The 10 Most Innovative CDN Disruptors to Watch in 2022 May2022

e

10

M

OST

Innovative

C D N

D I S R U P T O R S

to Watch, 2022

Boon or Bane

Cloud Compu ng

What Lies Ahead?

Implica ons of CDN

Tao Huo

Co-Founder

BaishanCloud

Technology

An Innovative Footprint

in CloudTech

VOL-05 | ISSUE-07 | 2022

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Editor’s Desk

Delivering

Efficient, Fast,

and Secure

Content on the

Internet

any websites on the internet struggle to meet

Mtheir performance needs with traditional hosting

services. A content delivery/distribution

network (CDN) bridges this gap by improving the

performance of the websites. Therefore, many businesses

feel the need to have the services of the CDN companies to

send their content on the internet efficiently, swiftly, and

securely. The proxy servers and data centers of the content

delivery network (CDN) improve the performance of the

internet by providing service spatially to end-users. CDNs

serve most of the content on the Internet, including

graphics, scripts, text, media files, documents, software, e-

commerce portals, live media, and social media sites. Thus,

CDN is an important layer in the complete internet

ecosystem.

The nodes of CDN are placed in multiple locations over

internet backbones. Its benefits include reducing bandwidth

costs, increased worldwide availability of the content,

improved connectivity, less server load, decreased

redundancy, reduction in page loading time, and improved

client response times. Innovative CDN disruptor companies

prioritize having larger proxy servers, data centers, and

node points in many locations for delivering or distributing

valuable content globally.

Most CDN companies provide their services over edge

nodes based on the coverage they want to cover. They

optimize content delivery by augmenting the end-to-end

transport network and distributing content on various

intelligent applications by using techniques for optimizing

content delivery. An end-to-end transport network keeps the

content distribution network relatively simple. It moves the

intelligence at its maximum capacity to the network's

endpoints, i.e., hosts and clients.

CDN services are in demand, and most of the web

traffic is served with the help of CDNs, which also

include traffic from major sites such as Amazon,

Facebook, and Netflix. Efficient, fast, and secure

content delivery to internet services and websites.

Geographically distributed, all groups of servers in

the CDN work together to provide swift delivery of

the internet content.

In this edition of “The 10 Most Innovative CDN

Disruptors to Watch in 2022,” we present the most

innovative CDN companies disrupting the industry

with their innovative services for delivering content

reliably and affordably on the internet.

Delve in!

Sharad Chitalkar

sharad@insightssuccess.com

Cover Story

BaishanCloud

Technology

An Innovative Footprint

in CloudTech

08

CXO

Tech Evolution

20

How VideoAmp Evolved the Company Culture

and Process to Increase the Number of

Engineers Employed

16

Black Box Production

Crafting Visually Engaging Stories

Contents

26

Cleverus Consulting

A Fast Track to Success

32

Sizmek

Creating Impressions that Inspires

34

Vidyard

Creating Seamless

Possibilities through Video

Articles

28

GHO Group

Where Technology Meets Opportunity

24

Editor’s Pick

Media Industry and

its’ Digital Transformation

Viral In Nature

40

Simple, Straightforward,

Effective Social Media Management

30

Shutterstock

A Unique Global Creative Platform

36

Virtualizing

Business

Providing a New Outlook to

Traditional Businesses

42

YUDU

Reforming Digital Publishing

and Crisis Management

Editor-in-Chief

Hitesh Dhamani

Managing Editor

Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Sharad Chitalkar

Assistant Editors

Jenny Fernandes

Visualizer

David King

Associate Designer

Shyam Sonawane

Co - Designer

Sonia

Senior Sales Manager

Kshitij S

Business Development Manager

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

John Matthew

Sales Executives

David, Martin, Irfan

Technical Head

Jacob Smile

Business Development Executives

Steve, Joe, Saurabh

Technical Specialist

Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager

Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive

Amol Wadekar

Research Analyst

Frank Adams

Circulation Manager

Database Management Technology Consultant

Robert Brown Stella Andrew David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com

May, 2022

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Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.

The

10 Most

Innovative

C D N D I S R U P to Watch, 2022

T O R S

Company Name

BaishanCloud

baishancloud.com

Featured Person

Tao Huo

Co-Founder

Description

BaishanCloud is an innovative and independent edge cloud

service provider in China with significant global reach.

Black Box Productions

blackboxproductions.tv

Josh Usheroff

Co-Founder

Black Box Productions provides creative production services in

Montreal and Toront.

Cleverus Holdings

cleverus.com

Lawmence Wong

CEO

Cleverus is a team of digital marketing experts that elevate the

presence of businesses through excellent marketing services.

GHO Group LLC

ghogroup.com

Gary Olson

CEO

The GHO Group, LLC is an independent consulting group that

has the unique ability to understand the myriad of different and

complex media technologies.

Sizmek

sizmek.com

Shutterstock

shutterstock.com

Mark Grether

CEO

Jon Oringer

Founder and CEO

Sizmek Ad Suite is a global, multichannel ad server used to

create, distribute, customize, measure, and optimize campaigns

across a variety of screens.

Shutterstock is a leading global creative platform offering fullservice

solutions, high-quality content, and tools for brands,

businesses and media companies.

Vidyard

vidyard.com

Michael Litt

CEO

Vidyard is The Video Platform for Marketing and Sales.

Viral In Nature

viralinnature.com

Shawn Alain

President

Viral In Nature is an award winning social media, reputation

management and web development agency.

VideoAmp

videoamp.com

Dave Gullo

Founder and CTO

VideoAmp is a software and data company.

YUDU

yudu.com

Richard Stephenson

Founder and CEO

YUDU is a applications technology company specializing in

digital publishing and crisis communications.

BaishanCloud

Technology

We are committed

to addressing the

arising application

needs of global customers

in their processes of digital

transformation in the

5G and loT era while

serving global internet

and enterprise

customers.

The 10 Most Innovative CDN Disruptors to Watch, 2022.

C O V E R S T O R Y

Tao Huo

Co-Founder

BaishanCloud

Cloud technology has penetrated every digital

medium, from starting your morning with a social

media feed to integrating office workflow. The

capabilities that cloud technology offers by leveraging

multiple solutions are unparalleled to match customer

needs. Embracing the cloud technology to be a leading

independent edge cloud service provider in China with

strong global outreach capabilities, offering neutral

infrastructure, cloud-native security, and developer services,

Tao Huo co-founded BaishanCloud Technology in 2015.

When China accelerated mass entrepreneurship and

innovation strategy, Tao found the strategy a one-time

opportunity, introducing BaishanCloud Technology as a

cloud service provider with a focus on the management of

the full life cycle of data.

Propelling the Space in China

Entering the seventh year of its business, BaishanCloud has

evolved from a CDN-centric provider to an edge cloud

service provider in China with strong global outreach

capabilities, offering neutral infrastructure,

cloud-native

security, and developer services. The Company is

leveraging its globally distributed edge cloud platform and

its software development capabilities; It provides a wide

range of industry-agnostic application solutions for global

internet and enterprise customers across different industry

verticals.

Staying Ahead

With its global edge cloud network, the Baishan serverless

edge cloud platform provides a secure and stable full suite

of global edge acceleration services, managing and

processing customers’ application and solution needs at the

edge.

