WMC Interviews: Jeff Rusinow

I recently spoke with Jeff Rusinow, a very busy guy who now heads up the Web 2.0 site TopNetPix, which has been described as "a combination of Mahalo, Yahoo and Netvibes." Jeff has been an active member of the early-stage venture capital community in the Midwest since 2000, when he founded Milwaukee’s first angel network, Silicon Pastures. He earlier spent 22 years in retail management, holding senior executive positions at Macy’s, Gimbel’s, the Hudson Bay Company and, most recently, Kohl’s Department Stores, where he served as an Executive Vice President until leaving the company in 2000.

Here's our conversation.

WebMarketCentral (WMC): What did you do before TopNetPix? What’s your background?

Jeff Rusinow (JR): I've been on the Board of Directors of a number of private and public companies over the past several years. Most recently, I was Chairman of Internet retailer Buyseasons, Inc., which was acquired in 2006 by Liberty Media. I'm currently Chairman of Neurognostics, a life sciences spin-out from the Medical College of Wisconsin, and also President of ETR Group, LLC, which recently sold the world’s largest Christmas-specific portal on the Internet, Christmas.com.

WMC: What made you decide the world needed a website like TopNetPix?

JR: There are so many results that are returned with a traditional web search. It can be overwhelming for an end-user to find exactly the information they are seeking. We decided that our editors could provide their Top Net Pix within given categories and users would be appreciative to avoid visiting sites with an excessive amount of advertising and a low amount of useful content. We strive to find high quality sites that get right to the point of what a user is seeking.

WMC: Is there any particular demographic group or groups you're targeting with this, or is pretty much for everyone?

JR: The site is pretty much for anyone, although there is a definite focus on individuals that want to make their Internet experience more efficient. We work to take the noise out of more traditional searches by selecting the top five to seven sites in a given topic.

WMC: I've seen TopNetPix described as "a better mousetrap, sort of a combination of Mahalo, Yahoo and Netvibes." Can you expand on that? What makes TopNetPix different?

JR: TopNetPix provides links to editor selected sites along with some commentary on what makes this site one of our pix. We try to be a balance between too many results from the big guys and content overkill from the other guys. In addition to the selection of high quality sites in a variety of categories, TopNetPix also provides a tool for customization of your TopNetPix experience.

WMC: What’s your "elevator pitch"—how do you describe the value your service brings to your users?

JR: We take the noise out of search by providing cleaner results and getting you quickly to the sites you will find the most informative in a variety of subjects.

WMC: How do you market and promote TopNetPix?

JR: We have run a few advertising campaigns on Facebook and have had a few press releases. Currently we have been focusing our marketing attention on our new MyTopNetPix application on Facebook, which allows users to add their favorite websites (and corresponding favicons). The tool will also allow you to share your favorite with your friends.

WMC: What’s the biggest or most important marketing lesson you’ve learned since
you got started in all this?

JR: Viral marketing in this day and age of the Internet seems to be the key. You need to design "kick-ass" applications and interfaces and then get as many people excited about them as possible.

WMC: Anything else you’d like to add?

JR: Keep your eyes out for new developments from TopNetPix and the ETR Group. We have some exciting projects in the works that will add to and enhance the user experience on TopNetPix.

*****

Contact Mike Bannan: mike@digitalrdm.com

Comments

Anonymous said…

Thank You
www.r10.net küresel ısınmaya hayır seo yarışması-www.r10.net küresel ısınmaya hayır seo yarışması -www.r10.net küresel ısınmaya hayır seo yarışması - ankara nakliyat - Mortgage - Toplist - oyun - izlesene - Rize - Güzel Sözler - pusat - netlog - hikaye - seo - küresel ısınmaya - hayır - r10 -

7:39 AM

All Time Greats

Getting More Out of Each Click with "Post-Click Marketing"

With the economy now officially in a recession (as if we didn't know that), marketers are under increasing pressure to do more with less. On the interactive marketing side, few marketers will get budget increases enabling them to drive more clicks. The challenge, then, is to maximize marketing productivity—to get more leads out of the same number of clicks. This is the first of two posts that will look at how to improve conversion rates to get more value from each click. One answer to this challenge is provided by "post-click marketing," a.k.a. lead automation management vendors. While the specifics of each service vary, all of them essentially: automate the process of extracting visitor IP information from your log files; match the IP address to an organization; filter out ISPs; and map the company name to one or more external databases to provide additional information (company size, industry, key contacts etc.). The better services also use geo-location filte...

Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEM

Search engine marketing (SEM) is one of the fastest-growing categories in all of advertising, because it is both measurable and logical: present your ads when people are searching for what you're selling. A well-crafted search marketing program can provide not only broad brand exposure at a very reasonable cost (with CPMs of $10 or less), but also high-ROI lead generation. As with any other type of advertising, however, a poorly-designed campaign will be a disappointing waste of money. In addition to best practices in search engine marketing , the following articles and blog posts were among the best of 2007 at providing helpful guidance for creating and managing effective search marketing programs. Five Common Paid Search Mistakes That Can Sink Your Campaign by Search Engine Guide Blogger Jennifer Laycock explains how common mistakes such as "ego bidding," writing a single ad for all keywords, and directing all of your traffic to a single landing page can limit the res...

