X10 WTI Pressroom

A year later, X10 still going strong

Wireless firm raised hackles with relentless pop-under ads

Aug. 21 — Ah, irony. I was on the phone Monday interviewing Alex Peder, the president of X10 Wireless Technologies — that company behind that blitz of Web ads that pop onto your screen while you’re surfing. And when I hung up, I had a voice mail from Earthlink’s public relations team. They wanted to know if I’d like more information on their new pop-up ad blocking software.

LAST SUMMER, when that X10 wireless Web cam campaign was reaching critical mass, a lot of people would have given their trackballs for that kind of ad-busting feature. Anywhere you went online, it seemed, you were greeted with an X10 ad. Or two. Or twelve. The campaign helped build the brand, but critics suggested it might have turned off more people than turning them into customers.
      Regardless, both the ads and the company are still out there with a vengeance. And recently, when a high-powered muckety-muck pal of mine who has much bigger things to worry about asked me curiously what was up with them (he must have been tripping all over the X10 popunders) I figured it was a good time to try to answer the question.
      If you just clicked away those ads, as I always had, you probably didn’t realize that X10 is more than a Webcam that allows you to spy on someone, like your baby, or to take illicit pictures in your dorm room without anyone knowing. (That’s not my idea, by the way — a guy I know came up with that.)
      X10 is a protocol that’s been around for more than twenty years, and it’s what allows you to connect various devices in your home, wirelessly.
      True gadget geeks really get off on X10, and as more products have become available and cheaper, of course, more people than ever are getting the X10 religion. How many of those customers are a result of the massive Web campaign by X10 Wireless Technologies isn’t clear, and the company, which is private, won’t talk about sales. (It did do the IPO dance, but filed papers after the market had fizzled, then pulled out of the game late last September. SEC filings show it had an $8.1 million loss on sales of $21.3 million for the first nine months of 2000.)

      What the company doesn’t like to talk about, either, is the criticism of the ads, which were designed in-house.
“What do they say about pioneers? They always get arrows in their backs,” Peder says. “X10 is not the only advertiser that uses the technique. It’s wide-ranging. I think [the Web surfer] is seeing more of it. You’re used to it.” (The company Web site does acknowledge negative reaction to the ads and offers an opportunity to opt out for 30 days.)
      Besides, Peder feels that the pop-under ads his company uses are less offensive than pop-up ads.
      The pop-up, he says, “is very intrusive and has an exit rate many, many times more. The pop-under takes advantage of a dwell time. It waits and builds its message accordingly, speaks to the mind’s eye.”
      He likens his campaign to a direct mail effort for his direct-to-consumer business. “Technology meets down-home retailing” is how Peder explains the business as well as his use of the Web to advertise it.

LIVING IN AN X10 WORLD
      The X10 site itself is filled with bizarre but clever applications of the company’s products. An X-cam on a softball player’s helmet. On the back of an RV, to make parking easier. In a bird’s nest. “It’s Mid-Afternoon - Do You Know What Your Contractor is Doing?” bellows the headline on one “success story.” Another headline screeches a deal on the MultiView X-Ray Vision Signature pack, so you can log in from work and change the temperature in the house.

     Peder says it amazes even him what people do with his products. He bristles when I ask him if X10’s headquarters in Seattle is a Petri dish of bizarre experimentation, say, cams in the bathroom. Definitely not, he says, although he admits that out in the cam-using world, “I’m sure our products have been used for all sorts of things I’d cringe at.”
      Then there are the more pedestrian uses that make for good public relations. Matt Swanston, who works at the Consumer Electronics Association, lives in a sort of Chateau X10 in suburban Virginia. He doesn’t use X10 cameras, but, he says, “all of the overhead fixtures, wall sconces and table lamps (even the coffee pot) are controlled by X-10 modules. The lights and appliances can be controlled by the computer or X-10 TV remotes, tabletop controllers and motion sensors throughout the house.”
      One motion sensor, in his toddler son’s room, is part of a more elaborate set-up Swanston calls BabyCam. It began as a camera in crib, and is now mounted in a far corner of the room.
      “All baby, all the time,” Swanston says. “From any TV in the house, you can always see it. You can tell if he’s starting to stir and wake up.”
      BabyCam started as an alternative to those aural baby monitors. Such monitoring equipment is “standard,” Swanston says, for parents his age, early thirties. Now that the kid is three, Swanston and his wife use it to see if kids playing in the room are fighting — or if someone has actually hurt himself.

      “I’ve made no secret of it being there,” Swanston explains about his “Truman Show”-esque kiddie rig. “As soon as he asks for it to be taken down, I will. He doesn’t fully get it. He doesn’t look up at the camera and say, ‘Mom, I want some water.’”
      Swanston’s only lament is that his driveway isn’t large enough to warrant a security camera. But, he says, “I am, however, planning on mounting an X-10 camera on the garage so I can watch my son play in the back yard without having to run wires.”
      Such stories warm the heart of Peder, who uses X10 in his own home to control lights and to monitor the front door and basement. What happens next for the company isn’t entirely clear; technology and the economy move so quickly it’s impossible to predict. “A while longer means something different on Monday than it does on Friday,” Peder says.