Home Venture Capital Betaworks Swimming In Real-Time Streams Says Founder And COO Weissman

Betaworks Swimming In Real-Time Streams Says Founder And COO Weissman

SHARE:

betaworksAndrew Weissman is founder and COO at Betaworks, which invests in and operates Internet and digital media companies.

AdExchanger.com: There’s been a lot of good buzz about Betaworks recently. Why do you think that’s the case?

AW: Luck? Right time at the right place? Our companies speak for themselves; to the extent there is attention on betaworks I think it’s because the companies in our network are doing interesting things. Maybe it’s also because we do things a little differently and people are intrigued – we not only invest but we also build and acquire businesses.

What is Betaworks investment philosophy? Is there a Betaworks-type company?

There is a big gap between and idea and how that idea gets effectuated in the form of a real product. So, we like to play with applications, we believe “betas work” so we want to see a prototype of a product before we consider investing. Aside from that, if its real time and/or social, we are interested.

You wrote in an April post on your personal blog about the impact of the open Web on traditional content models: “Innovation didn’t die – instead it flourished into new, related and unrelated, spaces.” What are the new spaces being created today?

Real time streams of information and applications (things like Twitter, or gdgt, DailyBooth, Kickstarter, Tumblr).

Do you buy into the idea that advertising will – to some degree – become like the financial markets? Does content become like the financial markets?

Advertising and content are becoming more and more fragmented. I’m not sure it becomes more like the financial markets, but clearly a different way to deliver advertising into content online is needed.

Looking forward, what’s your view on M&A momentum in the digital media technology space?

More momentum in 2011 and 2012 because the pace of innovation is increasing steadily.

Subscribe

AdExchanger Daily

Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.

Do you think opportunities in the mobile advertising space are finally hitting their stride? Or, when does mobile “hit”?

What’s new is that there is no longer any separate thing called “mobile” – just as there is no old media or new media – it’s all Internet media now. Devices are now powerful enough that delivery can go anywhere.

If you’re an entrepreneur, what are your suggestions on the best way to pitch an investment firm such as Betaworks?

Show us a prototype!

Follow Andrew Weissman (@aweissman), Betaworks (@betaworks) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Must Read

Closeup image bag of money and judge gavel. Lawsuit, auction, bribe and penalty concept.

The LG Ads Legal Saga Continues With A Fresh Suit, This Time Against Kroll

Alphonso co-founder Lampros Kalampoukas is suing Kroll for allegedly undervaluing the company by nearly $100 million to aid LG Electronics in a shareholder dispute.

Comic: Metric Meditations

The Startup Trying To Automate The Ad Platform Reconciliation And Refund Mess

The ad tech startup Vaudit, founded last year by Mike Hahn, aims to automate the process of campaign reconciliation atop major ad platforms.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

The Trade Desk Lays Out Its Case To Beat Walled Gardens. Does Wall Street Buy It?

The Trade Desk continued its shaky 2025 earnings schedule when it reported Q2 results on Thursday.

Magnite Targets CTV, SMBs And Google's SSP Market Share

The SSP is betting on the DOJ’s antitrust remedies, plus closer relationships with agencies, DSPs and mid-sized advertisers, to help it eat some of Google’s lunch.

Zillow Pilots Containerized RTB, As It Rethinks The Equation Of Quality And Cost

Zillow is the pilot brand advertiser to test a new programmatic buying strategy known as containerized RTB. The strategy embeds the DSP or ad-buying platform intelligence, in this case the startup Chalice Custom Algorithms, within the SSP, which is Index Exchange.