Bogdan Gavrila – Core Target

The U.S. market share of visits to YouTube, which Google Inc. bought for $1.65 billion last November, rose 70% from January through May, online audience measurement firm Hitwise Inc. said in a survey published on Wednesday.

The study also shows that the next 64 video-sharing sites combined, just can’t beat YouTube’s traffic.

From left to right: Claudiu, Magda, Doru, Corina, Laurentiu and Gabi. They were the guys running the ARBOmedia online business and last night we had the last party.

Doru left ARBOmedia beginning with the 1st of January 2007 and started a new job with Initiative Media. He was the team leader in the online department.

Laurentiu was the second important member to leave the company and join Doru at Initiative Media. His departure is critical – few people know that Laurentiu had a sales target close to 1.000.000 USD. He was very discreet about his departure but the effects will be dramatic.

Claudiu spend yesterday his last day at ARBO. His plans are to return to his business. He was one of the oldest partners in ARBO and had a great online know-how.

Magda was another key person in the online department and she already packed her stuff. Although she had a smaller sales target, she was the one managing the relationships with all the publishers and was the ad server guru. Her departure means that some websites will follow but the most important thing is her new position in the new company (a spectacular evolution).

Corina was the one managing the special projects at ARBO. She will also join Magda in the new sales department leaving ARBO with another problem.

Gabi is the last person to leave the boat, also joining Magda and Corina. He was one of the most experienced sales persons but also very discreet and very business oriented.

The 6 people you see in the picture above are the ARBOmedia online team – they made the network, they managed the ad server, the did the million EUR sales.

ARBO will never be the same again.

This week-end I’ll spend my time tasting the Italian wines in Abruzzo. This is an educational trip for me and I’m happy to say that I’ll be able to experience this part of the Italian lifestyle.  I’m preparing for a great cultural experience in Abruzzo (Cezar told me that I’ll have plenty to see over there) and I promise to write more about this when I’ll come back.

In the mean time, you should check this videoblog where Geo talks about the country branding and the Romanian wines…

The first European study made by the EU commission in order to see if the Romanian wines really are so good – just joking, this was only a personal question I had for myself and I had the chance to find the answer at the ARTmania festival in Sibiu:

The correct answer is: 221 bottles

The bands in the study: My Dying Bride, Tarot, Altar, Celelalte Cuvinte, Haggard, Anathema, Cargo, The Gathering, Luna Amara, Vita de Vie, Iris, After Forever and Within Temptation.

The most wanted wine: Val Duna’s Rose de Roumanie (Merlot, Burgund) – 120 bottles knocked up in the weekend (Val Duna and Carl Reh Winery sponsored the event).

Cezar, Catalin and Geo talking about wines and chocolate:

This is why is great to work for a wines web portal: tasting wines at 11:00 AM

After taking care of the copyright laws, China will produce world class entertainment:

I received an e-mail today saying that AdEvolution (one of the top 3 Romanian online brokers) had 1.155 online campaigns until the 18th of June 2007, cashing in over 2.000.000 EUR.

They also said that the campaigns ran on 124 websites and that their income confirms that the online advertising market in Romania will reach 8 million EUR by the end of the year. A simple math tells us that they really want to say that they have 50% of the market.

Can this figures be right? Sorin, Orlando, Calin?

Personal comment: sometimes the money come when you least expect it – the referendum campaign Romania had in May brought a nice budget online. The biggest part of this pie came to AdEvolution for Basescu’s campaign and my shy guess is that it helped them a lot reaching the 2 mil.

Elvis receives a JCI award for being one of the ten outstanding young men in 1970.

The Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP) Program serves to formally recognize young people who excel in their chosen fields and exemplify the best attributes of the world’s young people.

By recognizing these young people, JCI encourages them and others to seek excellence and serve others.

Thus, JCI contributes to prepare better leaders, who will create better societies.

