OpenView appoints Pulizzi to senior advisor

by OpenView

OpenView Venture Partners, a Boston growth-equity venture capital firm, has named Joe Pulizzi as a senior advisor for the firm’s consulting group, OpenView Labs.

Pulizzi is the founder of Junta42 and Content Marketing Institute, as well as the author of “Get Content Get Customers.” OpenView said in a news release that he will assist the firm’s portfolio companies on content marketing best practices.

Founded in 2006, OpenView Venture Partners focuses its venture capital spending on software and Internet companies worldwide. The Boston firm manages about $240 million in total capital.

The firm announced in February that it had promoted two principals – Adam Marcus and Brian Zimmerman – to managing director roles.

ExactTarget Launches New Guide Decoding Facebook Messages’ Impact on Email Marketing

by OpenView

INDIANAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget launched a comprehensive guide to Facebook Messages today, offering marketers the first objective analysis of Facebook Messages’ impact on email design, usability and strategy.

“While Facebook Messages is a significant shot over the bow of today’s email inbox, it is still in its infancy stage.”

Featured in Snapshot: Facebook Messages by ExactTarget and CoTweet, the guide helps marketers understand the impact of Facebook Messages on email marketing and the inbox landscape currently dominated by Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

“The snapshot report offers new insight to quell the fears marketers may have about Facebook Messages and its impact on their communications with consumers,” said Jeff Rohrs, principal, ExactTarget’s Marketing Research and Education Group. “While Facebook Messages is a significant shot over the bow of today’s email inbox, it is still in its infancy stage.”

The guide includes key insights and analysis of Facebook Messages, including:

  • Challenges associated with message threading.
  • Insights on its message prioritization filtering, similar to Gmail’s “Priority inbox”.
  • Email rendering limitations, including image suppression, and
  • A look at the continued evolution of the product.

“Facebook has provided the world’s most powerful online community for consumers to interact with one another and the brands they love,” said Tim Kopp, ExactTarget’s chief marketing officer. “Our Snapshot: Facebook Messages guide provides marketers the first comprehensive look at what the social network’s email solution means to marketers and tips on how to make the most of the emerging channel.”

The launch of Snapshot: Facebook Messages comes after ExactTarget recently unveiled its latest Subscribers, Fans & Followers report, The Social Breakup. The study, which is the latest from ExactTarget’s Subscribers, Fans and Followers research series, found that more than 90 percent of consumers have “broken up” with at least one brand on Facebook, email or Twitter because of irrelevant, too frequent or boring marketing messages. For more information about the study and to download a complimentary copy of The Social Break-Up and prior reports, visit www.ExactTarget.com/sff.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions. The company’s software as a service technology provides organizations a single platform to connect with customers via triggered and transactional email, integrated text messaging, landing pages and social media. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget’s software powers permission-based multi-channel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Aurora Fashions, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, visit www.exacttarget.com or call 1-866-EMAILET.

eEye to Showcase IT Security Solutions

by OpenView

eEye Digital Security, a provider of IT security and unified vulnerability management solutions, will exhibit at the SANS 2011 Vendor Expo at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Center in Orlando, Florida on March 29, 2011 from 12:00 – 7:00PM.

eEye’s product experts will be on-hand in Booth 26 for the one-day vendor showcase to answer technical questions and give product demonstrations. The vendor showcase is an added bonus to registered SANS training event attendees, who attend a broader educational conference offering audit, legal, management, developer, forensics, and computer security training.

eEye invites the media and SANS 2011 Vendor Expo attendees to explore the company’s latest innovations, including the company’s Retina CS Management solution, Retina Insight reporting engine, as well as add-on modules for Configuration Compliance, Government Regulatory Reporting, and Patch Management.

Notably, eEye will also demonstrate its newest free vulnerability assessment tool, Retina Community, which scans across operating systems, applications, devices, and virtual environments for up to 32 IPs. The tool identifies zero-day vulnerabilities, performs SCAP configuration scanning, delivers vulnerability and executive-level reporting, and more.