Adopting the concept of Zero Trust and SASE, the Baishan

edge cloud platform facilitates enterprises’ simultaneous

transformation of moving to the cloud and data security

system. The platform provides unified security protection

and management of enterprises’ networks, applications, and

data. The CDN + security solution propelled many

enterprise-level clients.

Tao mentions that Baishan’s serverless edge cloud platform

supports full lifecycle management of APIs. Using

containers and heterogeneous application system

orchestration on the edge nodes, the platform reduces

solution development threshold, empowers agile

development, and improves operational efficiency for

enterprise customers to provide optimal application

solutions for enterprise digital transformation!

As an integral part of its global edge cloud services,

Baishan’s CDN continues to become more competitive in

China and the rest of Asia. It is widely recognized as one of

the top regional cloud content distribution providers in

terms of response time, availability, and throughout.

Business Traction

BaishanCloud’s vast experience in network operation and

understanding of the global CDN industry, along with its

innovative service serving as business tractions. Tao shares,

“We understand our clients’ service commitment to the

global audience, and we have the resources and expertise

needed in China and Asia to help navigate the network,

regulatory, and security challenges.”

Baishan’s CDN + Security + edge cloud product suite offers

unmatched network presence and technical/compliance

expertise. Its customers are covered by regional delivery

deployment add-on anti-DDoS and WAF services.

The Cloud Experts

BaishanCloud aims to empower its employees with

appropriate training with an inclusive culture. Ultimately, a

happy employee creates a satisfied customer.

The Company aims to be a globally respected technology

company driven by technology and service innovations.

With the global edge cloud services, Tao hopes to be of

great assistance to global enterprises in their digital

transformation process.

The Pandemic Effect

Tao expresses that, on the one hand, the

pandemic has raised expectations for the

quality of content people consume and

significantly increased network traffic with

everything being pushed online. Static content

and low-resolution content simply can’t meet

the expectation anymore. On the other hand,

the appetite also increases – people want to

consume more and consume on-demand. Wait

time or buffering is no longer acceptable.

All these place challenges and opportunities on the network

infrastructure and the computing system - strategic planning

and regional emphasis would be crucial for the

sustainability of cloud service infrastructure development.

Tao states that during the most challenging coronavirus

outbreak in China, Baishan provided free network services

for online course distribution/acceleration for many

elementary and high schools in China. More recently, for

the entire duration of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games

Baishan provided full network services and support for

mainstream media and live streaming platforms in China to

ensure seamless viewing experience for audience across the

globe. He mentions, “Our team worked 24/7 to deliver

uninterrupted viewing experiences for millions of our

global online viewers.”

Moving Ahead with Cloud

BaishanCloud is committed to addressing the arising

application needs of global customers in their digital

transformation processes while serving global internet and

enterprise customers. The Company has experienced rapid

growth since its inception, and its innovative edge cloud

products have gained considerable traction in the

marketplace, both at home and overseas.

Let the Testimonials do the Talking!

“It has been a great journey for BaishanCloud in the past

six years of development. We could not be where we are

without our reliable alliances.”

- Wei Wang, Sr. Director of Operations at New Oriental

Education & Technology Group

“Our society is facing great

uncertainty, but I firmly

believe technology provides

certainty. Geekbang joins

force with Baishan to

bravely face those

uncertainties.”

- Taiwen Huo, Tech Partner

at InfoQ China Geekbang

“BaishanCloud works to

provide technical solutions that meet

clients’ needs and beyond. We have

maintained close cooperation, jointly expanding

the global market, providing secure and effective network

services to every terminal.”

- Joe Zhu, Founder and CEO at Zenlayer


May 2022 | 16 | www.insightssuccess.com



Tech Evolution

Dave Gullo

Co-founder & CTO

VideoAmp


VideoAmp turns 4 years old this month. So many

memories, and so much growth. Let’s reflect on

some of the worst decisions and associated

learnings that have been fundamental to our growth. Why

the worst you say? Because when you accelerate your

learning rate in a fail-fast environment, it then allows you to

make fast decisions vs the analysis paralysis predicament.

Ref lection

One of my favorite wildcard interview questions for

managers is: “Describe the failure you’re most proud of.”

This sometimes catches people off guard, so I’ll share mine

first to get the conversation going. Inevitably it comes down

to choosing because there are so many.

You can’t talk about growth and success without talking

about these failures. Unless you’re some kind of hybrid AIrobot-space-alien

who’s absolutely perfect, there’s going to

be mistakes. What’s important is that as a leader you own

your mistakes and be transparent about them.

Hiring

Finding the right people is the single most important aspect

of growing a startup. The biggest mistakes in hiring have

been:

Ÿ

Ÿ

“Promoting out of hand” is another variation of

this where you don’t put someone through the

normal due diligence because they already

present. In our case, individual contributor (IC)

engineers don’t go through the rigorous

reference checks that new managers do.

“Hiring under duress” or lowering your bar

simply to meet headcount goals. I strongly

advise to hire fewer “full-full stack” senior

engineers vs a bunch of junior or mid-level

career developers who require more time,

nurturing and precious attention units from your

senior staff.

Process

This is a moving target, and one which has definitely been

an ongoing series of blogs. In the early stage, we “over

prescribed scrum.” Something that a very early stage

company can do, along with too much agile processes too

soon.

For example, prototypes and proof of concepts should not

have a rigorous definition of done, with endless unit,

functional, and end-to-end tests because the product’s

requirements will probably zig-zag wildly.

Ÿ

“Hiring out of hand” or short cutting the normal

processes because the candidate is well known by other

engineers in the group.

Conversely, having too little process when you are

supporting enterprise customers can also be a

problem. I spent my prior days as an IC and


contractor retrofitting and scaling CI/CD pipelines and

training engineers how to write better tests.

The challenge is right-sizing this all along the way, and the

trigger points on when to change may not be obvious. I say

this because we grew headcount by 22 engineers from Oct

2017 to Feb 2018, and in the process we did not modify our

simplified Kanban approach to a prescribed Scrum process

quickly enough. Growing pains emerged, to say the least.

Now we’re in a spot where we can withstand a magnitude

scale of growth with roughly the same squad and tribe-level

process.

Management

Riffing off rapid growth of Brains in engineering, we didn’t

scale management fast enough. Almost all startup

engineering orgs start very flat, with all ICs and no

management. You have “tech leads” who may split their

time doing light managerial functions, but they all write

code and dive into the operations.

The biggest fail here in scaling the ICs was not scaling the

org and management structure to follow. At ~44 engineers

and data scientists, we have a duty to deliver on our mission

to provide an environment where they have the opportunity

to do the best work of their lives and be worth more in the

marketplace.

Without this vital management structure, there is a vacuum.

Do not bolt this on later, build it as you go. We took

inspiration from Spotify’s model of engineering

organizational scaling.

Growth & Career Pathing

We’ve talked about all of these fails, how about something

that has worked well for us?

When doing initial contact with a candidate, I often ask

“why are you in market?” I have seen countless folks who

are looking because their current management does not

have their growth and career pathing in mind. In extreme

cases, they can do a day’s work in four hours, feel like they

are under-challenged, and have not learned anything in

years. They work in an environment like the movie Office

Space.

Taking an opposite approach is to engage in the growth and

pathing of every individual. We do this by:

Ÿ

Ÿ

Ÿ

Aligning the growth of the individual with the

company’s growth.

