Media Dojo

It’s 5pm somewhere in the world and time for a cocktail.

Let’s see. Mix one part Google App or EC2 with one part S3, add a pinch of Salesforce.com with a twist of Facebook, shake well and enjoy. Of course, as many of us learned during our first or second years of university, indulging in exotic tipples at scale often came to an embarasssing and/or nauseating conclusion.

Fortunately, some of the first true mixologists for cloud-based solutions are springing up. Combining products, services and strategic relationships with platform companies like Google or Amazon, enablers like Appirio provide a “middlelayer” rather than “middleware” for organizations trying out the cloud for select business functions. Based in San Mateo, Appirio basically helps its clients fast-track selected business functions onto the cloud by offering them a turn-key proposition. For a quick overview of Appirio, check out Media Dojo Tear Sheet–Appirio.

We spoke with Ryan Nichols, Vice-President of Product Development at Appirio about where he sees the low hanging fruit for media and advertising firms in the context of cloud computing for 2009 and where they should start.

Media Dojo: What are the initial conversations you’re having with media and advertising firms when it comes to cloud computing solutions?

Ryan Nichols: We have more of a functional go-to-market strategy than an industry-specific strategy. We see a lot of companies, media providers and advertisers included, starting with a straight up sales automation solution from Salesforce.com that they soon want to extend into adjacent functions. Practically, this might be extending the work they’re doing with SF.com into a Facebook application to drive word-of-mouth referrals. Another extension for media and advertisers as well as other companies might be to automate some of their lead generation and/or lead nurturing functions. So they might have started at the part of the funnel that’s one or two steps removed from sales and now want to migrate higher up the funnel to more marketing related functions.

MD: What is the relationship between social media and cloud computing?

RN: People have an intuitive sense that World of Mouth (WOM) referrals are the lowest cost highest quality way of building out their business. That’s why people measure things like a Net Promoter Score, which is great if you can get social media users to recommend your brand or product. The problem is that even if they already are prepared to recommend you to their circle, typically you need to put an application in their hands to close the loop. One of the more exciting things is not only does the cloud enable us to quickly build apps but the target platform, Facebook for example, is itself already a cloud-based system. That makes it simple, fast and inexpensive to connect the application to the platform. Going further, it’s possible to tie this platform to another cloud-based platform like SF.com, which would be almost impossible if we were dealing with on-premise software and infrastructure.

MD: Where does this easier integration fit with other published cloud benefits such as lower costs, pay-as-you-go pricing, or flexible scaling up or down?

RN: Those are all important value adds of cloud-based solutions. However, one thing I believe gets missed sometimes is our ability to use the cloud to prototype something rapidly and at low cost. Often, while a client is evaluating one of our deal proposals, we knock together a quick prototype to show them what a custom solution looks like for them. You’d be hard pressed to do that with on-premise technology because the cost of starting up is so high that it’s hard to be agile. Agility is a critical benefit once server cost savings are realized.

MD: What should media and advertising companies start doing in 2009 to get the most benefit out of cloud-based solutions?

RN: I think the key for most media and advertising people is to stop reading and start doing something. Start out with a small, initial project where you build an app for the cloud and learn. There’s no faster or better way to learn what works or doesn’t work for your company. At the business level, it means picking an app for which you were just about to call internal IT to provision and trying it out under an on-demand model. That’s the only way to stay on the development curve and ensure that a year from now you have a real strategy for your company. Cloud computing isn’t just about becoming world-class in your cost control of IT. It’s just as much about finding that innovation path that will take you into the next phase of your business.

[Editor's Note: Ryan came from a retail analytics background prior to joining Appirio. During our talk, he provided feedback and some useful pushback to my thesis below that the future of media lies in a retailer's mindset. I'll chew on his comments some more and then give that presentation another rev.]

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