“We particularly look forward to introducing Retina Community, our new, free vulnerability assessment tool to the SANS audience,” said Morey Haber, VP Product Management, eEye. “This tool is the latest in a series of eEye offerings that directly supports the needs of IT Security community.”

Find more information and pre-register to download Retina Community-free vulnerability assessment tool.

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About eEye Digital Security
Since 1998, eEye Digital Security has made vulnerability and compliance management simpler and more efficient by providing the only unified solution that integrates assessment, mitigation, protection, and reporting into a complete offering with optional add-on modules for configuration compliance, regulatory reporting, and integrated patch management. eEye’s world-renowned research and development team is consistently the first to uncover critical vulnerabilities and build new protections into our solutions to prevent their exploit. Thousands of mid-to-large-size private-sector and government organizations, including the largest vulnerability management installations in the world, rely on eEye to protect against the latest known and zero-day vulnerabilities. More at eeye.com.

 

Joe Pulizzi Joins OpenView Partners as Senior Advisor

by OpenView

OpenView and Joe Pulizzi Announcement Pushes Content Marketing Efforts Forward

OpenView Venture Partners today announced that Joe Pulizzi, content marketing evangelist, will join the firm as a Senior Advisor.

Joe will join OpenView as a Senior Advisor for OpenView Labs, the strategic and operational consulting group at the firm. This critical addition will help propel OpenView’s capability for building and supporting content marketing strategies and actionable plans within the portfolio. Joe will primarily work as a consultant, coaching OpenView’s companies on best practices for content marketing. This directly aligns with OpenView’s mission to deliver meaningful impact to each and every portfolio company.

“Joe’s joining of the OpenView team is a big win for us and our portfolio companies and we are thrilled to have him on board. His expertise and knowledge will be a great value to the marketing teams within our portfolio,” stated Brian Zimmerman, managing director.

“I know that Joe will provide immense value to the portfolio and I applaud OpenView for continuing to find leaders of industry to assist its portfolio companies in their growth,” said Chris Baggott, senior advisor to OpenView and Founder/CEO of Compendium.

Joe is a leading author, speaker and strategist for content marketing. He has founded Junta42, Content Marketing Institute and is the driving force behind Content Marketing World and Chief Content Officer. Joe travels around North America and Europe talking to marketers and business owners about how they are indeed publishers, and what they need to do about it. Joe is also co-author of the book Get Content Get Customers (McGraw-Hill), which helps teach businesses why and how to create their own compelling content to drive their businesses. Get Customers, Get Content has been called THE handbook for content marketing.

“I am very excited to be joining the OpenView team as a Senior Advisor. In order to be successful, companies today must think like publishers and engage with their customers and prospects on a thoughtful level. I look forward to working with OpenView’s portfolio companies to implement content marketing strategies,” added Joe Pulizzi.

“Joe is an inspirational speaker and a great consultant. He is easy to work with and is full of great ideas and energy. I am positive that the OpenView portfolio companies will see Joe as an asset and I encourage each of them to take advantage of this opportunity, especially if content is an integral part of their strategy,” Peter Velikin, VP of Marketing, Zmags.

Tune into this week’s Labcast to hear more from Joe Pulizzi.

About OpenView Venture Partners

OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion stage venture capital fund with a focus on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies with quickly ramping up Product, Go-To-Market, and Organizational and Operational functions to best practice levels. The firm was founded in 2006 and has a total capital under management of approximately $240 million. OpenView Venture Partners is based in Boston and invests on a worldwide basis.

About OpenView Labs

OpenView Labs is the strategic and operational consulting arm of OpenView Venture Partners, a global Venture Capital fund that invests in expansion stage technology companies. The Labs was formed to assist the management of OpenView portfolio companies build great companies by gathering, creating, storing, and disseminating best practices across all functional areas. The dedicated full-time teams, Senior Advisors, and network at OpenView Labs spend the bulk of their time working on behalf of the OpenView Venture Partner’s Portfolio companies. This work includes incubating methodologies, testing approaches, performing research projects, developing and implementing forums and workshops, gathering the best network and ideas for building great companies, and coaching the management of the portfolio companies.

