We are very pleased to announce that Dirk Schacht has joined plista as the new Sales Director.

Dirk will be responsible for heading up the sales department, winning new clients and partners and generally strengthening the sales side of things.

With over 10 years’ experience, Dirk was the ideal candidate for the position- one we spent over 6 months looking to fill. So, how does the man in question feel about his new role at plista?

“I’m very excited to have the opportunity to play an active part in the plista success-story. I see a huge growth potential in the exciting market of online marketing and I see plista at the forefront of product innovation and market know-how.

I’m looking forward to tackling the challenges ahead and to help make plista even more successful than it already is. A real driver for me is to be able to work with such great people here. Everyone is extremely motivated, driven and cares for the future of the company. That makes working here a privilege and a pleasure.”

Welcome aboard, Dirk!

As a graduate, things aren’t always so rosy on the job search front. Either there are slim pickings for decent jobs, or the placements that are available are less than desirable, with poor pay and little meaningful work experience.

Here at plista, we don’t want to be part of that group. We believe in offering not only great job opportunities, where you can learn, grow and develop new skills, but also in offering placements for graduates that will be fulfilling, enjoyable- and, last but definitely not least, paid a decent chunk of Euros. To make our commitment to fair employment even more firm, plista has now officially joined the Fair Company Initiative, which provides support and information for both employers and graduates.

Interested in opportunities at plista? Then keep an eye out for the jobs section of plista.com, or simply email jobs@plista.com with your CV and a cover letter telling us who you are, what you’re good at, and what you could offer us. We look forward to hearing from you!

Find out more about the Fair Company Initiative: http://www.karriere.de/startseite/fair-company/

Jobs currently available at plista: http://www.plista.com/career

With only a couple of days left until Christmas, the plista-office is as busy as ever. Nevertheless, despite the festive in-house distractions- there’s a plista Christmas tree winking at me from the corner- and the increasingly pressing need to wrap things up (work, mainly, but also some presents), I feel we have earned the time to reflect on what we’ve accomplished in 2011.

The year got off to a great start with plista winning the European Seal of Excellence Award for our exceptional targeting technologies and innovative advertising formats at the CeBIT 2011 congress. Not that we’re ones to rest on our laurels: full steam ahead, this year alone we expanded to Slovenia, France, Spain and Belgium, gaining several new publishers and staff members along the way. On the product front, following our continued network growth we launched MobileRecommendationAds and SlideRecommendations, in addition to rolling out the plista microsites functionalities for regional advertising (Regionalwerbung).

To celebrate a successful year, and to thank our current partners, we would like to present you with a little Christmas gift: until the end of January, we are offering a 15% discount on additional booked volume. Take this opportunity to give your campaign a final burst during the holiday shopping season, or to get the New Year off to a good start. To find out more about the offer and for your individual quotation you can contact us by email: advertiser@plista.com or by phone: https://www.plista.com/advertisers/info/text-img

We are continually developing new products and improving our targeting capabilities, and next year is set to be packed with even more exciting announcements. With over 1,000 publishers already onboard, we look forward to welcoming new partnerships and further expansions in 2012.

Here’s to a very merry Christmas, and see you in the New Year!

In my last blog, I wrote about how Facebook’s Open Graph apps and their resulting unfiltered streams of information (‘frictionless sharing’) had caused a severe online backlash. A couple of blogs in particular caught my attention. One argued that Facebook had re-defined sharing, and that ‘seamless sharing’ would soon become the norm; another thought it was an example of a new type of media consumption, where instead of having to trawl the web for media- be it news articles, blogs, or social media updates- this media would come directly to the user.

Media consumption is changing, and technologies are evolving in order to adapt. Unfortunately Facebook’s interpretation, with its Open Graph apps and constant flow of unfiltered information to its users, isn’t quite up to scratch. If information coming directly to the user is the future of media consumption, then it is important that this is not an entirely passive and unfiltered process; as outlined in my previous blog, filtering and personalization is precisely what makes information valuable.

Personalized reading apps, such as Flipboard, Pulse and Zite, are an example of how technology can successfully implement and encourage this new type of media consumption. These apps allow you to select your preferred news, social and other media sources, and, based on your interests, this information is then aggregated, neatly packaged up and delivered straight to your own hand-held device.

Their appeal is understandable, largely because of their sheer usefulness, and they’re also a great time saver. Flipboard in particular has become one of the most popular, due in part to its magazine-style, easy-to-navigate design. When Flipboard launched its iPhone app last week, it was met with such demand that it briefly crashed- though this didn’t dent the app’s popularity: the company announced only the other day that it had gained 1 million new users as a result of the launch.

Not only are personalized reading apps changing the way users consume media, but their increasing relevance have been making the online advertising industry- especially publishers- sit up and pay attention. Publishers need to get in on this new trend, as the danger is that their content is bled out from them without generating any revenue for the publisher through advertising. As one blogger put it, personalized reading apps can epitomize “the best and the worst of the internet. The best is for the user. The worst is for the content providers that feed its stunning expansion without getting a dime in return”.

