SOURCE: Media Six Degrees

May 05, 2008 08:45 ET

Microsoft's Joe Doran Joins Media6° as Founding CEO

Launches Start-Up Providing Unique Analytics and Insights for Advertisers

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - May 5, 2008) - Joe Doran, a Microsoft senior executive since 1999 and the General Manager of Advertising Strategy & Product Management for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions since 2004, has been named Founding Chief Executive Officer for Media6° (media six degrees), a New York-based start-up that provides unique analytics and insights to help advertisers capitalize on the growth of social media.

Funded & incubated by Contour Venture Partners and Coriolis Ventures, Media6° uses patent pending algorithms to produce audience analytics based on the familiar concept that "birds of a feather flock together." Media6° will build on "network neighbor" data and social graph theory that shows advertisers can achieve a lift in response rates of up to 500 percent. Mr. Doran joins the company as it begins its commercial launch.

"The potential of 'network neighbor' data to help marketers to reach affinity groups simply and at scale is significant. I could not resist being part of such a powerful innovation in digital marketing," says Mr. Doran who is moving from Seattle to New York.

Mr. Doran joins a veteran ad technology team and an advisory board of New York's thought leaders in the media and advertising world such as Columbia University School of Business Professor of Marketing Dr. Joseph Plummer, who was Executive Vice President, Director of Research & Insight Development for McCann-Erickson WorldGroup; RightMedia Founder and former CTO Brian O'Kelley; privacy expert Alan Chapell; and academics such as Drs. Naveen Agnihotri PhD, a neuroscientist and leader in the development of pattern recognition technology and Foster Provost PhD, who has done pioneering work regarding the social graph and marketing.

"The advertising community has been searching for the ability to identify and reach micro-affinity groups on a scalable basis through tangible, data driven methods. Media6° will help transform the nature of who the advertiser should have the conversation with for both brand and direct response messages," says Dr. Plummer.

"The confluence of the right people, working on the right idea at the right time has created enormous opportunities Media6°, its clients and its partners," adds Mr. Doran.

As General Manager of the Advertising Product Management team for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions team, Mr. Doran led the strategy, development and marketing of Microsoft's proprietary advertising platform and solutions. He championed and led the internal development of Microsoft's display and search advertising platforms and was a founding team member of the Microsoft adCenter platform. Mr. Doran also leads all the advertising acquisitions at Microsoft including Massive, DeepMetrix, ScreenTonic, AdECN & aQuantive helping Microsoft become a serious contender in the interactive advertising space.

Mr. Doran contributed to the growth of MSN in its early years of 2002-2004 through his role as Chief of Staff, driving strategic planning and business management for the division. During his tenure MSN reached profitability through explosive growth.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Doran honed his marketing skills at General Mills as a Brand Group Manager. Before joining General Mills, Mr. Doran served as an Infantry Captain in the US Army. Mr. Doran has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Chemistry from United States Military Academy.

"It would be difficult to imagine someone better positioned to lead a company focused on helping major marketers benefit from the enormous changes seen over the past three years with regard to how consumers use the Internet," says Bob Greene, co-founder of Contour Venture Partners. "From his experience directing strategy and product development across the entire Microsoft Advertising platform Joe has an unparalleled understanding of the online advertising eco-system. Joe is very focused on the opportunities created by the fact that almost 70% of all content online is created by consumers themselves, not by professional editors. Many in the advertising community see this shift in the content paradigm as a challenge. Joe sees it as an enormous opportunity, and one he fully embraces to create value for Fortune 100 advertisers at Media6°."

High res digital photo of Mr. Doran available on request.

Media6° (http://media6degrees.com) provides major marketers with transformative analytics, marketing insight and massive media scale by applying neural network discovery within campaign data to dramatically lift response rates to marketing efforts across the Web. The firm is based in New York and funded by Contour Venture Partners, Coriolis Ventures and several prominent angel investors.