Exinda Accelerates Channel Growth with Enhanced Partner Program

by OpenView

ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS–(Marketwire – March 23, 2011) – Exinda, a global provider of WAN optimization solutions, today introduced enhancements to the Exinda Global Partner Program, including new sales, marketing and support services that will enable partners to meet the growing demand for its WAN Optimization solutions. With these enhancements, Exinda’s global reseller community gains access to the programs and tools they need to generate new sales opportunities, offer in-field product trials via the new Fastbox™ Program, and deliver ongoing technical support for Exinda WAN Optimization solutions.

The enhanced Exinda Global Partner Program provides certified resellers with access to an exclusive online portal that offers deal registration, lead management, marketing campaigns, and support resources as well as the new Fastbox program. The enhancements follow a year of significant growth for Exinda, during which it grew its active reseller network from 125 in 2010 to more than 250 in 2011.

“The pace of our growth makes the Global Partner Program a key strategic priority for Exinda,” said Kevin Suitor, Exinda’s vice president of marketing. “We continue to forge relationships with new distribution and reseller partners in key markets to help Exinda to meet the demand for our WAN Optimization solutions. We are investing significant resources to ensure that each of our partners has the tools they need to guide their customers through the selection, installation and usage of Exinda’s products.”

“There has been significant partner recruitment and on boarding in key regions such as Benelux and CALA during Q4 2010 and Q1 2011 along with continued expansion in the US, Canadian and UK markets, each of which is key to Exinda’s continued revenue growth,” added Suitor.

Exinda’s Fastbox Program

Exinda’s FastBox Program is an easy-to-use customer evaluation program providing Exinda’s Gold and Platinum partners with access to Exinda WAN Optimization appliances for customer trials. Participating resellers are entitled to purchase Exinda evaluation units at reduced prices, making it more affordable to offer customer trials. The FastBox program is managed through Exinda’s Partner Enablement Portal, enabling partners to give customers access to an evaluation key and set individual trial parameters for each unit.

Exinda’s Unified Performance Management Strategy

Exinda’s WAN Optimization solutions enable network managers to leverage Exinda’s unified performance management (UPM) solution, which offers network visibility, bandwidth control and application delivery optimization technologies within a single, easy to-use appliance. A recent report by Aberdeen Group explains many of the issues facing network operators today. To request a copy of the research report, visit www.exinda.com.

About Exinda®

Exinda is a proven global supplier of WAN Optimization and Application Acceleration products. The Exinda Unified Performance Management (UPM) solution encompasses application visibility, control, optimization and intelligent acceleration – all within a single network appliance that is affordable and easy to manage. Founded in 2002, Exinda is headquartered in Andover, MA and has established regional offices in Canada and the United Kingdom to support the growing global demand for its products and services. Exinda is a 100% channel business with products being distributed by a worldwide network of solution partners who offer local support and services. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

The Daily Start-Up: OpenView adds Advisor

by OpenView

After a year on the job, Groupon’s president and chief operating officer, Rob Solomon, is stepping down. Solomon said he decided to leave after consulting with Groupon’s founder and chief executive, Andrew Mason. Since Solomon joined the company, it has grown from 200 employees to about 6,000 and needs “a much different type of operator to take it to the next level,” he told The Wall Street Journal.

The success of companies such as Groupon, Facebook and Twitter, illustrate how hard it is for governments to foster entrepreneurial activity, Steven Davidoff writes at DealBook.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act did not “kill” the IPO market for venture-backed companies, Fortune’s Dan Primack asserts, fueling an argument that has been going on for years. As The Daily Start-Up noted yesterday, the IPO market for small companies was a subject of discussion at a Treasury Department event. Kate Mitchell, chairwoman of the National Venture Capital Association, brought some slides to illustrate the state of the market. Find them here.

OpenView Venture Partners has a new advisor, content-marketing guru Joe Pulizzi. The author of Get Content, Get Customers will work with the Boston firm’s OpenView Labs to help its portfolio companies build and support content-marketing strategies.

