Mobile media company 4INFO has taken funding from the NBC-GE joint venture Peacock Equity and a signed a provider deal with NBC.
4INFO is the sixth Peacock Equity investment since the $250 million fund was established in April.
Under the deal, 4INFO will become NBC Universal’s preferred mobile SMS advertising partner, providing technology and services that will enable NBC Universal “to offer dynamic, targeted advertising in its text messaging content.” NBC Universal will also be able to supplement its own alerts content offerings with 4INFO consumer services such as health tips, fantasy sports player statistics and custom, user-defined alerts.
San Mateo based 4INFO was founded in 2004 and includes amongst its investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Gannett Company, Sand Hill Capital and U.S. Venture Partners. The Peacock Equity investment is 4INFO’s 5th round, with the company having taken $8 million Series C in March 2005 and $10 million Series D in June this year. The amount of Peacock Equity’s investment was not disclosed.
Interesting to see all the players in the space, and hence the inevitable fall-out once a real player emerges.
These 4INFO guys, right now, provide nothing more than your “fortune” from a free text message, at least according to their demos.
I’m sure we’ll see this tied into Hulu, assuming NBC continues to innovate, and that could make a pretty cool service.
HOPEFULLY, since 4info provides sports information, we won’t see the monopolistic control of these carriers, and say, for example, CBS is broadcasting Patriots v Colts, and since it’s on CBS, NBC would not authorize 4info to send you the score, but instead would suggest you watch their Sunday Night Football property.
Another interesting cross between properties would be a Moses-like text application combined with 4info. I don’t work for Moses, but they have a pretty kick ass service — I was at a conference, and it enables you to text questions/comments/jabs at the guests and moderator.
It wasn’t handled too well at the conference I went to, but nonetheless, it was entertaining.
Andrew,
Stay tuned for that cross between Mozes and 4Info.
2-way interactive sms technology on a short code that is ad supported. Mobivity has all the capabilities of Mozes and then some. We are integrating an ad supported version so it can be offered free to those that don’t mind having a small ad at the end.
Also includes powerful API for delivering any content via SMS.
I agree that having NBC invest in 4Info might leave users skeptical when it comes to the news content they deliver.
Greg Harris, CEO
Mobile Visions, Inc
http://www.mobivity.com
Nice Info , thanks for sharing.
http://tekno-wo...ld.blogspot.com
Series D, E? Still not profitable? Amazing!
That’s good news, I would like to see news from event. entertainment and media alert in text messaging.
4info is a very helpful service. Congratulations to the team!
Why pay $80/month for Mobivity’s service when 4INFO offers its Open Platform service (http://open.4info.net) for free? And NBC will have no control over the news content 4INFO delivers, as that is already provided in most markets by Gannett properties (the latter is a larger investor in 4INFO), but I don’t believe either investor has exclusive rights to 4INFO news content. In any case, you may be too late to the game, Mobivity.
Gern
Congratulations to the team at 4info.net – it is indeed a useful service and helping to promote the use of mobile beyond voice. In regards to Mobivity vs. 4Info or any of the other 25 companies in the US offering services in the same realm – it is not about having the biggest chunk of the cake at this stage, the cake is too small. What is crucial is to drive the adoption and promote the use of mobile service and hence making this one hell of a cake, then (aka 2010) lets sit down and argue about being late to the game.
Martin
FYI — 4INFO just made major changes to their business and will not focus on SMS advertising any longer.
A large portion of their ad-sales force have been laid off after low pick up from agencies. They’re doing $1m in annual revenues and that doesn’t support having 80 people on payroll.
This is not a good thing for mobile advertising as it needs more companies knocking on doors to increase the spend.