After initially giving users the added incentive of an ad-free experience, Flipboard started to display ads in July this year- remaining ad free would not have been sustainable for the company. It’s great news for advertisers, as Flipboard’s user data is a veritable gold mine, enabling them to deliver hyper-targeted ads. However, publishers still need to up their game, and either focus on providing competition for personalized reading apps, or get in on the deal through advertising.

At plista, we help publishers monetize content whilst at the same time making their readers’ experience more enjoyable. Our SlideRecommendations and RecommendationAds revolve around the same principle as personalized reading apps, in that based on the readers’ interests (determined through algorithms) we bring content that the reader will find useful directly to his or her screen. Through the plista ‘you might also find this interesting…’ widget, readers stay on the publisher’s page longer, as they are continually receiving new, interesting content to discover.

With the plista format, everyone wins; advertisers and publishers generate revenue, and the web user receives filtered information based on what they are interested in.  If this is the form future media consumption will take, I’d be happy with that: having my interests and favorite pages brought to me, showing me things I might otherwise have missed, sounds not only enjoyable and hassle-free but, in a time-poor online world, hugely useful too. Here’s to the future.

Find out more about our SlideRecommendations and RecommendationAds

Facebook has done it again: managed to cause general outrage amongst its users because of yet another change to the social networking site. The cause of this most recent backlash is the addition of the Open Graph apps, which, by automatically sharing what a user has read or listened to, are there to enable ‘frictionless sharing’, to use Facebook’s terminology. Unfortunately for Facebook however, its ‘frictionless sharing’ has definitely rubbed some people up the wrong way.

With the Open Graph, when you read a Facebook-app integrated Guardian article, or listen to music via Spotify, this information is automatically  shared, unfiltered, with your Facebook contacts via the Ticker, your profile, and sometimes also the news feed. Whilst it is possible to opt out and to choose who to share your media consumption with, the default setting automatically shares everything with all of your Facebook contacts.

The blogosphere has been in various states of uproar, with the new development being accused of everything from being pushy, manipulative and hostile to ruining the experience of sharing. Indeed, ‘sharing’ seems the wrong word to describe what the Open Graph apps do. Sharing is voluntary, a considered, definitive action: what the Open Graph is doing is unfiltered, unasked for broadcasting. Instead of enabling an easier environment for sharing what you’ve enjoyed reading or listening to with your friends, the Open Graph may end up alienating Facebook users, as your friends are unlikely to be interested in every single mundane minutiae of your media and music consumption.

As CNet’s Molly Rants points out, there is a difference between conscious sharing and Facebook’s ‘passive’ sharing. The Open Graph merely regurgitates vast amounts of unfiltered information, and is thereby removing the social, thoughtful aspect of deliberately sharing with your friends something you’ve enjoyed- the act of which being what many feel is the underlying social experience that makes Facebook so popular. Instead of encouraging anything, the Open Graph’s constant stream of information is putting people off, and instead of enabling sharing, it may inadvertently encourage self-censoring instead.

Facebook themselves seem to realize the potential discomfort or embarrassment caused by inadvertently sharing the fact that you’ve read a controversial article or listened to the entire back-catalogue of Ace of Base with all your Facebook contacts. Though it says on the Facebook blog that Facebook “may” develop its own solution to this problem, the onus and responsibility is put sternly back onto the users, who, the blog advises, can manually go back and delete embarrassing posts, limit who sees what on the Ticker, or opt out altogether. This is particularly irksome, and inconsiderate: why do we now have to go to the trouble of manually deleting posts and unticking boxes for a service we didn’t even want in the first place?  

The reasoning behind the so-called frictionless sharing and the Open Graph apps is that it allows Facebook to track what people are viewing, reading or listening to, and then to use that information to develop more personalized targeted ads and better services based on past user behavior. Whilst improving the quality of targeted ads can enhance the web browsing experience, Facebook has gone about it the wrong way. As one blogger points out, when data is used to recommend things, that’s a good thing, but when data is unfiltered, pushed out towards everyone, it becomes spam rather than something of interest. To quote: “That data could be used to deliver us new recommendations for discovery, analytics showing us things about ourselves we never knew before because we couldn’t see the forest for the trees. When a giant social network does it wrong though, that puts the whole opportunity for everyone to do it well at risk”.

At plista, we specialize in precisely what this particular blogger articulated- namely, gathering and filtering information in order to recommend relevant, useful content. Facebook has taken away the filtering process, which ironically is the one crucial ingredient that makes social sharing enjoyable; or, as in plista’s case, what makes our RecommendationAds so successful. From friends sharing specific songs they like, to plista filtering information to come up with specific recommendations to other content on a website, this filtering process is what made Facebook’s pre-Open Graph-era sharing personal and gratifying, and what makes plista’s RecommendationAds potent and relevant.

It will be interesting to see how the Open Graph develops, and if, as one blogger has predicted, it will indeed re-define sharing and the way we consume information. In the meantime, however, let’s hope Facebook implements a better, easier way to opt out of the Open Graph apps, and that the social media giant realizes that sharing does need to be a selective, conscious process. After all, not everyone needs, or wants, to know just how often you’ve listened to the latest song by Lady Gaga on Spotify.