The 8 Layers of a B2B Web Marketing Plan

One way to think about designing a B2B technology web marketing plan is as a series of layers, like an onion. At the core is SEO—simply making your website "findable" through organic search to buyers who are looking for what you offer. Working out from the center are concentric layers of additional investment and sophistication. Small companies and start-ups with modest budgets will focus most of their efforts on the inner layers or rings, which are primarily designed for lead generation. As the company and its marketing budget grow, efforts can be expanded to the outer layers, which are aimed more at branding but support lead generation efforts. Ideally, a company eventually reaches the outer layer where pure branding activities (such as print advertising) help to maximize the effectiveness of lead generation programs (such as SEM) near the center of the circle. This diagram shows how different types of web marketing programs can be prioritized in order to maximize the retur...

Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 2

This content has been moved to Best of 2008: Social Media Marketing on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: best free tools for monitoring social buzz social media marketing Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel Techrigy SM2 Key Web Data Chris Lang Google social bookmarking HubSpot Catie Foertsch Kate Morris TopRank Online Marketing Blog Jessica Cameron-Ruud Duct Tape Marketing John Jantsch CircleUp Traffic Travis del.icio.us tags: best free tools for monitoring social buzz social media marketing Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel Techrigy SM2 Key Web Data Chris Lang Google social bookmarking HubSpot Catie Foertsch Kate Morris TopRank Online Marketing Blog Jessica Cameron-Ruud Duct Tape Marketing John Jantsch CircleUp Traffic Travis icerocket tags: best free tools for monitoring social buzz social media marketing Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel Techrigy SM2 Key Web Data Chris Lang Google social bookmarking HubSpot Catie Foe...

SEO Link Building of 2008

Unless you are optimizing only for some extremely niche keywords, off-page optimization—building links from other websites to yours—is a critical and significant factor for SEO success. The blog posts cited here, some of the best of 2008 on the topic of link building, provide guidance on how and where to obtain valuable external links. They also offer advice on ineffective tactics and "bad neighborhoods" to avoid. Local Search Ranking Presentation - SMX LoMo 2008 by Website Promotion Is Not Voodoo Will Scott , president of Search Influence, shares his presentation from the San Francisco for SMX Local Mobile event. His deck actually covers the organic search marketinging basics—keywords, content and links. But his section on "where to get links" is particularly helpful for anyone seeking to optimize local search results. 8 Directory Submission Red Flags by Small Business Search Marketing Matt McGee offers advice on what to avoid when obtaining links throu...

Best of 2008 (So Far) - Social Media Optimization, Part 1

This content has been moved to Best of 2008: Social Media Marketing on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: social media, social bookmarking, social networking, Search Engine Marketing Exposed, Anthony Kirlew, OldSchool, Social Media Optimization, David Wilson, NxtERA Marketing Blog, Elana Anderson, CNET News, Brian R. Brown, SEO Scoop, DazzlinDonna, Dan Zarrella, Search Marketing Blog Online, Jon Clark, Mixx, Linkinn, MetaFilter, Elliance, evil nofollow links, Spokeo, Pandia Search Engine News, Phil Bradley, Spokeo, eBizMBA, Compete, Max Freiert del.icio.us tags: social media, social bookmarking, social networking, Search Engine Marketing Exposed, Anthony Kirlew, OldSchool, Social Media Optimization, David Wilson, NxtERA Marketing Blog, Elana Anderson, CNET News, Brian R. Brown, SEO Scoop, DazzlinDonna, Dan Zarrella, Search Marketing Blog Online, Jon Clark, Mixx, Linkinn, MetaFil...

The Best Web Marketing of 2008

Which types of online advertising provide the highest ROI? Who's really clicking on your PPC ads? Why do PPC costs keep rising? How can you convert more clickers into buyers? Are Web 2.0 technologies now mainstream? Learn these answers and more from this collection of blog posts and articles, some of the best reporting on online research topics so far this year. Online Marketers See High ROI from SEO by Marketing Pilgrim Blogger, SEO expert and PR pro Janet Meiners reports on an MarketingSherpa study detailing the growth in paid search and organic search engine optimization. Read her post to discover which types of online advertising get a thumbs up—and which are losing favor with interactive marketers. Who's really clicking? by iMedia Connection Sandeep Krishnamurthy , Professor of Marketing and E-Commerce at the University of Washington, paints a bleak picture of the future of PPC advertising—then gets blasted for it in the Comments by some fairly high-profile...

How to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan

With so little written on this topic (at least according to Google Blog Search ), one could easily conclude that marketing professionals must be born with knowledge of how to write a strategic marketing plan embedded in their genetic code. If you didn't enter the world with this capability hard-coded into your DNA, you may find the following helpful. The first step in developing a strategic marketing plan is to identify your target markets. Include both current customers (can we sell them more of what they are already buying, products and services in addition to what they are already buying, or a more premium version of our products/services?) and new prospects. For new prospective buyers, develop a separate plan for each micromarket (e.g. hospitals, insurance companies and community banks, all of which buy very differently). Next, ask the question: what do these prospects need in order to buy from me? (NOT "what do I need to sell to them?"). Divide this into three ...

Search This Blog