<i>What Kiip does is so brilliant it's almost shocking. The rewards network provides game developers with a targeted advertising system that aligns in-game achievements with brands. In other words: score a thousand points, and a voucher for a bag of Pop Chips comes up onscreen.</i><p>Awesome, I can't wait till they combine this with real-world achievements; "Brushed your teeth 3 times today! Save 50 cents on Colgate toothpaste! TOOTHPASTE UNLOCKED"<p>Yet one more method for the profit motive to seep into our lives. Instead of enjoying life, this 20 yr old is figuring out how to make our lives more about the money -_-'
"The first thing you notice about Kiip CEO Brian Wong is how decidedly un-CEO he actually looks...In nerdy black glasses and a halfway zipped navy hoodie (flecked with kaleidoscope colors on closer inspection), the young man who graduated from college as a fresh faced 19 year old could've very well been, you know, anyone."<p>Has the author never seen a tech CEO before? Or the Social Network? Are you totally kidding me? This is no longer "un-CEO," my friend, this is de rigueur.
tl;dr: he's young, he just got 4 mil, he's building an achievement-based mobile ad product. And once he becomes a millionaire, he's going to be a space tourist.
For you tl:dr types, here is the epiphany:<p>“One of things that I realized is that with traditional advertising, like when you see something like Mad Men or when you see Ogilvy — the geniuses of the ad space — it was all experience, it was all about emotion. It was never about, ‘Hey how can I reach you in real time and blast you with messages.'”<p>One of the ways Kiip makes this core insight real is not to slam a gamer with broadcast ads in-game, but to make the ads a reward. A coupon for Pepsi as a reward for defeating the boss, for example.<p>The firm (kiip.me) builds the tools so that developers can design that sort of advertising into their products.
What's with the TL;DR attitude? I thought this was a great read, and I look forward to hearing more about this company. I'd also like to read more about this guy as he sounds like an interesting and innovative character.<p>HN is the last place I'd expect to get a whiff of Tall Poppy Sydnrome.