Having management check in frequently on the success

of this, and

Setting up formal quarterly check-ins on measuring

these goals. Google adopted this early on from John

Doerr in the form of OKRs, and there are great

platforms out there which can formally measure and

track these objectives.

Career pathing is a longer-term concern. I ask candidates

from the start “so what’s the next job after VideoAmp?”

This often catches them off guard, then after careful thought

most reply with a role 1-2 levels beyond where they’re at

now. It’s our goal to help steer them in whatever path they

currently see.

Many earlier-career engineers think management is their

ultimate path, but I have found that many will stay on a

tract of engineering excellence. Whether it’s a Principal

Engineer or a VP of Engineering, the goal is to orient the

new challenges in a manner which grows them in that

direction, even if we can’t fully realize their ultimate

pathing goal while at the company.

By paying careful attention to these details, we have found

our annual retention rate in the high 90%.

Editor’s Pick

Once there was a time when the question was “Will

the media industry get digitally transformed?”, but

the scenario has changed now. The question today

is “How will the transformation take place?” and “How will

the media companies respond to this change?” Seeing these

opportunities presented by the digital video systems, new

players are joining the market, hence, capturing consumer’s

mind with new initiatives and grabbing their wallets. These

changes are bringing in aggressive modification in the

industry along with new business models, partnerships and

also acquisitions.

Whether one is a movie freak or a mad TV watcher, it is

quite known to them that the technology today is not what

they have seen few years back. The media and

entertainment industry has seen rapid changes and

modification in the recent years. The most observing

changes that the world of technology has witnessed are as

follows:

Multi-tasking and Multi-Channel Experiences

Time has changed now. Those days are gone when people

used to see the advertisement of a film on the road-side

billboard or on their newspaper and then go to a movie hall

to watch the movie. Today, people are multitasking and they

are more into multi-channel experiencing. People now are

not just into watching a movie or Television show with all

their concentration. They are watching a movie, uploading

status on their Facebook wall and tweeting about the movie,

all at the same time. They are sharing their views and

opinions about whatever they are watching on their social

media platforms. It clearly indicates that marketing is no

more a one-media thing; rather it’s an event of all channels.

An extensive research clearly proved that most people

watch clips and user-generated content on their phones and

simultaneously they prefer watching movies on a device

with larger screen like computer or television set. This is

something of which entertainment companies must take


advantage of by prompting the viewers to use hashtag (#)

and share using branded content to bring more traffic to

their content. Those days are no more when the writers and

marketers used to be focused about only the writing of the

content, rather they are now focusing a lot on how their

promotional content on social media platforms should look

like and how they can gain more attraction.

Curated Content is more in demand

The audience has changed a lot and so is their demand.

People are now demanding more curated content. And the

trend is already growing at a very successful pace. It has

been observed that media giants like Netflix and Amazon

have already been effectively using the curated content for

about four years. It is a procedure where the platform

suggests what the audience would like to watch or

subscribe. When these are used effectively, it can create

new audiences instantly for the provider’s new shows and

products. This is a better way to advertise products than

other means of advertisements.

Getting more creative with Artificial Intelligence

It sounds crazy to hear that the projected amount of

spending for AI (Artificial Intelligence) for 2025 is $30

billion which was earlier observed to be $300-350 million

in the year 2015. But the main reason behind such a huge

projection is that AI is changing the way completely in

which creativity was expressed earlier. There are already

various companies which are using the AI technology to

create interesting movie plot points based on the

performance of box office results.

Recent reports informed that McCann Erickson in Japan

owns an AI creative director which can actually analyze

briefings from clients before pitching a story. From image

recognition and language processing to speech recognition

and deep learning, AI is analyzing everything to create new

levels of impactful pitches through creative process in the

entertainment and media industry.

Wireless media is the new upcoming trend

Gone are those days when people had to pay for all 300 channels which their satellite or cable TV channel providers used to

give though the viewer actually watches only four to five channels. Now the definition of the entire media and entertainment

industry has changed. The companies like Netflix and Hulu has brought in the new generation of wireless entertainment. The

new users are going online. From YouTube, Netflix, Hulu to Amazon and even the cable companies are going to wireless and

replacing traditional offerings with special and customized packages to attract more consumers.

Smarter Advertisements is the future

The present day technological advancements have brought an analytical approach in machine learning and have opened

doors to combine AI and reality. This is which is making advertisements much smarter. The pundits say traditional product

placement will be soon replaced by the just a click on the dress of one’s favorite actor or actress, that too just when it appears.

Experts mentioned that marketing agencies with the help of big data, will be soon able to switch out specific product

placement to the one the viewer will most likely buy. The advertisement is soon going to be another mode of entertainment.

After the new digital transformations taking place, certain changes are observed in the media and entertainment industry.

Traditional revenue models are decreasing in their growth as the new models are emerging. Digital enterprises are gaining

much prominence as their ability to deliver multi-channel experience and individual business models are replaced by the

modern day complex ecosystem of the new comers including new startups and super-platforms. The concept of

generalization is fading away and the personalized content is taking stand.


Cleverus

Consulting:

A Fast Track to Success

Digital transformations are driving every sector with

an unmatched speed. Social media has been one of

the greatest evolutions of the century. It has

revolutionized our way of communication, advertising and

the entire market landscape.

LawÍnmence Wong

CEO

Owing to this booming rise, regional businesses are now

able to launch and advertise their products on a global scale

with notable efficiency at minimal cost. Various companies

around the globe are transforming the way they connect

with their customers. They are choosing contemporary

methods of communication like web chat, website or web

page based feedbacks. These free of cost methods have also

enabled the customers to convey their query and get the

feedback in real-time.

However, there is an endless flow of data on the internet.

Thousands of global companies with similar products are

directly competing with each other; all in the hope of

making a mark.

Needless to mention, if a company wishes its website to be

at the top of every relevant search list, then it must employ

an adept SEO team. Either in-house or specially hired, it is

prerequisite for organizations to have a precise SEO

solution to stay ahead of the competition.

Malaysian-based company, Cleverus Consulting, boasting

a wide-range of SEO experts, is the perfect solution for

global businesses. Founded in 2013, Cleverus has gone on

to become one of the best companies in Malaysia, all the

while bestowing its clients in having their online presence

proliferated. Being one of the most established Google

partner, it has developed a proven framework to help its

clients rise quickly to the top of major search engines

around the world.



Journey from a Regional SEO

Framework Provider to a Leading

Online Marketing Agency

Cleverus initially started offering some

prominent SEO services that

empowered its customers to outrank

their competitors and dominate the

search engine with better results. With

the increasing client demands and fast

paced progression, the company began

offering new services such as web

design, online reputation management,

influencer marketing, and app

development. Cleverus then utilized its

specialized SEO framework to incept

and enhance the online reputation

management service, which further

helped major companies remove

negative press online and successfully

restored the brand name of those

companies. Cleverus firmly believes in

offering complete customer satisfaction

and charges its clients based on results

and delivers optimal level of

performance. This proven credibility

has given both the company and its

clients a win-win situation.

Cleverus is currently ranked as the

number one SEO Specialist in

Malaysia on Google for providing

some of the most competitive

keywords in the industry. Today, as a

market leader, the company is getting

Request for Proposals (RFP) from

major global companies and is

delivering some impeccable services to

them. However, its journey has not

been a cake-walk.

During the early phase of Cleverus, it

faced plenty of rejections. But over the

years it has managed to overcome the

challenges by continuously delivering

high-quality work to its trusted clients.

