Incredimail gives away e-mail at ad:tech New York

NEW YORK -- E-mail firm Incredimail used ad:tech New York to relaunch its entertainment e-mail product line, only instead of paying for the e-mail service, this time it is free.

Users can download the Incredimail software for creating animated e-mail messages without paying a cent and advertisers can buy banner ads in the inbox screen of users.

"AOL is now free and based on an ad model," said Jeff Holzmann, executive vice president at Incredimail, New York. "We are doing the same thing and giving users a free service and monetizing through advertising."

Advertisers, like Verizon, Tribal Fusion and RealAge.com appear on the company's Web site where consumers obtain free icon downloads.

The firm also used ad:tech as the venue to launch its wallpaper and screen saver feature. This is a free image library that users can download to paint computer screens without any spyware or adware interfering. In the future the firm plans to see ad space on the site.

According to Mr. Holzmann, the site has 10 million users worldwide, with 300,000 unique visitors a day. The primary demographic is fifty years old and women make up 67 percent of users.

Most of these users are outside of the United States, so Incredimail sees an opportunity in expansion into the large U.S. marketplace. Incredimail opened its first U.S. office in New York last summer.

Mr. Holzmann said that the ad:tech show was the most important show in the interactive space and that everyone there was a possible client. The Tel Aviv, Israel-based firm scouted out the event at the Chicago ad:tech show last July where this publication first met up with the firm.

At the New York show, the firm rented a key positioned double corner booth with lots of open space for prospective customers to drop by.

"We have sales people here from our New York office, and we flew over a team from our Israel office for this show," Mr. Holzmann said. "We are having a lot of meetings and getting a lot of good leads."