CEO George Garrick promised to take a leadership position in cleaning up scammy ads. Competitor Gwallet has also promised to never offer these type of ads, and is now partnering with TRUSTe to certify gWallet’s privacy practices. TRUSTe will also monitor offers submitted by gWallet‘s advertisers to ensure they aren’t misleading. For example, previously fake quizzes would be tied to long term mobile subscriptions, malware-laden toolbar downloads and and other scams. And Gwallet is betting on TRUSTe to keep these offers at bay. → Read More
As gaming on social network grows by leaps and bounds, there’s been a proliferation of startups that are helping game developers monetize by offering virtual currency deals in conjunction with advertisers. Offerpal, gWallet, Cherry Deals and others all partner with both developers and advertisers to offer virtual currency deals within games. Today, Boomerang Networks is entering the arena with its newly launched offer platform, Offerwall, which offers users the ability to rate and review virtual currency offers.
As more users participate in clocking and buying into the deals, good offers float to the top and bad offers are kicked off the system. Users can rate each advertising offer, giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Based on their experience, users can also write reviews and comments, which are then visible to the game’s entire community of users. Offerwall’s algorithm that sets the order in which advertising offers are displayed, allowing popular offers to rise to the top and unpopular or poorly related offers to be eliminated all together. If the user gives a thumbs down to an advertising offer, that particular offer, as well as similar offers, are never presented to that user again. → Read More
gWallet, a recently launched company that partners with both brands and game developers to bring users virtual currency offers, is launching a new format for offers. Called the Brand Bar, the offers to earn virtual currency appears in a bar across the top of a social game.
gWallet says that the conversion rate of users who choose to pause and leave a game to earn virtual currency is so low, that offers and advertisements need to be engaging. According to the startup, only two to four percent of users choose to pause and leave the game in order to access offers and branded engagements. With the Brand Bar, gWallet says that its offers are places in a way that allows the advertisements to become part of the in-game experience. → Read More
Virtual currency monetization platform gWallet is announcing a new early-stage venture fund, gWallet Ventures, to invest in social gaming companies and promote innovation within the social gaming ecosystem.
gWallet, which recently raised $10 million in funding, has already begun searching for investment opportunities in gaming developers on Facebook and MySpace, as well as smaller social gaming companies that are looking to bring their games to the masses. Investments will range from $100,000 to $1 million per company. Of course the investment is also tied with adopting the monetization opportunities that gWallet can provide for publishers. Chahal says the investment fund was formed with excess funds from its recent round of funding. → Read More
We just wrote about gWallet’s secret weapon, gLTV, that hopes to legitimatize the virtual currency monetization world, following the reports that OfferPal, and others have been scamming (a.k.a. “Scamville”) users of virtual games on social networks. gLTV is a new metric that gives publishers analytics on how they can measure and increase their lifetime value of users on their applications. gWallet says gLTV uses info about individual users to demonstrate specifically how it can increase the lifetime value of a user based on prior usage and transaction history
Today, gWallet is announcing its first integrated video offering that already has quite a few well-known brands signed on. Disney, Best Buy, K-Mart, Nestle, Coke, and The History Channel are all using gWallet’s video campaigns on social networks. gWallet says that the 10 brands who participated in the campaigns during December eeceived unprecedented viewer engagement and conversion, while publishers, which include Facebook app developer MobScience, leveraging gWallet’s platform saw a sizeable increase in revenue. gWallet also used Tube Mogul to power the video and analytics on its video campaigns. → Read More
We recently wrote about gWallet, a startup that hopes to offer a legitimate virtual currency monetization platform, after OfferPal, and others have recently come under fire (a.k.a. “Scamville”) for scamming users of virtual games on social networks. The startup, which recently raised $10.5 million in funding, works directly with brands directly as opposed to adopting an affiliate leads model. gWallet claims that its proprietary technology and transparent platform allows game developers and social networks to see when and where exact offers are being presented within their ecosystems.
The startup wouldn’t reveal the details of what its platform would look and feel like, but today is giving us a little bit more insight into how it will work. gWallet is launching gLTV, a new metric that will aim to give publishers analytics on how they can measure and increase their lifetime value of users on their applications. gWallet says gLTV uses info about individual users to demonstrate specifically how it can increase the lifetime value of a user based on prior usage and transaction history. Currently, publishers cannot see how they are increasing the lifetime value of their users. Other virtual currency platforms can only measure yield through a CPM model, which measures how much revenue is generated after a thousand views on their offer wall. → Read More
Virtual currency monetization platforms, like OfferPal, have recently come under fire (a.k.a. “Scamville”) for scamming users of virtual games on social networks. gWallet is entering the space as a potential beacon of ethics, with a a service that hopes to legitimize virtual currency exchanges by connecting game publishers directly to the advertisers. Today, the startup is announcing a $10.5 million Series A round of funding raised from Adams Street Partners and Trinity Ventures, bringing the total funding for gWallet up to $12.5 million.
Founded by serial entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal, gWallet works directly with brands directly as opposed to adopting an affiliate leads model. gWallet claims that its proprietary technology and transparent platform allows game developers and social networks to see when and where exact offers are being presented within their ecosystems. → Read More
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