The productive, efficient and cost

effective services provided by Cleverus

were admired by many of its clients.

As a result, the company gained plenty

of referrals from its existing clients

which helped ameliorate its growth

rate.

While explaining about the reasons

behind Cleverus’s fast-paced success

its CEO, Lawmence Wong, recalls,

“We were confident in our ability and

have persisted to source leads daily

and approach clients to showcase our

service.” With the company continuing

to develop its solid reputation in the

online marketing industry, it now

envisions on being the largest online

marketing agency in Asia within the

next six years.

Passionately Leading the Group of

Young and Experienced

Professionals

Cleverus Consulting has a strong team

of 21 people at present, with offices

scattered across Malaysia, Philippines,

and the United States. Lawmence

Wong’s astute leadership has been a

vital part behind this surging growth.

Wong believes that having the right

talent is the key behind growing a

company. Thus in Cleverus, every

single hiring is personally approved by

both Lawmence and the Head of HR to

maintain the quality of its services.

Lawmence has astutely led the group

of young and experienced

professionals in the company to greater

heights. Their expertise has allowed

the company to gain more and more

pleasing and loyal clients. Throughout

his leadership, Lawmence has

emphasized on futuristic integrations

and bold expansion plans, and is now

planning to expand to several cities in

Asia within the next few years.

Leveraging the Trends of the Digital

Space

Nowadays, every other company is

employing digital ways of marketing,

and digital transformation is gaining a

worldwide attention for all the right

reason. Marketing and Advertising via

“

Dominate

Google and

take over your

competition with

our proven

Search Engine

Optimization

strategies.

“

digital platforms have allowed

organizations to connect with a wider

pool of global audience, in real-time.

Cleverus is leveraging this trend, and

instead of the usual traditional

advertising on newspaper and

magazines, it has shifted its focus

towards online advertising and

marketing platforms such as Facebook,

Google, and Instagram.

This year alone, Cleverus has hired 3

new staff to accommodate the demands

for online advertising and foresee

hiring even more employees in Q2 as

the demand gets higher. It is also hiring

overseas employees to facilitate the

groundwork to penetrate these new

markets. Cleverus envisions one being

the largest online marketing agency in

Asia in the near future. The company

has been meticulously raising funds to

push its vision further into reality and

expects its name to be the primal

choice amongst clients.



GHO

G roup:

Where Technology Meets Opportunity

‘‘

As a strategic adviser we

identify the clients

requirements to achieve

their goals and recommend

the technologies and

resources that will bring the

vision to reality.

Gary Olson

Founder & President

‘‘

Almost every business sector including

entertainment, education, training, communication

and security is revolutionizing due to the

emergence of multimedia platforms. These new technology

platforms showcase the demand for an expert media

solution provider. The broadcast and media industry is

constantly evolving. It has become a prerequisite for media

planning and designing companies to anticipate new trends

and industrial changes to provide the best guidance and

advice to clients. Whether it is a new facility or upgrading

an existing one, there are several methods to deliver

programming and content in a better way to every business.

But very few companies have the notable ability to identify

clients this way and provide them with future-proof media

solutions. GHO Group is one of them.

GHO Group is an independent consulting firm,

specializing in planning and designing

media production facilities for

broadcast and


cable companies, corporations, educational institutions, and

cultural organizations. GHO has a substantial portfolio of

success providing unique, practical and cost-effective

solutions to the challenges faced in building new facilities

or implementing new technology strategies.

Advisory Services and Strategic Planning that Converts

Vision into Reality

GHO provides advisory services and strategic planning in

the development phase of an engagement, designing a

technology solution and creating a project plan with

milestones and deliverables that are achievable, to insure a

successful project. GHO functions as the senior project

administrator coordinating the implementation process and

strategy.

As a strategic adviser, GHO identifies its clients

requirements and helps them achieve their goals by

recommending the technologies and resources that will

bring their vision to reality. The company executives work

closely with the associated organization, and makes the

most of their internal resources, preferred service providers

and approved contractors. GHO utilizes its broad

experience base to benefit its clients. And by sharing best

practices in design, addressing budgets and schedules with

special attention to crafting the process it assures best

results for its clients.

In addition to this, the company is one of the recognized

leaders in technology implementation. GHO’s design

philosophy is based on sustainability and a principal that

the provided media solutions must be future proof.

A Dynamic Tech Individual Leading from the Front

Gary Olson is the Founder and President of GHO Group.

He provides direction to the company as a thought leader in

digital media and broadcast technology as well as in

cognitive computing. Olson’s book, Planning and

Designing the IP Broadcast Facility - A New Puzzle to

Solve, is considered as a top reference book to the broadcast

industry.

This dynamic individual has a considerable following of his

articles on The Broadcast Bridge, assisting the industry with

knowledge and guidance during the transition to computer

and IP network-based technologies for media production

and distribution.

creation and distribution

coupled with disruptive changes in

the technologies that support these

industry sectors. The size of the screen does

not determine the platform that content is

delivered to or how it’s delivered. There are different

production considerations for each digital platform and

new monetization opportunities.

GHO is uniquely positioned to serve as an advisor on the

transition to these new technologies, provide guidance and

strategy to optimize the investment of organizations and

assist the technical support staff in adopting the new

technology systems.

Enticing Potential Clients with Comprehensive

Strategies

In today’s connected world, communication is one of the

key requirements to keep in contact with an audience. GHO

is known and respected for its objective perspectives on

technology trends. Understanding clients’ needs and

budgets is critical to the success of a project. GHO spends a

considerable amount of time researching across many

different industries. GHO publishes articles on technology

regularly on LinkedIn to educate and inform the industry

about the novel evolutions. Through these truthful efforts,

the company envisions educating the users and aims to

attract its potential customer by creating such

comprehensive strategies.

Forthcoming Opportunities

The media and entertainment industry is becoming less

segregated and evolving to include Digital out of Home.

Mobile services and OTT have become integral members of

the community. GHO Group is developing some

impeccable strategies for its customers by focusing on these

advancements. Additionally, the company looks at Deep

Learning and Artificial Intelligence as the new trends.

Currently there is more confusion than clarity about this

technology and its futuristic benefits. Client’s need

independent and trustworthy advisors and strategists to help

navigate through these changes. Hence, the company is

spreading better understanding regarding futuristic

technologies and aims to implement these opportunities in

these fields.

Advising the Market in the Adoption of the New

Technology Systems

The expression ‘ digital transformation’ covers a broad

spectrum within the media and entertainment industries.

This transformation has had significant impact on content



The evolution of digital content

across all industries from

health care and finance to

publishing and education has increased

market competition and prompted

companies to modernize

communication systems and processes.

Most businesses understand the

importance of a creative platform with

the tools that can help them advertise

their products and services effectively

and efficiently.

Shutterstock is a leading technology

company with such a platform, and it is

known for its rich features, and highquality

assets, tools and services. The

company licenses images, videos,

music, and other editorial assets. It also

offers a variety of plans for individuals,

teams, and enterprise customers as well

as the creative editing teams of various

companies.

A Serial Entrepreneur and

Trailblazer

Jon Oringer, Founder and CEO of

Shutterstock founded the unique

platform in 2003.

He recognized the need for licensable

images at an affordable cost and

created the world’s first subscription

image marketplace, starting with

thousands of his own digital

photographs. The company went public

on the New York Stock Exchange in

2012, just nine short years after its

inception.

