earth9 to build “meferral”
- online word-of-mouth marketing platform to harness full potential of social networking

Singapore, 18 January 2007 – Online and interactive marketing specialist earth9 has been appointed by Slinkeedoo, Inc., an Internet startup company based in San Mateo, California, USA, to develop “meferral”, an online word-of-mouth marketing platform based on the principles of social networking. 

This will be one of the first global social networking projects commissioned out of Singapore.  earth9 was chosen over vendors from USA, Eastern Europe, India and China, and once again reinforced its presence in the online marketing arena. 

meferral is based on the primary concept of “me + referral”.  Consumer word-of-mouth has consistently proven to be most effective in marketing and yet it remains a challenge to harness its benefits fully.  There are limited solutions available today to enable advertisers to integrate authentic “brand placement” within consumer dialogues, whether the dialogues are occurring in blogs, emails, mobile communications, or instant messaging. 

Earl Trevor Allan, Managing Director of earth9, said: “Inherent in the meferral brandname is a highly feasible idea that accurately captures consumer behavior – that desire to seek out good recommendations and to share an experience.  It will resonate with everyone and anyone.  We are confident we will do justice to such a promising concept.”

The experience that earth9 will bring to the project is something that Morris Sim, Founder of Slinkeedoo, Inc., highlighted as a key factor for selecting the company.  He said: “earth9 is an ideal partner for Slinkeedoo.  Their team has proven technology expertise and they are able to assist us in effectively bringing our solutions to market.

earth9 has a rich history of developing and marketing online community tools (holding a patent for its Real Groups Support technology) and global projects such as “MSDN Connection” and “theSpoke”.  The company was recently appointed by Danish healthcare company Ferrosan Asia Pacific to develop a complete global customer relationship marketing (CRM) system for Imedeen, the leader in internal skincare.

By powering community web sites, meferral provides a robust social networking toolbox that enables web site users to share their recommendations with their social networks.  Links to recommendations are easily embedded into blogs, emails and any other online postings, and users can visualize real-time trends from their social network’s activity across the Internet.  Advertisers and potential partners can either license the platform or buy advertising on sites powered by meferral. 

Brands and content providers can leverage the meferral platform to build rich communities and networks based on the geographic or interest affinities of their target audiences.   With meferral, companies will be able to plug in Web 2.0 functionality quickly and inexpensively to drive traffic and ‘stickiness’ on their web sites.

Slinkeedoo has already begun outreach on meferral to potential clients and partners in Asia, and is optimistic about the technology’s potential here.  Howard Lo, a prolific blogger and investor in Slinkeedoo, said: “With a burgeoning young internet population, Asia is a prime location for users of meferral.  46 per cent of online Asians blog and rely on blog content as trustworthy sources.  meferral is a great platform to help friends and families turn their blog content into recommendations and information that everyone in their network can tap into.”

meferral is currently in a beta stage and will continue to enhance and improve its platform in the coming months.. 

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About earth9

Founded in 1998, earth9 is a pioneer in the online and interactive marketing space in Singapore.  The company has helped many organizations understand how integrating an online element can impact traditional sales and marketing programs – from creating awareness to engaging and retaining customers, and tracking and measuring return on investment (ROI).

earth9 has a set of e-marketing applications for content, campaign, loyalty program and e-commerce management.  These solutions are built firmly with the marketer in mind, are easy to use, provide concrete marketing metrics and typically require no integration with existing infrastructure.

The company has a track record in helping clients increase the value of their customer relationships.  Some of these clients, located across Asia Pacific, Europe and North America, include Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, StarHub, OCBC Bank, Imedeen and Singapore Media Academy.  For more information about earth9, please visit www.earth9.com.  

About Slinkeedoo

Slinkeedoo, Inc. builds the tools, content, and destinations to connect brands to their recommenders.  The company’s word-of-mouth marketing platform, meferral, powers online communities across the Internet.

Founded by former technology and entertainment executives, Slinkeedoo’s tools facilitate authentic word-of-mouth buzz about brands’ products and services.  The company is based in San Mateo, CA, USA.  For more information, please email info@slinkeedoo.com.

Media Contact:
Email: pr@earth9.com