Ortsbo Unveils Next Chapter of Corporate Strategy
Ortsbo, Inc. (a subsidiary of Intertainment Media Inc. (TSX VENTURE: INT)(OTCQX: ITMTF)(FRANKFURT: I4T)) is pleased to unveil key elements of the Corporate Strategy that have been under development and market validation over the last nine months. "The Ortsbo business is built on a simple premise: It's inherently valuable to enable people from around the world to communicate across languages on the internet" states Ortsbo President, Patrick Bultema. While the internet has provided an essentially free global communication capability, language still divides markets and social communities. What's more, this language barrier is important because the most robust growth on the internet is in languages that haven't historically been at the center of technically developed markets, languages such as Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic, and others. According to Common Sense Advisory, the online communications market has grown to $44.6 trillion dollars globally, with just 33% reachable with english-only content.
"All this reflects the compelling dynamic of globalization," continues Bultema. "Ortsbo is the new dimension that removes the language barrier from the internet for real-time, social-casual communication experiences."
"We've been fortunate to have the foundation of innovation and market momentum Ortsbo has already created. We aren't leaving any of this value behind," says Bultema. To date, Ortsbo has worked with global brands that include Disney, Marvel with Stan Lee, Indy, Kiss, and many others. Through these and other entertainment initiatives, Ortsbo has touched hundreds of millions of people, across more than 60 languages, in over 170 countries.
The key elements of our strategy going forward are our market focus and monetization strategy. Ortsbo is monetizing the business in three lines: Global Commercial Communications; Gamification; and Cross-Language Social Networks. The Global Commercial Communications line is about enabling businesses to communicate with their customers across languages for valued business objectives. One such area is multi-lingual customer care, today a $200 billion plus market. Ortsbo Global Customer Care makes it possible for an agent in a low cost geographic region, to provide customer care to customers around the globe across a range of languages. Or similarly, Ortsbo Global Market Communication makes it possible for global companies to communicate with customers for product launches and social marketing more effectively and at a lower cost, and this represents an almost $700B spend worldwide. Ortsbo Gamification provides cross-language functionality for online games, a huge theme for the increasingly online and global player phenomenon. In fact, online gaming is a $40B a year industry and growing. Finally, the Ortsbo Social Network line focuses on social networks where cross-language capability is a key feature and need. Examples of this include travel social networks, international dating sites, and more. Online dating alone is a $1.7B per year industry.
"As we move into our season of driving revenue and growth, we have been very disciplined in defining a highly leveraged and scalable strategy with three key drivers for strategic focus. First, our initiatives focus on areas where there is already established demand for cross-language communication. Second, we are following the money ... in other words, we are focusing on areas where money is already changing hands and the Ortsbo capability creates dramatic value propositions. Finally, we are focusing on areas where we gain network effects, where the power of social networks naturally leverages us to a position of market momentum," explains Bultema.
"Over the last nine months, the Ortsbo new team has been very heads down. Over the next number of weeks," continues Bultema, "we will provide a series of releases to further unpack our strategy and progress. We will provide more detail on each of the lines as we launch products, but always with strategic partners, customers, and revenue models. So stay tuned."
Seasoned tech company leader and industry maker, Patrick Bultema, joined Ortsbo as President in March, 2012. He has served as a CEO, Venture investor, advisor, and founder to tens of emerging technology companies. Most recently, CEO of CodeBaby, Venture Partner at vSpring Capital, CEO of XAware, CEO of global software company FrontRange Solutions, founder of Knowlix, and more. "Patrick is a leader with a proven background of creating insightful vision, scalable strategy, forming outstanding teams, and business execution," states Intertainment Media CEO, David Lucatch. From this point forward, Bultema will serve as the primary voice of Ortsbo as the company continues on the announced spin-out plans to maximize Ortsbo and INT value. Bultema will be available and an active participant at the Intertainment Media, Annual General Meeting scheduled for November 28, 2012 in the Toronto area. "We are very pleased to have Patrick's leadership and insight with Ortsbo during this exciting time," states Chairman, Herb Willer.
About Ortsbo Inc.
Ortsbo (www.ortsbo.com) enables real-time, cross-language communication experiences. Delivered as a Cloud computing service, Ortsbo can be embedded into high value communication processes and internet endpoints to create dramatic value across more than 65 languages. Based on invention and proprietary technology, Ortsbo creates unparalleled, high-fidelity experiences. With offices in Colorado, Austin, Los Angeles and New York, Ortsbo is a portfolio company subsidiary of Intertainment Media (www.intertainmentmedia.com).