Since then, it has continued to expand

and evolve. Shutterstock now owns a

portfolio of brands serving businesses,

marketing agencies, and media

organizations around the world with a

comprehensive range of creative and

editorial assets.

Jon believes that the company’s growth

into a successful and sustainable

business is underpinned by its ability to

provide customers with compelling

content, innovative tools, and premium

services to fuel their creativity.

Determined to Bestow Customers

with High-quality Digital Assets,

Tools and Services

The digital transformation over the last

decade has left Shutterstock customers,

especially those in advertising, film,

and media, with an ever-increasing

need for more visual content.

Working with its growing community

of over 400,000 contributors,

Shutterstock adds hundreds of

thousands of images each week, and

currently has more than 190 million

images and more than 10 million video

clips available.

When the company’s image archive

crossed the 100 million images mark,

Shutterstock turned its attention to

helping its clients find exactly what

they needed, as quickly as possible.

The company also owns Bigstock, a

value-oriented stock media agency;

Shutterstock Custom, a custom content

creation platform; Offset, a high-end

image collection; PremiumBeat a

curated royalty-free music library; and

Rex Features, a premier source of

editorial images for international media

houses.

Shutterstock recently announced the

release of Composition Aware Search,

its revolutionary new search feature.

This amazing tool allows users to

specify one or more keywords, or to

search for copy space, and arrange

them spatially on a canvas to reflect the

specific layout of the image they are

seeking.

Additionally, the platform offers

customers the freshest content and

valuable insights to facilitate their

creative process. Shutterstock’s team

of experienced creative professionals is

determined to give its customers bestin-class

digital assets, tools and

services.

The Driving Factors

Shutterstock has always distinguished

itself by providing the highest quality

of content and the best search

experience, which adds up to superior

value for the customer. The company is

continuing to build industry-leading

technology to improve its offerings by

leveraging computer vision and AI

technology.

The role of marketers and social media

managers today increasingly includes

the creation of visual content, but they

have little time to create compelling

visual content that accurately

represents their brand and engages

their target audience. Shutterstock

recognizes that one of the most


This is just another example of Shutterstock’s ability to

identify customer needs and to quickly develop a simple

and effective solution, which has been the major driving

factor behind its success.

Strive to Reach at the Every Corner of the World

Jon started Shutterstock in 2003 by bootstrapping it himself

with $10,000 as he set out to introduce the subscription

model to the stock photography industry.

To kick-start the idea, Jon shot more than 30,000 images

and made them available for license on the platform. He

then opened the marketplace up to other photographers.

Today, the community has grown to more than 300,000

photographers, artists, videographers, and musicians from

all corners of the world.

common pain points for these individuals is the lack of

simple but powerful editing tools.

For these busy hybrid creative marketers and small business

owners, Shutterstock introduced Editor, a simple online

editing tool that allows users to quickly and easily create

high-quality visual content.

Shutterstock Editor is a web-based application that

leverages Shutterstock’s innovative search technology to

help users find the imagery they need. The tool features

professionally designed templates, the ability to upload

visual assets such as a logo, save designs, and the power to

publish finished designs to social networks directly from the

application.

As Shutterstock continues to expand its platform and range

of products, the company also strives to ensure that its

content is available wherever the customer needs it. It

achieves this through the development of tools that

integrate media search with the customer’s workflow.

Through strategic API Integrations, Shutterstock is now

available in products like Google Slides and Adobe

Creative Cloud, improving content creators’ workflows by

giving them access to premium, professional imagery from

within a platform they are already using.

In addition to this, Shutterstock’s recent partnership with

Microsoft PowerPoint gives users integrated access to its

collection of photos and illustrations, a full integration

directly into Facebook’s ad creation tool.

Shutterstock strives to provide world-class digital content

and has continued to invest in making its images, video, and

music content available in business applications. It also

envisions enabling businesses to build their own

applications through a new developer portal.



plans are augmented by pricing and showcase a level of

transparency unprecedented in the advertising industry.

Sizmek:

Creating Impressions

that Inspire

An incredible amount of research, planning, and

resources go into every ad that we see. Teams of

advertising professionals, assisted by immensely

powerful computers equipped with Artificial Intelligence

(AI) contribute to its creation, then decide on timing and

delivery. This is a massive investment and every

advertiser wants to see results that justify their outlay.

However, advertising management firms have

traditionally been reluctant to share true insights into the

ROI. Now, one company is revolutionizing the industry

with its unique brand of service delivery which combines

excellent advertising exposure with unparalleled

transparency.

That company is Sizmek.

Sizmek is the world’s largest independent buy-side

advertising platform. It caters to agencies and brands in

more than 70 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA,

and APAC, and connects more than 20,000 advertisers

and 3,600 agencies to audiences around the world.

The company’s powerful integrated solutions enable

data, creative, and media to work seamlessly together.

Their AI-driven decision engine then identifies insights

across the five key data dimensions - campaigns,

consumers, context, creative, and cost.

The result is award-winning service that transcends

industry, geographical location, target demographics, and

medium of delivery. Sizmek’s incisive, targeted media

Experienced Guidance

Leading this trailblazing company through its slew of

recent successes is CEO, Mark Grether. He has been

with Sizmek since 2017. Mark is no stranger to the

marketing arena; he has performed virtually every role in

the industry in the many years that he has been a part

of it.

His journey began in academia as a professor of

marketing before the appeal of real-world marketing

technology pulled him onto his current path.

Immediately prior to joining Sizmek, Mark was the

global Chief Operating Officer of WPP’s Xaxis, a

platform that he co-founded.

Before Xaxis, Mark worked at GroupM, the world’s

largest media investment group. As its Global

Development Director, he helped set up their digital

trading desk across 10 countries.

Mark’s tenure at Sizmek has been marked by

transformative change. He revamped the firm’s structure

to give regional GMs - who understand their local

markets best - the power to make more decisions while

armed with the confidence that comes from being part of

a major global enterprise.

Another of his major initiatives has been to give

actionable data the attention and priority it deserves.

Many of Sizmek’s competitors are only just wading into

these waters at a time when the company has already

made it a prime focus, and includes its clients and

partners in the implementation process.

Anticipating and Leveraging Change

When Mark joined Sizmek, he quickly determined that

two industry-critical challenges needed to be overcome.

The first was transparency and the second, the European

Union’s upcoming GDPR (General Data Protection

Regulation) which has since been implemented.

The advertising industry is, unfortunately, a hotbed of

players who intentionally conceal how dollars are spent

and where investment has the largest or least impact. By

contrast, Mark named 2018 the company’s ‘Year of Total

Transparency’.

Under Mark’s leadership, Sizmek offers full transparency

across its entire AI-enabled platform, including media,

creative, data, technology, and service-related costs.


Meanwhile, the EU’s GDPR has shaken the advertising

industry. Non-compliance can be devastating – the EU

imposes fines of 4% of global revenue or 20 million

Euros, whichever is higher.

Sizmek initiated preparations to counter its effects as

soon as plans for the legislation were announced years

ago, making sure their AI-powered fusion of creative,

media, and data was ready.

The company allows its clients to deploy targeted

campaigns without resorting to the use of personal data.

This is achieved through their Peer39 contextual targeting

solution that applies artificial intelligence to analyze words

and phrases, and the relationship between them to fully

understand the context and category of any page. They can

also stay safe from fines with fully managed service, from

account management to DCO to audience development to

performance reporting and beyond.

