Has Gurbaksh Chahal of RadiumOne, found the answer of how to make money from social with via.me?
It resembled the encampment of a medieval besieging army. In the shadow of the Palais de Festivals conference centre at the Cannes Creative Festival sat a brightly coloured tent sporting the branding of Velti, RadiumOne and the Mobile Marketing Association. It housed a hot team - literally speaking - who had resorted to using their mobile phones as a battery to power some mini fans as temperatures hit 80 degrees and beyond.
Inside the air conditioned fortress nearby there was a sense that the traditional crafts such as TV and print still held sway - cooler both metaphorically and literally speaking - to this crowd at least.
But for how long? Gurbaksh Chahal, the founder and CEO of RadiumOne, does not believe it will be too long before the mobile, digital and social industries move to centre stage even at Cannes.
The 29 year old, knows what he is talking about. He started his first business ClickAgent at the age iof 16. Eighteen months later he sold the ad networks business for $40m. In 2004 he launched his send business BlueLithium. The company, which focussed on data optimisation and analytics became a pioneer in behavioral targeting. Yahoo bought if for $300 in cash in 2007.
Now Chahal believes he is on to another game changer. RadiumOne - w hich combines both the ad network concept with behavioural targeting - recently launched a new service called via.me.
It allows you to share, photos, videos and audio clips across a variety of social platforms - from one dashboard. It is described as a hybrid of apps including Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Springpad; effectively all the most popular social apps rolled into one package.
Over the years Chahal has enjoyed a high-media profile in the US, at one stage even being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. Now he can include The Drum on his list interviewers after we caught up with at Cannes to find out if his new launch has at last put social on the road to becoming king of the advertising castle.
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