Salmat to launch location based mobile advertising and social media service

Stuart Corner
Monday, 24 January 2011 16:38

IT Industry - Deals

Marketing services provider Salmat has formed a joint venture, Roamz with Australian "e-entrepreneur" Jonathan Barouch designed to deliver location specific information to users of mobile devices.

The service, to be launched in mid 2011, will deliver paid for advertising and user-generated information showing shows users what is happening around them in real-time through mobile devices.

According to Salmat, which will be the majority shareholder in Roamz, "Members of the Roamz community will be able to find out up-to-date information about what is happening at their location including user reviews of restaurants, pubs, events and places - all at the touch of a button and all in real time.

Barouch, who will be CEO of the JV, said: "Roamz will create a new exciting mobile social media experience that has not been seen in the Australian market before. Our aim is to establish Roamz as the destination site for users when they are out and about'¦This engaging platform will be globally scalable, leveraging social media and capitalising on the exponential growth in the use of web-enabled mobile devices."

According to Salmat CEO, Grant Harrod, "SMEs and B2C businesses [will be able] to present their products and services to a highly targeted localised buying audience. Demand for online retail marketing services is accelerating and we want to make sure we stay ahead of the game."

Barouch founded one of Australia's first e-commerce businesses in 1999 and, according to Salmat "built Fastflowers.com.au into one of Australia's leading floral chains with high level alliances with Myer, Telstra, Westpac among others." Fastflowers was acquired by Jack Singleton's 1300 Flowers in October 2010.