{"id":163,"date":"2008-11-18T23:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T23:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vhirsch.wordpress.com\/2008\/11\/18\/blyk-gets-money\/"},"modified":"2008-11-18T23:23:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-18T23:23:00","slug":"blyk-gets-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/18\/blyk-gets-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Blyk gets money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left;cursor:hand;width:200px;height:200px;margin:0 10px 10px 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_krrmJx627x4\/SSNUw-907gI\/AAAAAAAADYk\/JNBR6s_YPYA\/s200\/Blyk_Logo_2.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/>I know I have been depriving you lately (the day-job demanding more of my nightly attention than I would like) but <a href=\"http:\/\/about.blyk.com\/blog\/\">this<\/a>\u00a0is remarkable: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blyk.com\/\">Blyk<\/a>, the ad-funded MVNO, which I have covered previously (<a href=\"http:\/\/volkersthoughts.blogspot.com\/2008\/04\/blyk-ad-funded-mvno-revisited.html\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/volkersthoughts.blogspot.com\/2008\/04\/blyk-now-at-100k-subs.html\">here<\/a>), raised &#8211; financial crisis or not &#8211; a rather substantial amount from its existing investors, namely \u20ac40m (which apparently translates into $50.4m). Now, do they not read my blog? Or do I not get it (as Blyk&#8217;s UK MD would probably <a href=\"http:\/\/www.moconews.net\/entry\/419-blyk-advertisers-skeptical-on-subscriber-numbers-just-dont-get-it\">suggest<\/a>).<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Blyk has <a href=\"http:\/\/uk.reuters.com\/article\/allBreakingNews\/idUKLH67980120080917\">by now collected<\/a> 200,000 subscribers and wants to <a href=\"http:\/\/about.blyk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/blyk_announces-further-european-expansion-germany-spain-and-belgium-to-go-live-in-20091.pdf\">roll out internationally<\/a>, namely in Germany (as if the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/business\/2006\/feb\/28\/mobilephones\">cut-throat market<\/a> there, including Aldi and Tschibo&#8217;s money-scraper MVNOs, wouldn&#8217;t be enough), Spain and Belgium, which would constitute decent growth. My concerns over\u00a0the financial viability still stand though (cf. <a href=\"http:\/\/volkersthoughts.blogspot.com\/2008\/04\/blyk-ad-funded-mvno-revisited.html\">here<\/a>): I cannot see them making money from this longer term (unless you mean the really, really long term; then it might work). And perhaps, just perhaps, the words of\u00a0Blyk&#8217;s CEO, Ala-Pietala, who noted (which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.moconews.net\/entry\/419-ad-funded-mvno-blyk-raises-505-million\/\">MoCoNews<\/a> somewhat fittingly called &#8220;ominous&#8221;) that Blyk also felt the impact of the world&#8217;s financial situation, point that way, too. Is that to say that they might have got money but they don&#8217;t make any (or not enough)? Do I get it after all?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know I have been depriving you lately (the day-job demanding more of my nightly attention than I would like) but this\u00a0is remarkable: Blyk, the ad-funded MVNO, which I have covered previously (here and here), raised &#8211; financial crisis or not &#8211; a rather substantial amount from its existing investors, namely \u20ac40m (which apparently translates [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[38,41,72,86,107,246,446,607,664,672],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ala-pietala","tag-aldi","tag-belgium","tag-blyk","tag-carriers","tag-germany","tag-mvno","tag-spain","tag-tschibo","tag-uk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paSwZv-2D","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}