I’m back from the short holiday I had in Sibiu last week – I was telling you I was going to do some volunteering work for the ARTmania festival. I’m happy to say that I had the chance to meet new people and see how is like to be a rock star

I spent the weekend in Cisnadioara (near Sibiu) with the guys from The Gathering and My Dying Bride. There are tons of stories to tell beginning with the crazy rides with the BMW racing drivers and ending with the airport lost&found and heavy weight happenings but I promised to keep all these to myself

A new way to perceive the biological weapons in this interesting campaign started by the Pentagon:

The idea of the hormone bomb is quite old and already done but imagine the impact this news can have on some areas of the world. As a terrorist you’re not afraid of death and it doesn’t matter if the enemy has a nuclear bomb… but turning into a homosexual can be perceived as “a great shame” that comes along with the incapacity to fight and die as a “real man”.

So I wonder: is this story really about the chemical warfare or about the psychological warfare?

Here is the banner they use (warning – violent images).

As sad as it may sound, the movie is not Turkish and it’s quite real. The problem is that they didn’t pay the rights for using the movie, nor the people in it…

The Chevrolet Suburban K2500 (17 miles/galon on the highway) was in the top as a very poor ranked car for its fuel economy and emissions as reported to the EPA in 2006 (Source: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE)).

Having the moral power to rise after intoxicating us with tons of CO2, the PR guys at CHEVY thought it was a damn good idea to sponsor the LIVE EARTH online coverage for the concerts. I understand why there are brands like Philips or Zune on the website but the CHEVY logo is just offensive… not because they want to “look worried” about the environment but because they have a huge campaign these days promoting the 2007 Suburban models…

This weekend I’ll be in Sibiu volunteering for the ARTmania foundation. I’ll be the one taking care of one of the bands so I’ll have to decide depending on my schedule If it’s going to be The Gathering or My Dying Bride.

One thing is for sure – I’ll leave Bucharest with over 200 ValDuna wine bottles so I’m facing a tough weekend.

Rock on!

The first two people I met from ARBOmedia were Magda and Laurentiu. They seemed quite positive to me in a discussion that I wanted to drive them crazy but they had answers for every question.

Last year the ARBO online golden team was as its best: with Calin Rotarus managing the online sales and Doru Panaitescu executing clearly every campaign. Things started to chill last autumn. First, Calin took charge of all ARBO sales so there was one shortage in the online department by the end of the year. Surprisingly for everybody we found that beginning with the 1st of January 2007, Doru Panaitescu left ARBO and entered another interactive quest. Next on the list was Laurentiu so the core team was loosing member by member. The ARBO online team had a solid core at some time but the decisions made by some people confused the term “management” with “leadership” so that chemistry kicked in big time.

I remember that one time I had the chance to see what Magda was doing over there so I was really impressed. I told one of our investors that if we wanted to start an online sales agency, Magda would be the first person to recruit (first of all because of her long Yahoo Messenger list full of site owners ) and I considered her to be one of the key members in the ARBOmedia online team. At some moment this year she was promoted but I guess that her heart had other plans

A few moments ago Magda announced us (e-mail) that she’s leaving ARBO beginning with the 1st of July. I told to myself that the day Magda will leave ARBO, the ship will sink so now It’s a good time to panic. Rumors say that the figures produced by the ARBOonline in the last months don’t look very good, many of the publishers are not happy with the sales and the competition is tougher on a fragmented market (last year in june there were only 2 important players in the market, now there are 4).

In the end, the only thing I can say is that everybody seems to love football

In a few moments on the national Radio, I’ll be speaking about the Emotional Intelligence (EQ)…

If you’re interested in the subject, you should check out Gardner’s categories of intelligence.

I wanted to write about Dragos, Marius and their national event called “Olimpiadele Comunicarii“, a Romanian competition for the young PR professionals and here is my chance since I had the opportuniy to see their photos (I’m sorry I didn’t made it to the event this year).

