News
Zed bets future on community
Tim Green in Madrid Oct 9 2007, 5:30pm
D2C giant Zed will unveil a bunch of hugely ambitious community services at CTIA.
The Spanish company previewed its innovative new ideas at a select press briefing in Madrid today, with test services set to go live in two weeks’ time during the big US trade show.
It’s another step away from the traditional personalisation products – ringtones, wallpapers – for which D2C pioneers like Zed are best known. Earlier this year the firm announced a $50 million investment in a web 2.0/mobile 2.0 strategy to drive subscriptions around community services such as multiplayer gaming, IM, blogging and so on.
As part of this it launched statiOn, an application for PC and mobile that consolidates all these services in one place for Zed subscribers. The launch of statiOn 2.0 is part of the new drive that starts at CTIA.
Javier Perez Dolset, CEO of Zed, said: “I'm convinced the mobile market will go the same way as the wired internet in the direction of community services.
That's why we have to keep moving, keep innovating. The future is certainly not in solo personalisation products.”
Zed has emerged as arguably the strongest of the D2C survivors. In 2006, its turnover was 320 million euros; it’s growing at 100 per cent year on year. It’s done this by selling overwhelmingly in-house products (85 per cent are developed internally), by acquisition (it bought Monstermob and its. 9 Squared subsidiary in February) and moving away from personalisation and into community.
The company has also said it will consolidate its activities around a single brand, Zed. This means that the corporate marque, Lanetro Zed, will dissolve into the background as will Monstermob and 9 Squared.
