PARK CITY, Utah, Feb. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SpectrumDNA, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: SPXA), the leading provider of embeddable social media applications, today issued the following letter:
Dear Shareholders:
2008 was some year! I appreciate the hard work, devotion and selflessness that our entire team has shown over the course of last year and continues to show every day. Our business, like so many others, was not without both high and low points, but we not only weathered the still raging economic storm but also were able to move our business significantly forward through the re-launch of our flagship product and by securing several key strategic partnerships.
Our partnership with Comedy Central on the Political Addictionary (http://politicaladdictionary.com) set two significant milestones for our business:
- Comedy Central was the first licensee for our flagship software-as-a-service product, The Addictionary. Licensing to Comedy Central validated our marketing strategy in which we provide social media software applications to media and brand partners bolstering their brand and the engagement of their existing audience. Due to the significant increases Comedy Central experienced in its core audience metrics, they have effectively monetized our software via advertising.
- The Political Addictionary turned into a "brand asset"--a recognized brand within the world of political and social commentary across the internet. It has become the de facto online destination where politicos and political bloggers communicate with each other around the lingo of politics. Thus far, 640,000 people have added over 7,500 words.
The Political Addictionary has become a mainstay in the social commentary about our political system and hit its stride leading up to the '08 election, which provided our company business development momentum going into Q4'2008, as planned.
As we all know, the last three months of 2008 proved a tenuous time for many, including us, given the severe economic downturn. Despite this, our Addictionary product attracted three additional marquee partnerships:
- NBC Universal licensed and launched The Office Addictionary for their hit television show "The Office" (http://officeaddictionary.com);
- Universal Press Syndicate's digital group UClick licensed the Addictionary for syndication to regional newspapers and websites;
- E! Entertainment licensed and launched The Celebrity Addictionary (http://celebrityaddictionary.com), which has rapidly grown into the most popular Addictionary implementation.
Also in the fourth quarter of 2008, Harry Abrams released Addictionary: Brave New Words, the first of a series of books based on words and definitions contributed by Addictionary users from all over the world. The book was selected as one of the Top 25 Holiday Gifts by Entertainment Weekly magazine.
Finally, the Addictionary product made its debut as an iPhone application, garnering hundreds of downloads per day. We are continuing to improve the app, and this is an avenue of distribution and audience engagement that will be further exploited going forward, for the Addictionary and our other products.
The ever-growing Addictionary network now enjoys nearly 1 million user-visits per month, and it continues to grow. We are in active negotiations with a number of media and brand partners for new Addictionary instances. Even in this economic climate, we feel our sales plan for Addictionary upon which we're currently executing will take us to profitability by Q4'2009 or Q1'2010.
The opportunities to "scale" our enterprise lay along two strategies:
- The more Addictionary partner-verticals we secure, the bigger the "network effect" opportunities become. Those opportunities include mining the user-generated content for ancillary exploitation (books, calendars, greeting cards, etc), market research derived from what's proving to be an affluent and educated Addictionary user-base, and possibly an advertising sales network across the Addictionary verticals.
- Selling more social media applications to our clients through the trusted pipeline created by the Addictionary's creativity and measurable return on investment (ROI).
Per the latter, our second product, PlanetTagger (a licensable mobile-social networking application) went through a complete re-design in late 2008/early 2009, based on what we learned from our test-markets--Calle Soccer and The Canyons Ski Resort during 2008. We intend to make announcements of significance soon with respect to this "version2.0" of PlanetTagger.
Finally, I'd like to express how proud we were to add three stellar industry figures to our Board of Directors in 2008. Jim Moloshok, Executive Chairman of the Betawave ad network; Michael Dowling, CEO of market research mavens Interpret, LLC; and Anthony Stonefield, a mobile content and applications pioneer, and CEO of eMotive, Inc. Each are experienced, engaged, and proactive agents of our company's mission, and they bring extraordinary experience, gravitas and personal business network in the industries of media/advertising, market research/analytics, and mobile content/applications, respectively. We are fortunate indeed they decided to join us last year and their contributions can be seen in every product we make and sale we consummate.
The executive team and I are looking forward to 2009.
The word on our successes with the Addictionary product is spreading into the media and entertainment industries. And we are seeing media and advertising companies increasingly embrace our ideas about sustainable social-media strategies. We have case-studies now that convincingly and compellingly illustrate the ROI value-proposition for our products, and our approach to product development. We have a lean and devoted team of professionals forged in the heat of a troubled economy, activating a business plan and a vision that is proving veracious and compelling in down times and which promises to become supercharged as the economy turns upward.
Furthermore, our executive team, quality products, customer base, and experience in social media programming poise us to judiciously collect people, intellectual property and potentially companies during 2009 and 2010, should we find they could further fuel SpectrumDNA's positive momentum. I look forward to what we can and intend to accomplish in 2009. Thank you all for your support and dedication.
Sincerely,
Jim Banister
CEO
www.spectrumdna.com
About SpectrumDNA, Inc.:
SpectrumDNA, Inc. is a digital studio that creates social applications for media outlets and advertisers that are engines of engagement (or "Enginets"), empowering users to take an active, measurable role in their online communities. Enginets can be easily configured and branded by customers to capture specific behaviors and to develop advertiser-safe user-generated content, for both short-term promotions and for building long-term assets. Enginets employ both a centralized experience (web and/or mobile wireless destination) and distributed experience (widgetry, iPhone apps, feeds, etc). More at http://www.spectrumdna.com
Safe Harbor Statement:
This release contains certain forward-looking statements and information relating to SpectrumDNA, Inc. that are based on the beliefs and assumptions made by our management as well as information currently available to our management. When used in this letter, the words "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "continue," "estimate," "intend," "plans," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Given the early stage of SpectrumDNA, Inc., most of the statements made herein are forward-looking. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from those included within the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. We undertake no obligation to publicly release the result of any revision of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
Jim Banister | SpectrumDNA, Inc. | 435-658-1349