Instead of suffering a GDPR-induced downturn, Sizmek’s

clients are now better positioned than their competitors to

navigate this changed marketing landscape.

“Our AI-driven

decisioning engine can

identify robust insights

within data across the ve

key dimensions

of predictive

marketing—campaigns,

consumers, context,

creative, and cost.”

— Mark Grether

CEO

Agencies and advertisers get increased visibility and

control over their media planning and buying; they can

identify how every element works and then hone their

strategies for the best results.

Molding the Future

Because Sizmek employs AI extensively, it is fully aware of

how the technology is constantly improving and becoming

more accurate. It is already able to decide which person a

specific ad should be delivered to out of millions of bid

requests per second.

As AI continuously learns, and will only improve in the

upcoming years, Sizmek is working to better place ads at

scale in real-time, helping brands improve conversions and

attract their most valuable consumers.

Sizmek is also investing in learning when individuals are

most receptive to marketing messages. Factors like the

period before and after a related purchase, time of the day,

and day of the week all form a complex data relationship

that holds enormous marketing potential if it can be

unraveled—which Sizmek is already able to evaluate.

As it makes advances by leaps and bounds in terms of

technology, Sizmek has maintained its emphasis on

transparency. Their industry-first consumer/business model

update at the beginning of 2018 marks the company’s

vision for how AdTech should be moving towards full data

accessibility and pricing transparency.

This leadership in technology adoption and self-regulation

have placed Sizmek in the driving seat of the marketing

world, a position in which it seems very comfortable.


The 10 Most Innovative

CDN Disruptors to Watch, 2022.

turn powerful audience insights into action.

Vidyard also helps businesses transform internal

communications with secure video messaging, private

content sharing, internal live streaming, custom-built video

applications, and more. These features can integrate

seamlessly with existing business workflows and corporate

security models.

Global leaders and industry pioneers, including

Microsoft, Honeywell, Lenovo, and LinkedIn rely on

Vidyard to power their video strategies for both

external customer engagement and internal

employee communications.

Visionary Leadership

Michael Litt is the Co-founder and CEO of

Vidyard and an avid entrepreneur with a passion

for building SaaS companies. Michael leads the

development of Vidyard’s innovative video

technology, is a respected authority on

entrepreneurship and startup culture, and is a

master of connecting with audiences.

Michael Litt

Co-founder & CEO

Vidyard:

Creating Seamless

Possibilities through Video

Vidyard is a next generation video platform that is

helping businesses drive more revenue, boost

employee engagement, and create new areas of

competitive advantage through the strategic use of online

video.

Designed to go beyond traditional video hosting and

management, the platform helps businesses quickly create

and share new video content, connect with more viewers

through interactive and personalized video experiences, and

Michael contributes to the growth of the media

industry by sharing his insightful perspectives

with broad audiences as a regular contributor to

Fast Company, an American business magazine.

He has been quoted in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The

New York Times, TechCrunch and other leading

publications.

He has shared his engaging and inspiring public speaking

style with global audiences of all sizes through TEDx, The

Digital Collective, Dreamforce and Y Combinator’s Ad-

Innovation Conference.

These efforts have led to many recognitions and awards,

including the Peter Brojde Award for Canada’s Next

Generation Executive Leadership, Marketing Magazine’s

Top 30 Under 30, and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the

Year.

Quality Services

Vidyard’s range of services encompass cloud-based video

hosting and management, video analytics, video content

personalization, interactive video, and live streaming. They

are supported by tools that simplify video creation and

sharing by employees.

Vidyard’s free personal-video messaging app, Vidyard

GoVideo allows sales reps, support reps, and individual


employees to easily record and share

personal video messages while

tracking engagement levels for that

content.

These insights can be leveraged to help

businesses understand which material

is resonating with customers, partners,

and their own employees.

Outshining the Competition

When Vidyard was first launched, its

biggest barrier to success were

prominent video-hosting and playback

solution platforms that were available

for free. The challenge was getting

businesses to understand that these

platforms offered limited analytics,

security, scalability, and integration

into existing technologies.

Due to these limitations, video viewer

data could not be mapped into a

Marketing Automation Platform

(MAP) or Customer Relationship

Platform (CRM). “Competing with

“free” is never easy unless you can

demonstrate a clear and quantifiable

return-on-investment that aligns with

their business goals,” states Michael.

Once businesses realized these

shortcomings, Vidyard was

immediately more appealing. The

company has secured its dominance by

demonstrating clear value and ROI,

coupled with the ability to help

organizations more rapidly adopt video

across different teams as a strategic

business advantage.

Global Impact

With Vidyard’s personalized video

solution, brands have the ability to

create unique video content that

seamlessly weaves in an individual

viewer’s name, company name, title

and other unique information.

These videos are driving conversion

rates higher than that of traditional

content. Whether it is a telco sending a

personalized video message to explain

a bill, a university sharing a custommade

video to recruit new students, or

a B2B company using bespoke videos

to promote a new product or event, this

is a powerful way to stand out and to

engage audiences in a memorable and

compelling content experience.

A Flawless Game Plan

While Vidyard continues to grow its

own marketing and sales teams, a key

part of its strategy is to invest further in

partnerships. Last year, it launched a

series of new partner programs to work

with resellers, agencies, systems

integrators, and technology partners to

broaden its market reach.

In addition to leveraging new channels,

the company recently launched its

Vidyard GoVideo partner program that

enables any technology provider to

embed aspects of Vidyard’s platform

within its own offerings, free of charge.

Vidyard is also partnering with training

and education organizations such as

Always Hired, Sales Bootcamp and

Sales for Life, which are training

students on how to use video to

improve their sales process.

Evolving with the Journey

Vidyard is expanding its footprint in

different markets and geographies. The

company is accelerating its growth in

financial services, manufacturing and

education while rapidly growing its

customer bases in EMEA and the Asia-

Pacific.

Much of this expansion will be fueled

by its product innovation in areas such

as video personalization, video sales,

interactive video, and video for

customer support.

Vidyard is leading the charge in

delivering a comprehensive video

platform to host, analyze, and

operationalize video in a way that

exposes key flaws in most executives’

assumptions. It is on a mission to help

everyone leverage the power of this

medium to build better relationships,

communicate more clearly, and

humanize the way we do business.

The Rewards of Perseverance

In December 2017, Vidyard was

recognized for its rapid revenue

growth, bold innovation and

entrepreneurial spirit with a Deloitte

Technology Fast 50 program award,

ranking 16th with a growth rate of 21.4

% over the previous four years.

The company was also selected as a

finalist for the 2017 MIT Sloan CIO

Symposium’s Innovation Showcase

based on the strategic value and

innovation it brings to digital

enterprise now and in the future.

Vidyard has also been named one of

the ‘Top Rated Enterprise Video

Platforms’ by TrustRadius and ‘Leader

for Online Video Platforms for Sales

and Marketing’ by Forrester.


Providing a New Outlook to Traditional Businesses


VR is a way to escape the real

world into something more

fantastic. It has the potential to

be the most social technology of all

time. — Palmer Luckey

Virtual reality (VR) has been around

for many years now, in spite of this it is

a very underdeveloped technology. It

holds a vast potential outside of

entertainment, it has taken over various

aspects of our lives right from the way

we shop, experience, converse and

even ways to conduct business.