Find out more about plista: http://www.plista.com/

-ENGLISH VERSION BELOW-

Sandra - Key Account Manager

1. Wofür bist du bei plista zuständig?
Ich betreue im Publisher Sales die Key Accounts in der DACH-Region, in erster Linie die Ösis – das wohl auch wegen meinem allseits beliebtem rollenden RRRR.

2. Dein bestes plista-Erlebnis oder dein größter plista-Erfolg?
Einzelerfolge wie Kundengewinnung zu nennen, fände ich nun langweilig. Die Messen in Wien oder in Köln waren aber mit meine Highlights des Jahres. Der Zusammenhalt in meinem Team ist außerdem Top.

3. Wenn plista ein Tier wäre, wäre es?
Ein Ameisenbär, weil er eine lange Zunge und gleichzeitig einen gut ausgeprägten Geruchssinn hat.

4. Was ist dein Lieblingsplatz in Berlin?
Als (noch) Touri der Stadt entdeckt man ständig neue, tolle Gegenden. Die Oberbaumbrücke und den Kiez in der Bergmannstraße finde ich charmant. Mustafas Gemüse Döner kann auch was.

5. Womit kann man dich auf die Palme bringen?
Unehrlichkeit. Bei der Frage „wer“, wäre die Antwort eindeutig Berliner Busfahrer gewesen.

6. An welchem persönlichen Gegenstand hängst du besonders?
Ich bin nicht sehr materialistisch. Es gibt aber z.B. eine Tasse in meiner Wohnung, die ich gekauft habe als ich nach dem Abi im Disneyland gejobbt habe. Die findet sich in jedem neuen Wohnort wieder ein und hat selbst auf la Réunion, Costa Rica oder in Portugal nicht fehlen dürfen.

7. Wer war der Held deiner Kindheit?
Pippi Langstrumpf

8. Was machst du zum Arbeitsausgleich?
Wenn ich mich mal aufraffe, dann Sport. Am liebsten würde ich nach der Arbeit surfen. Also im Moment eher das Standard-Programm, Fit, Berlin entdecken (v.a. kulinarisch), Freunde, Kurztrips, Yoga, Musicals, Tennis und skypen mit meinem 2-jährigen Neffen.

9. Welches Buch hast du zuletzt gelesen?
Ich mag alle Bücher von Paulo Coelho oder Marc Levy. Das letzte war „Brida“.

10. Beschreibe dich mit drei Worten!
Fernweh, Fernweh, Fernweh

Aus dem Bauch heraus – was sagt dir eher zu?

1. Coca Cola oder Pepsi
2. Kaffee oder Tee
3. Tag- oder Nachtmensch
4. Meer oder Berge
5. Kochen oder Bekochen lassen
6. Auto oder Fahrrad
7. Sommer oder Winter
8. Hund oder Katze
9. Computer- oder Brettspiele
10. Fleisch oder Tofu

Interesse bei plista zu arbeiten? Aktuelle Stellenangebote findest du hier:
http://www.plista.com/career

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

-ENGLISH-

1. What do you do at plista?
I supervise Publisher Sales in the DACH region, primarily the Austrians – probably because of my ever-popular rolling Rs

2. What’s been your best experience or greatest success at plista so far?
To list successes like the customers I’ve won would just be boring. The trade fairs in Vienna or Cologne were my highlights of the year. The cohesion in my team is great.

3. If plista was an animal…?
It’d be an ant-eater, because they have long tongues and at the same time also a well-developed sense of smell.

4. What’s your favorite place in Berlin?
As I’m (still) a tourist in the city, I keep on discovering new, great areas. I find the Oberbaum-bridge and the neighborhood of Bergmannstraße charming. Mustafa’s vegetable kebabs are also pretty good.

5. What annoys you?
Dishonesty. If the question had been who annoys me, the answer would have been Berlin bus drivers.

6. Which of your personal belongings are you most fond of?
I’m not very materialistic. But there is a cup in my flat that I bought in Disneyland, where I worked for a while after graduating from high school, which always manages to find its way into whatever new place I happen to be living in- it even came to La Reunion, Costa Rica and Portugal.

7. Who was your childhood hero?
Pippi Longstocking

8. What do you do in your free time?
If I can get myself up to it, then sport: I would love to be able to go surfing after work. But at the moment it’s more standard activities- the gym, discovering the culinary side of Berlin, meeting with friends, going on short breaks, yoga, musicals, tennis and skyping with my 2 year old nephew.

9. What was the last book you read?
I like all books by Paulo Coelho or Marc Levy. The last one I read was ‘Brida’.

10. Describe yourself in three words!
Wanderlust, wanderlust, wanderlust.

Gut instinct time – mark which option you prefer:

1. Coke or Pepsi
2. Coffee or tea
3. Day or night time person
4. The sea or mountains
5. To cook or to be cooked for
6. Car or bike
7. Summer or winter
8. Dog or cat
9. Computer or boardgames
10. Meat or tofu

You want to work at plista? Have a look here:
http://www.plista.com/career