Clearwire’s Content Play: ClearMedia; Former Amp’d Execs Involved
By Tricia Duryee - Wed 06 Feb 2008 10:00 AM PST
This summer we reported that Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR) hired Amp’d Co-Founder Peter Adderton and several other former employees, and now we’re hearing that the team is charged with building out the WiMax company’s content play.
The former Amp’d employees work for Clearwire’s ClearMedia division based in Santa Monica, where they are responsible for inking partnerships with search and application companies to build the Kirkland company’s portal. The division is very hush-hush, and in particular, Adderton’s role, which is limited to a consulting position, is particularly quiet. However, a few details of the division are starting to leak out, and the company appears to be preparing to release more in the next few months. A job listing posted online by Clearwire for a ClearMedia senior product manager for position provides more details on what the division is about. The listing said the manager will be in charge of the “innovative product launch for a dynamic new web portal,” and be responsible for everything from product vision, design specifications and implementation of the roadmap. More after the jump.
Helen Chung, a Clearwire spokeswoman declined to give any details on the division, but said: “We’ve hired software developers in both Los Angeles and Seattle to implement the branded-vision highlighted at investor day.”
Clearwire did touch on its portal strategy during an investor conference in Portland last week. Chief Strategy Officer Scott Richardson spoke about a concept called “Clear365: life goes online,” a portal that a user can personalize by picking various widgets, such as stock quotes, weather, TV previews, etc.
According to Richardson’s presentation, the portal is not yet another news aggregater. Instead, it will eventually be a central location where people’s content and devices can be managed. Richardson believes people should be able to purchase content once, and then view it on the phone, on a laptop or at home streamed through the TV set-top box.
It will be interesting to see how the market will react to this strategy. Clearwire has faced a lot of skepticism on whether WiMax will truly be the next broadband wireless network that consumers will adopt and whether it will be too costly to build. At the end of 2007, Clearwire had 394,000 subscribers using its proprietary wireless broadband technology in 50 markets worldwide. Its 2008 forecast disappointed Wall Street when Clearwire said it expects annual revenues of about $215 million, or less than the $338.9 million Reuters estimates projected.
An example of the portal the company is building:
Posted in: Technologies, Clearwire