With time this technology has gained

popularity with many powerhouses,

which has encouraged them to invest

profoundly in VR technology. It has

become more and more accessible for

users, with manufacturers having

already released household sets and are

continuing to do so.

The recent advancement in the VR

technology has made it more

accessible for the general public. Due

to this, it has had a remarkable impact

on the business world also. The sole

aim of the technology is to change

human perception using virtual

systems. The adoption of VR by users

is still in its nascent stages and has

gained popularity, and more and more

businesses are coming up with VR

based solutions. The reducing prices of

VR headsets have also posed to be an

advantage for the consumers as well.

It has also posed to be an advantage for

the consumers as well, with the

reducing prices of VR headsets. This

has proved that VR is a tough and

emergent market, with great scope for

platforms which can allow businesses

to leverage VR for process

development and advanced marketing.

Businesses are Using VR to their

Benefit

VR has the potential to become the

most important tool that businesses can

leverage to add on to their success.

Established businesses are taking the

help of VR to train their new

employees in a more cost-effective and

efficient way. With the help of VR, one

can have an employee in Los Angeles

meeting with the one in London as if

they were/ are in the same room.

VR offers an added advantage when it

comes to the outward focus of the

businesses; it allows a novel way to

connect with customers. The company

can build up a more story driven way

of marketing which draws people into

the company's brand, in a tangible and

relational way. Virtual reality has

potentially transformed the world of

media. It has opened doors for

businesses; to advertise in a way they

had never imagined before.

Consumers are now equipped with the

ability to test out and experience

products, that they intend to purchase,

in an entirely new way. It allows you to

precisely visualize how a piece of

furniture or painting would look in a

particular room, or even test different

makeup styles without leaving the

room. A structured assessment,

planning of the future of businesses,

and with the right data VR can even

give a valuable insight into the success

of the business.

VR is now being used to simplify and

reduce the cost of the process of

product prototyping. Since VR has

made it very cost-effective for

businesses to design a product or an

intricate component of an outsized

machine virtually than actually build

the prototype, the use of VR in this

sector is likely to develop quickly. VR

and AR have also advanced the area of

Computer-Aided Design (CAD).

Prototypes can now be shaped within

the virtual space, allowing designers to

accurately pin down its working way

before the resources to build the

product are acquired. This has eased

the process of testing the product while

saving both money and time.

The major setback that the e-commerce

industry faces is the sales; customers

are reluctant to buy products that they

haven’t tried. With the help of VR, the

consumers can potentially try out and

visualize demonstrations for various

product categories. Allowing a more

clear vision of how their post-purchase

experience will look like.

Novel business opportunities

There are as many applications for VR

as you can think of; it’s restricted by

your imagination. — John Goddard.

Virtual Reality has numerous

businesses perspective; not just by

providing innovative features to the

business products, but also in helping

innovators create novel businesses with

these technologies at the core.

Just like old-fashioned cafes, VR cafes

would soon be a hit. These places will

be a social gateway for people looking

for augmented and virtually enhanced

experiences. VR cafes would offer

choices on diverse virtual reality

equipment, comprising of games,

videotapes, team-building exercises,

social media practices, 3D books and

content experiences, and virtually

enriched meditation.

In real estate markets, VR platforms

permit house tours to people from

anyplace around the globe. People can

design and even paint their homes with

this technology as they would in real

life setting, to provide an outlook into

the future look of their homes.

Cars like Audi R8 offers a VR-powered

“test drive” experience. Similarly, even

Airbus has introduced aircraft tours for

its airline executives, which allows

them an enriched experience and tour

of the aircraft without actually visiting

it.

The Future Looks Promising

As VR and AR carry on development,

more and more knowledge about how

it can be efficiently incorporated into

the businesses has come to light, this

amalgamation of new with the old will

potentially have a huge positive impact

on every sector. New entrepreneurs,

startups, and businesses should surely

keep an eye out for this technology, as

it has become an integral part of

marketing and businesses processes in

the near future.

Bearing in mind how several industries

and businesses are quickly validating

and accepting virtual reality, the

estimate is that it will take over the

business scenario almost completely,

isn’t bloated by any means.



Viral In Nature:

Simp¥l}e, St´räight´for¨wÍar¨d, EffectívÌe

Social} Media Management´

Social media has completely changed the way we

interact and share ideas, how we influence others, and

how we allow ourselves to be influenced. It is the tool

of choice for world leaders, governments, major

corporations, celebrities, and anyone else who wants to

connect directly with an audience of millions.

This remarkable ability to be seen and heard - and to

personally communicate with - such large swathes of the

human race instantly is unprecedented both in scope and

scale. It transcends barriers of race, religion, nationality,

age, social status, and almost every other factor which we

use to divide ourselves.

It is true, instant democracy.

Wielding any powerful tool requires a level of skill, and

social media is no exception. This is amply evident from the

news stories we regularly hear of disastrous social media

faux pas from stars, politicians and respected organizations.

They could all have made the news for the right reasons had

they chosen Viral In Nature.

The Building Blocks of Success

Viral In Nature was founded in 2010 as GoWowMedia, and

rebranded to its current name in 2013. Besides Social

Media Management, it also specializes in Reputation

Management and Web Development.

The Canadian company focuses on helping small and

medium enterprises utilize the power of social media. It

helps them to bridge the gap between remaining a local

presence and acquiring a global customer base. Their

incredible success rate with smaller businesses has

prompted global companies to seek out their services as

well.

Hard work and commitment is in the firm’s DNA. 12 hours

of each day, 7 days a week, and 365 days are the hours of

coverage they do for their social media clients. Viral In

Nature devotes more time and energy to social media

management and live event social media management than

its rivals. And the results speak for themselves.

Viral In Nature has become the most awarded social media

agency in North America. Respected publications like

Clutch.co and GoodFirms.co have consistently ranked it as

one of the world’s top social media marketing agencies. CV

Magazine named it the USA’s Best Social Media Agency

for 2018.

With accolades like that, it is no wonder that the firm is

poised to become one of the most powerful social media

hubs for business anywhere.

Multi-Faceted Excellence

Viral In Nature maintains a singular focus on its clients.

While other companies may claim to be client-centric, Viral

In Nature has proven consistently that it truly embodies that

spirit. This is evident not just from the industry accolades

that keep piling up, but from the testimonials of customers

whom the firm considers its best ambassadors.

The other area in which Viral In Nature invests considerable

time and effort is technology. Social media is by its very

nature a tech-driven field, and it is only by leveraging the

vast potential it holds that truly spectacular results are

possible.

The company constantly seeks out, tests, develops, and

implements the latest advances, applications and hardware

such as new and unique camers. In this way, every client is

assured a cutting-edge solution that keeps them ahead of the

competition.

To foster an environment of constant learning and

adaptability, the company holds regular meetings that focus

primarily on emerging trends in social media. Conducted in

an open discussion format, it allows team members to keep

abreast of developments that may not relate to their


“We commit´ ou¹r¨s¬el}vÌes¬ tó

cons¬tánt´l}yÓ imp¥rövÌing ou¹r¨

s¬er¨vÌices¬, p¥er¨for¨mance and p¥u¹s¬h

t´hröu¹gh ou¹r¨ comfor¨t´ bar¨rïer¨s¬ tó

imp¥rövÌe vÌal}u¹e tó ou¹r¨ cl}ient´s¬.”

