College students often pay more attention to their cell phones than their classes, so it’s not surprising a local company figured out a way to capitalize on this.
Mission Viejo’s Hothand Inc. runs what it calls the “university mobile network” that gives students intramural sports and recreation updates for their schools via a mobile phone-friendly Web site and text messages.
The network gives scores, standings and game schedules and hosts promotions in real time. Hothand makes money by selling advertising spots and promotional tie-ins.
It shares revenue with the university, which in turn promotes Hothand’s network.
One of its largest advertising deals is with electronics retailer Best Buy Co., which paid to sponsor content offered to students at the University of California, Los Angeles.
College students are a much-coveted target for advertisers, according to Tim Leets, chief marketing officer.
“They are glued to their phones,” he said. “These are the early adopters. The 18- to 24-year-old demographic is a tremendously sought after group because they are building their brand preferences. During college they see the same brands over and over again and develop an affinity.”
They’re also a captive audience during their years on campus, Chief Executive Randy Jaramillo said.
“College students tend to be very loyal to the universities they are going to and they love doing things associated with the university,” Jaramillo said.
The same holds true for faculty and staff members and local alumni groups, he said.
Hothand offers the service to more than a dozen schools. Its goal is to have 50 schools signed up within a year.
Hothand got its start in 2002, when founder Jaramillo filed patents for the technology to run the mobile network.
The privately held company has 10 workers here. It doesn’t disclose sales.
Next on deck is a similar network where students and alumni at the University of Southern California can browse a virtual store and buy logo clothes and other fan gear along with tickets to sports events.
$43M Paid for Vue
Lake Forest-based Vue Technology Inc., a maker of software for tracking inventory in stores, was recently bought by Sensormatic Electronics Corp. for $43 million.
Boca Raton, Fla.-based Sensormatic is a unit of Tyco International Ltd., which makes plastic electronic sensors attached to clothes and the doorway detectors that help prevent shoplifting in stores.
Privately held Vue, which has about 30 workers here, makes software that works with radio frequency identification chips used by retailers in the place of barcodes.
The company’s software tracks each item in the store and can tell workers whether an item is on the racks, in the back room or a warehouse.
Vue partners with others that make the radio frequency identification tags and readers, which use a chip and a tiny antenna to store and send information.
Using the software in combination with the chips saves on labor costs for the retailer.
“It reduces the labor required to do a physical inventory and the accuracy of inventory accounting goes up,” Chief Executive Robert Locke said. “The system allows the retailer to do a much better job of keeping items on the shelves and available for sale.”
Most of Vue’s customers are clothes retailers, including Los Angeles-based American Apparel Inc.
Tyco’s Sensormatic, which got its start more than 40 years ago, is in the business of “loss prevention”,a euphemism retailers use to talk about sales and profits lost through shoplifting or other means.
That includes when customers can’t find the items they are looking for even though the store’s inventory system says they’re in stock.
“If the buyer can’t get it when they want it, if it’s not on the shelves or in the back room, then it’s a lost opportunity,” said Scott Clements, Sensormatic’s vice president and general manager.
Sensormatic plans to offer Vue’s software as part of a “loss prevention” package.
The company was bought by Tyco in 2001.
It operates independently under Tyco and plans to leave Vue Technology’s management team in place.
New VP
Newport Beach-based CircleUp Inc., which makes networking software for e-mail and instant messaging, hired a marketing executive from another local startup.
The company hired Brad Cooper, 39, as its vice president of marketing.
His most recent post was as vice president of media and operations at Irvine’s WebVisible Inc.
CircleUp’s software acts like a social service for groups by making e-mail and instant messaging more efficient. It’s useful for sharing information among small groups such as sports teams and volunteer organizers.
At CircleUp, Cooper is set to oversee corporate communications, branding and efforts to sign up users.
Last year CircleUp landed $3 million in a first round of venture funding.
