Dotcom pioneer Low breaks new ground in mobile ad frontier

By Stan Beer
Sunday, 22 March 2009 15:27

Opinion and Analysis

Ten years ago a young Australian Internet pioneer showed the world how it could surf the web for free. Now Sydney Low, co-founder of one-time free ISP FreeOnline and its affiliated Internet technology company Sharinga Networks, is back in the game. However, this time he's playing in the mobile phone space with a new company called RedTxt.

Back in 1999, the names of young dot com trail blazers like Steve Outtrim, Evan Thornley, and Paul and Andrew Bassat were making headlines in the financial press daily.

So too were FreeOnline founders Sydney Low and Bill Lang, who had succeeded in building FreeOnline into what was then Australia's second largest ISP with more than 400,000 subscribers.

FreeOnline differentiated itself from competitors by enabling dial-up subscribers to surf the web for free if they were prepared to accept targeted advertising offers.

The concept was revolutionary for its day and the delivery platform owned by sister company Sharinga networks proved to be an attractive target for Concert, a joint venture between BT and AT&T, which took a US$62 million stake in the company.

Low's understanding of the online advertising revenue market has led him to what he sees as the new growth market for the current age. Free SMS messages, funded by targeted text ads for opt-in subscribers.

However, Low is quick to dismiss any idea of simply sending annoying text ads to phones.

"It just wouldn't work. People hate spam; I hate spam," he says.

"Our research has shown us that the only SMS advertising that can work is a community based ad attached to a text message targeting a specific opt-in community."

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