— ShawÍn Al}ain

Prës¬ident´

specialty directly. This creates a rich

tapestry of residual knowledge upon

which they can draw in the future.

A pro-active approach is critical to how

Viral In Nature operates. The agency

adopts a policy of creating a wide

footprint for each client across a range

of social media platforms. It adheres to

this philosophy to mitigate the negative

effects of policy changes at any one of

those companies, and to insulate its

clients from unforeseeable downturns

like the one currently plaguing

Facebook.

The Man Behind the Brand

Shawn Alain is the President of Viral

In Nature and the owner of the

company.

Mr. Alain began his career in media

with the publishing industry. He

recognized the massive potential of

social media marketing before it had

become the global phenomenon it is

today. In 2010, after a decade in

publishing, he set up GoWowMedia,

the predecessor to Viral in Nature.

A slew of success in Twitter and

Facebook marketing gave Mr. Alain

the groundwork and an intimate

understanding of the industry. It was

upon this foundation that Viral In

Nature was born.

The Journey Beyond

Viral In Nature is undoubtedly one of

the best social media management

agencies in North America.

However, Shawn is eager to take his

brand to a truly international level,

with plans for Europe, Australia and

Latin America already on the cards. In

fact, the firm has already hired staff

fluent in French and Spanish as the first

step to this expansion.

In line with its policy of giving every

client a wide social media presence,

Viral In Nature has always managed

them across five to seven platforms.

With an increasingly business-centric

focus and undaunted by change, the

company is always on the lookout for

newer, better options that will more

thoroughly serve its clients’ needs.

Technology is unbiased – it will favor

the most effective solution. Viral In

Nature does not only apply this

philosophy, it has itself become the

best example of its veracity.



:

YUDU

Reforming Digital

Publishing and

Crisis Management

The Media and Entertainment

Industry has displayed evident

growth globally, since its

commencement. The advent of

innovative technologies and their

pioneers in this industry and

subsequent disciplines has catapulted

its development. YUDU is one such

innovative pioneer of the digital

publishing industry.

Founded in 2007, YUDU is an

applications technology company

specializing in digital publishing and

crisis communications. It upholds a

vision of harnessing cloud-based

technology to meet growing market

needs. It was one of the first companies

to help publishers produce digital

versions of their magazines and other

publications. The organization holds

simplicity and ease of access at the

heart of its vision, both for its clients

and customers, and produces solutions

that have been widely liked by users.

Exemplary Leadership

YUDU’s Founder and CEO, Richard

Stephenson, has been at the helm

since the company’s inception in 2007.

He holds a joint honors B.Sc. in

Economics and Materials Science from

Swansea University. He has driven the

growth of the company as it has grown

in its international clientele, adapted to

changes in the publishing industry, and

most recently, led the development of

the company’s Crisis Management app

named Sentinel.

The online shift towards e-reading, e-

commerce and apps has opened up new

opportunities for YUDU, which

Richard has been at the forefront of

capitalizing on and helping clients

adapt to changing consumer wants and

needs. Over the past 10 years, Richard

has overseen the growth of the

company to become a global leader in

cloud based document distribution and

corporate communications.

Richard has been running technology

led international businesses for the past

30 years and completed his first private

equity backed MBO in 2001. Richard

past roles include being an Operating

Partner with Duke Street Capital,

Chairman of Xafinity Holdings Ltd,

President of the Supervisory Board of

Navimo S.A. and Chairman of Deloro

Stellite Ltd.

Redefining Innovation

Although YUDU has developed over

1,000 apps over its ten years in tech,

communication is at the heart of the

company’s functionality. The

organization’s core product is its digital

publishing platform, Publisher. It

allows anyone to turn a PDF into an

intuitive, re-flowable, IOS, Android

and Windows compatible digital

version.

Clients ranging from retailers like

Screwfix to publications like National

Geographic use Publisher to create

high quality magazines, catalogues,

newsletters and more, all with full

statistical analysis built-in and optional

subscription control.

YUDU’s most recently developed

software Sentinel, combines mass

alerting via SMS, email and in-app

messaging, offline critical document

handling and an HR database of

contacts. All of this is hosted on a

secure cloud server, so that if a cyberattack,

power outage or an act of terror

takes down servers and phone lines,

incident managers can check that

everyone is safe and instruct staff on

what to do. Sentinel is used as a

business continuity and

communications tool by a range of

industries including law firms, hotels,

and theatres.

Among publishers, the digital

transformation has been embraced by

some and feared by others. E-book

readers like Kindle were hailed

simultaneously as the end of the book

industry and as a passing fad by its

detractors, and more mobile forms of

entertainment have broadened the

options for magazines distribution and

consumption.

With Publisher, the organization was

able to take publications into the digital

arena. It could also enhance print

magazines with video and interactivity,

helping media companies and

educational publishers reach a

massively wider audience with their

most innovative content.


Strategizing for Conquests

When people began consuming more media via their

mobile phones and tablets and less on desktops, YUDU

faced the challenge of making content accessible.

Consumers wanted a smooth reading experience without

having to pinch and zoom, thus the company needed to

rethink how it delivered its clients’ content. PhoneView is

its solution to device-responsive document viewing.

“The roadmap for YUDU’s development has always been

user-centric. We listen to feedback from our clients and are

continually adding new features to our apps based on our

clients’ needs, and that is what keeps us ahead of our

competitors,” states Richard. The company has a dedicated

support team in the UK and is proud of its very high

customer approval rating.

YUDU’s strategy is to deliver the best possible product and

give the best possible client experience. Expressing his

views on adapting to the changing trends in the industry,

Richard asserts, “The consumer has migrated from desktop

to mobile passing tablets on the way. We have anticipated

this trend by developing the technology for displaying rich

content on smaller screens.”

Embracing Opportunities

The next step for YUDU is to enter into a new territory, of

business continuity and crisis management. The company’s

expertise in document management, communications and

app development has set it up to fulfill the growing need for

a reliable, simple software to help organizations keep their

people safe and keep the information flowing during an

emergency.

Immediate access to business recovery plans on mobiles is

vital for instant response. The organization’s publishing

background enables it to use its document handling

technology to offer features that other alerting systems fail

to deliver. Its competitors can’t offer incident managers the

ability to share business continuity documents, press

statements, clients lists etc. offline and securely in a crisis.

Beholding New Horizons of Achievements

While YUDU continues to offer industry-leading

technology for digital publishing, it is broadening its

portfolio of apps all the time. The company is expanding its

corporate communications offering by combining document

handling and communications in its app for sales teams;

Richard Stephenson

Founder & CEO

‘‘

YUDU helps publishers,

corporations, educators and

organizations engage with their

audiences digitally.

‘‘

adding new features, like group specific push notifications,

to its existing apps and continual refinement of its app

technology in the face of changes to app stores and

operating systems.

In the near future, YUDU is growing its Sentinel product

into a whole range of business continuity solutions. It has

exciting work lined up with security and counter-terror

specialists to create Sentinel Alaris and Sentinel Alert. With

the Sentinel range of products it is building a strong

portfolio of top clients and developing in a strongly

growing market.

“Knowing that our apps are going to be used to help

organizations safeguard their staff and help save lives in an

increasingly dangerous world makes it an incredibly

worthwhile work,” states Richard.


The 10 Most Innovative CDN Disruptors to Watch in 2022 May2022

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