GlobalRoam buys aSpecial Media stake, starts new service

Singapore

HOMEGROWN telco services provider GlobalRoam Group on Tuesday said it has invested S$2 million in local big data startup aSpecial Media, and will launch a new service - powered by aSpecial Media's technology - to help businesses better market their products to consumers based on what they have read online.

aSpecial Media - founded by three former Singapore Press Holdings executives - analyses online users' behaviour in real-time as they view content through their desktops or mobile devices. This data is then stored and continuously updated in a bid to build anonymous, rich interest profiles.

Chris Yeo, chief executive of aSpecial Media, told BT: "What users read online is definitely a more efficient predictor of their interests and potential activity than demographics. For instance, if a user has been reading articles on destinations in Bangkok for over a week, it is likely that he or she is planning a trip there."

To-date, aSpecial Media has amassed some 29 million unique interest profiles; currently, it analyses more than 127 million articles read monthly, and serves about 300 enterprise customers.

The startup hopes to next incorporate the user's purchasing history and shopping list to build a more robust profile that can help marketers or brands do more targeted advertising, shared Mr Yeo.

This latest Series A investment - for a "significant minority stake" in aSpecial Media - was made through GlobalRoam's subsidiary GNum, which provides URL-calling solutions that let users make and receive calls on their mobile phones via the Internet.

On Tuesday, GNum announced the launch of GNum Analytics, a global toll-free service that combines its proprietary "telephony" service with the analytics applications of aSpecial Media. It will help businesses track the behaviour and buying patterns of the "silent majority" of Internet users, referring to those who frequently scan the Internet for news and information but are inactive on social media.

While this inactivity means their behaviours have been largely neglected by traditional social media analytics, it is their opinions and preferences that shape buying patterns as e-commerce becomes increasingly prevalent, said Clarence Tan, founder of GlobalRoam.

He said: "GNum's new service will allow us to better serve our enterprises and SMEs by offering them information on their customers on top of our innovative calling solutions, thereby allowing enterprises to provide better customer service, for example."