Interview with Mobile Roadie CEO, Michael Schneider
Posted by Manuela Barreto @ May 5th, 2009 in 77Interview
We are proud to present our first interviewee on 77Lab, Michael Schneider. Michael is the CEO of Mobile Roadie (@mobileroadie). Michael is also the founder and CEO of Fluidesign, an award winning interactive agency in Los Angeles. Michael is very active in the LA tech and entrepreneur community, serving as past board member of Entrepreneurs Organization Los Angeles, a member of NITRO, a speaker at the Southern California Entrepreneurship Academy, and a frequent guest speaker at the University of Southern California.
In this interview, Michael shares some insight into the application’s online advertising and promotional approach from an entrepreneur’s point of view.
Manuela Barreto: What’s the market like for your product? Tell us about the typical Mobile Roadie user.
Michael Schneider: Mobile Roadie is for any band, artist, or musician that wants a way to market themselves on mobile devices. Our first product allows them to quickly and inexpensively create iPhone Applications, and then manage them from a powerful CMS; any change they make in our CMS is instantly pushed out to all installed Apps worldwide. Mobile Roadie is equally as powerful for small indie bands as it is for Top 40 artists; both can leverage their iPhone App to sell more music, sell more tickets to their shows, even sell the App itself.
MB: What are your views with regards to the relationship between music and advertising? Mobile devices and online advertising?
Michael Schneider: Advertising on mobile devices is great in theory but we have yet to see the true ROI on it. We do plan on allowing artists to have ads, if they wish, embedded in their App in the future, but we don’t see this as a sufficient way to offset costs (ie. It won’t change the price of the App). We are looking closely at video ads, and if this becomes a viable option it may change the equation.
MB: What do you think is the primary objective of a mobile advertising campaign?
Michael Schneider: With mobile advertising I think relevancy is the primary objective, and also the hardest one to achieve. We know more with mobile than we do with web – such as a user’s location via GPS or the specific context (not just tying ads to text on a page, but to a specific topic or subject if the user is using an iPhone App). I think the biggest challenge right now is leveraging the additional info we gain with mobile devices, and using it to display highly context specific ads.
MB: What kind of online advertising tools are you using to promote Mobile Roadie? What social media are you relying on and which has generated the best results so far?
Michael Schneider: Twitter is always great, and Mobile Roadie’s Twitter following is growing quickly. Other than Twitter, we’re relying on a network of bloggers such as TechCrunch, Mashable, and Brian Solis (Future Web) to help spread the word. We’re also planning a viral ad campaign that will roll out in the next 90 days, around YouTube.
MB: Are you looking to expand onto other platforms (palm pre, android)?
Michael Schneider: We are. We will likely release our Blackberry client within 60 days. After Blackberry, we’re going to monitor the market and figure out the best third platform for our users. Palm Pre is still vaporware, Android is still just getting started, and Symbian isn’t released yet.
For more details on Mobile Roadie click here.
Thank you very much Michael for your time!
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