NEXT - Nexicon’s Corporate Blog

Today’s discovery is worth a little bonus blog, I bet this will move some eyes in our country’s capital. As I tell the story, I will provide illustrations to support my claims and findings. This morning, I grabbed my coffee, and decided to sit down and enjoy a trip around the globe in our DigitalRanger Earthview product, powered by Google Earth, which shows us and our clients digital piracy in real time. I perused many countries and regions until a tiny dot in the middle of the ocean caused me to take a big sip of my hot coffee. After zooming in on the little dot it became bigger and it showed 121 peers last in the last 24 hours, with a total of 511 infringements in the same time frame.  I was thinking “Damn, this is a bug I have to fix.” I assumed the coordinate system had to be wrong, and I was about to call the engineer when I looked at the information behind the IP address which read: “Apo United States Navy”. I investigated it and came to the conclusion that the little dot in EarthView was accurate! After further research, I was able to determine that this little dot was a Navy ship, whose soldiers where using the Internet to download content from one of our clients, illegally.

I became excited and got my hands on a database of all known government references, and plotted them into MARC, and what do you know, dots popped up in the middle of oceans around the globe. Not only that, but I had dots appearing where I could swear there is nothing but desert. I turned on adult content filters and even more dots showing up.  I figured that I could estimate the amount of people (soldiers) on the dots (vessels) by observing how many peers the system revealed per dot, in a given time frame. One could easy guess with high accuracy what type of vessel or base I was actually staring at, and the digital piracy habits of their soldiers and crew.

DigitalRanger EarthView

Included is a sample of the dots showing one that I keep tracking in the area. I hope you all find my discovery interesting, and one that highlights the true power behind our MARC system. Our technology never ceases to amaze even its creator and the engineers who further its development. At one point during all of this, I was reminded of when I delivered services for the US government in DC some years back.  The next thing that came to my mind was, “I should really find some foreign content to track, and keep tabs on their fleets as well.”  I am absolutely stunned as to the many uses for our data - most people think this is only piracy data, but think about it, Nexicon reveals facts.  We can show not only movies and music, but everything on the Internet in digital form. This information can provide a treasure of intelligence, revealing people’s habits and in turn, a whole new level of marketing research. Does anyone but me realize how powerful this data is for marketing purpose - Business Intelligence anyone?

This concludes this post, I better call it quits before I raise too many paranoid eyebrowns. Stay tuned for the next blog and please comment and share your feedback and thoughts with us.

Pardon the interruption into Tommy’s wonderful blog, of which we have received very positive feedback thus far. Thanks to Tommy for spending the time to update everyone on the exciting developments at Nexicon.

The question on many people’s mind these days goes something like, “This is all very exciting and the future looks incredibly bright, but how again does Nexicon make money from all of this?” I will answer the comment that was asked in this post.

As much as we would like, Nexicon is not yet ready to release 2009’s earnings forecast. Yes, we have a 2009 revenue forecast, one that I obsessively tinker with and manage on a daily basis. There are aspects which are fluid, as various initiatives take shape each day. As soon as our executive team and advisory board have finalized, we will make this information available to the public.

With respect to the question about how Nexicon will drive revenue, let me first say this. Prior to joining Nexicon, I was fortunate to spend 13 years as an executive with Andersen Consulting and Accenture. During my tenure, I had the opportunity to help senior leaders at many Fortune 50 companies grow revenue and reduce costs through the use of innovative and value-driving technologies and solutions. Amongst all of the ‘best-practices’ and thought leadership my teams and I helped impart on various companies, there was one general and guiding principle that I took with me to Nexicon. It is so simple yet so crucial to success. Deliver Value. When recommending and implementing corrective or new solutions and initiatives, it must provide substantial value for the client. At all times, our team at Nexicon is focused on leading with value. By providing innovative and game-changing, value-driving solutions for clients in the way of revenue growth, cost reduction, or the best available data and information for decision making, the ability to realize revenue for Nexicon becomes that much easier.

On our website, readers can learn about our various products and solutions. When we take our DigitalRanger product to a client, we provide value by reporting on real-time digital piracy, and in turn, Nexicon enters into long-term agreements to provide this service, along with support, to the client - whether a multi-billion dollar media company or a small publisher of written material. Revenue is influenced by the number of titles monitored and company size. Through DigitalRanger, clients may also send customized Cease and Desist notices, in which case Nexicon bills a client based on number of notices sent.

Some of these clients require additional insight into the data provided by DigitalRanger, in which case we produce a Business Intelligence report which delivers quantitative and qualitative information, over a period of time, on certain digital assets for a client. We deliver value by helping clients understand where their assets are being consumed around the world by metropolitan area, so that strategic decisions around piracy countermeasures or more importantly where marketing and sales teams should focus their efforts. In exchange for the value delivered, Nexicon charges a flat rate per report delivered.

For clients who require evidence against malicious facilitators of digital piracy, Nexicon provides investigative services. DigitalRanger is used by Nexicon’s subject matter experts to identify the infringers, and evidence is collected and stored for use in litigation. In exchange for the value delivered, Nexicon provides these services at a fixed hourly rate.

In some cases, clients are subject to malicious hacking and theft of their digital assets. Nexicon delivers value to these clients by providing full-scale and comprehensive security assessments, ranging from network security to data storage to email usage. In exchange for the value delivered, Nexicon enters into consultative commercial arrangements to provide the assessment, and is able to provide solutions based on the findings and recommendations.

Through our GetAmnesty and PayArtists solutions, we share with the rights holders settlements collected via the DMCA notices sent to infringers. The copyright holder sets the dollar amount per infringement - in the case of PayArtists and for Frank Zappa, the settlement amount is $10 per infringement. Nexicon’s MARC platform is capable of sending 95 million DMCA notices each day. Nexicon’s MARC platform monitors billions of illegal downloads of copyrighted material on a daily basis.

With our YouScout solution (via our partnership with YouTube), we deliver value to clients by reducing their internal costs incurred in managing their content via YouTube’s video fingerprinting solution. Nexicon’s resources can perform these services in a much more efficient and cost-effective manner. In exchange for Nexicon reducing a client’s internal costs, Nexicon enters into long-term agreements to provide such services. In some cases, Nexicon can share in the advertising revenue generated by viewers who click on our clients’ claimed content on YouTube.

For our newest product, Envoy, we deliver value for ISP’s by reducing the internal costs associated with processing electronic DMCA notices. In exchange for this, we enter into long-term agreements to provide an ISP with the Envoy service and related support.

Nexicon is involved in other initiatives that are tied to revenue, but due to in-place NDAs, I cannot comment on their nature.

Tommy has blogged about our new offerings that will be available early next year. For those products, the revenue models are in the process of being shaped. At the appropriate time, the company will provide the related information.

As you should be able to see by now, Nexicon delivers value for clients through multiple channels, which translates nicely into corresponding revenue streams.

That is all for now, I turn the ‘microphone’ back to Tommy, and we continue with our regularly scheduled programming.