Because I’m a photo fan, this post will present a visual challenge between Victor Ponta and Bogdan Olteanu (both invited at Olimpiadele Comunicarii). I focused on the nonverbal messages and since I like to think that the pictures speak for themselves, here is the challenge:

The secret handshake challenge:

Two powerful people sharing an equal standard. Correct handshake for both of them

The black tie challenge:

Young politicians at Olimpiadele Comunicarii. Do we wear a tie? Equal score, it’s a tie

The Arm&Body challenge:

This is where Ponta gets 1 point because he’s so relaxed. The arms are casual floating around his body

AND NOW,

GET READY FOR THE FINAL CHALLENGE!

The Mike:

Very good idea to get on the stage on your shirt. Keeping your hand in the pocket while speaking to a live young audience it’s a good idea You might think Ponta is singing a rock song while Olteanu is doing stand-up comedy

And of course, you probably wonder

If you want to see all the pictures from Olimpiadele Comunicarii, here’s a link…

Views: 2,329,092, Comments: 1563, Favorited: 3587 times: Cleopatra Stratan – Ghita

*when searching after “romania”

The new logo for the event,  this horrible jagged emblem (I think is based on the date 2012), was unveiled on Monday and already started a fuzz.

First, because they say it took 12 months of work and $800.000 (damn good business ).

Then, the BBC website says that “A segment of animated footage promoting the 2012 Olympic Games has been removed from the organisers’ website after fears it could trigger epileptic fits. Prof Graham Harding, who developed the test used to measure photo-sensitivity levels in TV material, said it should not be broadcast again. Charity Epilepsy Action said it had received calls from people who had suffered fits after seeing it.”

In the end, a funny comment regarding the Waffen SS complaint against the London Olympics Commitee: “The 2012 Olympics brand logo clearly shows the SS logo”, stormed Wolff Ollinslanger – spokesman for the SS. He added, “This is a logo that we gave our lives for. To see it now twisted and perverted in the name of sport, shames the memory of our Comrades”.

Click here to find out more about the new brand on the official website.

This is the great thing about the Internet – you can make fun of the superheroes:

My last days were not so much fun: I caught a cold, some Russian hackers attacked one of our servers and I’ve discovered that I don’t have a decent chair in the new headquarters (someone also forgot to set up my desk so I wonder what’s next).
I’m not so pleased anymore with my new laptop (I need to treat myself with a new one), I’m not pleased with the traffic on our websites, I’m not pleased with the numbers I saw last week and finally I’m scared because I can only surf the web on my Firefox and my YM is shy to connect to the server.
Meanwhile, I’m preparing a study about the bloggers and their actions in the last political campaign for my MA class and in a few minutes I’ll be speaking with Bobby on his radio show (hope to make it in time )

The biggest Romanian jobbing website sold 30% of its shares to an investment fund. The news was published today in a local business newspaper…

The event (2nd of June) was part of the The International Conference On Fundamentals of Corporate Communication: Current Trends and Perspectives  by The Faculty of Letters, Communication and Public Relations and the Faculty of Sociology, Centre for Media Studies and New Communication Technologies in Bucharest – I was invited to speak about corporate blogging (and so I did).

Had the chance to meet Bobby Voicu – Blogoree, FTW Media, Ionut Oprea – Mediapro Interactiv, Vladimir Oane – Metromind, Mirona Iliescu – Artemis, Alina Stefan – Bursa Romana de Marfuri, Sorana Savu – Premium Communication, Dan Tudoroiu – Business Magazin, Radu Iliescu – British Council, Dumitru Bortun – ARRP.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:HOT) announced that it will be the first in the hospitality industry to debut Microsoft Surface, Microsoft’s easy-to-use, surface computing product that breaks down the traditional barriers between people and technology, providing effortless interaction with digital content. Starwood will initially launch Surface at Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Starwood’s largest and most global brand, where it will help bring interaction, connectivity and play to the Sheraton brand’s new lobby experience, currently rolling out in key cities nationwide. With Surface’s ability to provide guests with greater service, unique experiences and new forms of entertainment, Sheraton views it as a key component of its lobby transformation.

Eugène Ionesco, introduced to the world the Theatre of the Absurd.
This website, although very old fashioned, is a very interesting project meant to be a museum of portraits and caricatures made by authors from all over the world.

Source: Imagine Romania.