Central Desktop Targets Marketers

by OpenView

Pasadena-based Central Desktop, the online provider of project management and collaboration tools, announced today that it has launched a new product targeted at marketing agencies. Central Desktop, whichi s headed by Isaac Garcia, said its new product offers up a way for marketing, advertising and creative agencies to communicate with their account team and clients, handle digital reviews and approvals, automate work orders, and much more. The firm said the new offering starts at $899 per month. Central Desktop is venture backed by OpenView Venture.

Central Desktop Launches First Fully-Integrated Collaboration Solution for Marketing Agencies

by OpenView

PASADENA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Central Desktop, provider of the industry-leading cloud-based social collaboration platform for businesses, today announced the availability of its Common Ground™ edition, a new collaboration solution designed to help marketing agencies maximize billing hours and increase client retention. Common Ground is built on Central Desktop’s award-winning collaboration platform and is the first solution on the market to integrate an online review and approve process for creative files. Common Ground features a complete suite of tools that enables internal and external teams to streamline creative and operational processes, facilitate social collaboration, share files and centralize communication.

“We developed Common Ground specifically for marketing agencies to help them solve day-to-day business challenges”

Marketing, advertising and creative agencies are under tremendous pressure to deliver top-notch campaigns in the shortest time frame possible. As client engagements are added, relying on phone, email, FTP and in-person meetings to communicate becomes increasingly fragmented and inefficient. The creative workflow process also becomes difficult to manage, leading to miscommunication, missed deadlines and long review cycles. To address these problems, Central Desktop introduced Common Ground to enhance client communication, streamline processes and improve project management.

Common Ground by Central Desktop features:

  • Client Connect – Create a virtual team room that serves as a centralized online location for communication between the account team and clients.
  • Digitized Review ± Approve – Provide in-line edits directly on proofs of nearly any format including JPEG, PSD, PDF, MPG, AVI, MOV and SWF. With Common Ground’s built-in approval workflow, proofs are easily routed to different stakeholders for review and approval.
  • Feedback Loop – Keep clients on track with deadlines and expedite the client feedback process by setting up a shared workspace for discussing the latest proofs.
  • Work Order Manager – Automate the work order process with Common’s Ground’s powerful workflow functionality. Create workflow rules that automatically assign tasks and send alerts.
  • Innovation Room – Establish an “offline” brainstorming workspace to spur innovation. Maintain a knowledgebase of new ideas, research and creatives.
  • Pursuit Suite – Collaborate with key internal members on proposals, RFP responses, presentations and other files. Simultaneously edit documents, hold threaded discussions and consolidate feedback before presenting to prospective clients.
  • Media Share – Use Common Ground to share files with vendors, partners and media outlets instead of using email and FTP.

“Different market segments and departmental use cases naturally have different needs and requirements for their collaboration solutions,” said Brad Shimmin, principal analyst at Current Analysis. “Central Desktop clearly understands this and has developed a very productized and targeted solution for marketing agencies. Common Ground’s Review + Approve functionality in particular is extremely well-integrated with Central Desktop’s platform and provides a seamless experience for users without imposing bespoke development work.”

“We developed Common Ground specifically for marketing agencies to help them solve day-to-day business challenges,” said Isaac Garcia, CEO and co-founder of Central Desktop. “With the integration of three critical applications – in-line annotation of media files, complex file sharing and social media – into one easy-to-use system, Common Ground is the most comprehensive collaboration solution for marketing agencies. Our strategy going forward is to continue adding functionality to Common Ground while developing these customized end-to-end solutions that address the specific needs of our target market segments.”

Pricing and Availability

Central Desktop’s Common Ground is now available in two editions, Common Ground Essentials and Common Ground Elite. Pricing starts at $899 per month for small teams.

For more information, please visit http://www.commongroundmarketing.com/.

About Central Desktop

Central Desktop delivers a cloud-based social collaboration platform that revolutionizes how people connect and share information to drive profitable business results. Businesses of all sizes use Central Desktop’s complete online collaboration solution to manage projects and documents in the cloud with colleagues, customers and partners. Key Central Desktop customers include the Humane Society of the United States, CBS, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Netflix, Gymboree, Workday and Harvard University. Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-held company with headquarters in Pasadena, California. For more information about the company, visit http://www.centraldesktop.com.