Silencing the Critics? CEO David Lucatch fires back at Intertainment Media doubters; Part Two

The Globe and Mail article raised some questions about time spent at Ortsbo being relatively small, how do you respond to this?

That’s an easy question to answer. It’s very much tied to the “newness” of our users. Ortsbo is growing very quickly and we find that new users have a tendency to spend little time on the site. As people come back and explore the site, they spend more time, watch tutorial videos, login to their social media platform and spend time chatting. We find that some conversations can last hours, while others seconds, which is the same as those on places like Facebook, MSN, QQ and other social media platforms. Sometimes people have a lot to say, and sometime, it’s just “Hello. How are you?”
What is really encouraging is the fact that time spent on our new HTML platform that allows users on almost any system to use Ortsbo without the Silverlight plug-in is growing quickly. With the new HTML platform we are seeing significantly higher usage – up to 13.5 minutes per session. We believe the reason for this is that business users, who may have been precluded from using the older version of Ortsbo because they couldn’t download Silverlight, can now use the HTML version of Ortsbo via any browser and may be using it to talk with business associates around the world.

There have been comments about Ortsbo load times being an issue for some users, how are you addressing that issue?

Ortsbo has a remarkable opportunity to take advantage of something that Facebook and Twitter never had available for expansion – the Cloud. Up to now, Ortsbo has been running its technology in a traditional sense. That is to say, if we needed more capacity, we would need to add more hardware and support services and to expand we would have to set up data center partnerships around the world. That’s a hugely expensive endeavour as it relies on capital expenditure ahead of demand and high growth companies have struggled to keep everything in balance. Ortsbo, given our significant growth, has felt this pain. Today, we’re working with Microsoft, as Intertainment Media Inc. is a Microsoft Global Agency Partner, and we’re moving our entire platform to Window Azure, Microsoft’s business cloud solution.
This will reduce capital expenditures significantly, as we can “spin” up new servers in minutes and shut them down when we don’t need them, and only pay for what we need, when we need it, all online in the cloud, with almost no infrastructure costs and development resources. Microsoft has data centers and nodes around the world, making our future connections to users faster. Our first showcase of Windows Azure will be our event on May 20th with Gene Simmons, allowing people from all over the world to chat with Gene in over 50 languages online.

Intertainment announced a committed private placement for up to $48 Million. How is that going?

Nick, we are sticking to our core business and the opportunities in front of us and many investors have recognized this. We’re focused on growing the business. Investors in Canada, the US, Europe and other regions have approached us to support our efforts going forward. In our opinion, these are world class organizations that can also assist us with expansion of Ortsbo and our other programs.
With growth and M&A opportunities in front of us, we’re assessing the finals numbers for the placement, as we want to insure that we can put the capital to use quickly and effectively to continue to build value on a worldwide basis.

What’s next for Ortsbo and Intertainment?

The near future has a lot of opportunity for Intertainment and Ortsbo. KNCTR and Ad Taffy have both been commercialized and we have a lot of ongoing activity in those areas. Ortsbo just announced our first mobile application with others coming and Ortsbo for Microsoft Outlook is getting ready for its debut. As the Company enters its next stage of evolution, we’re focusing on revenue opportunities and continue to grow value. We’ve very excited about the future of Intertainment Media.

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