Ebay Launches X.Commerce, Its Ecommerce OS; VC Bubble Bursting?; Greystripe Adds Social To Mobile

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The Ecommerce OS

And the winner, for best domain name is… Ebay for X.com, which is also the locus for the company’s online/offline plumbing strategy for Ecommerce. Ebay actually calls this strategy X.commerce. GigaOm’s Ryan Kim explains, “By pooling all of its resources spread among PayPal, eBay and recent acquisitions GSI and Magento, eBay can create one ‘commerce operating system’ for developers of all stripes, instead of addressing each developer community on these various platforms.” Read it. And to leverage the developer community, they’re going OpenStack with the X strategy. Read the release. A couple of weeks ago, the discussion was around the Agency OS with the formation of MediaOcean (DDS/Mediabank). This week it’s the Ecommerce OS. Next week – how about a meta OS that brings it all together? Go ahead. Build it. I dare you. Plumbing is hot, hot, hot.

WPP’s Digital China

WPP has bought another stake in the Far East. Marketing-interactive.com reports “WPP creative network JWT has taken a majority stake in A4A, a full service digital agency in China, which counts Audi, Lenovo and Nokia as key clients.” Read more. Holding companies are clawing for every inch of global footprint possible. And, of course – it’s industrial engine China.

Bubble Bursting?

The Wall Street Journal’s Pui-Wing Tam finds voices in the tech world who think the bubble may be bursting when it comes to funding startups. Silicon Valley denizen Naval Ravikant who runs AngelList, which helps funds startups, tells The WSJ, “The start-up financing market ‘is getting weaker by the week, no question.” Even Yahoo! corp dev gets in the act claiming that valuations are softening. Read more.

Ad Ops Commando

Ad ops commando Matt Jessell lays down some Federated Media cover fire in a think piece on ClickZ. Conversational marketing and the Independent web enter into a story about how to scale opportunities for clients. One of Jessell’s tips for publishers and their networks focuses on servicing clients: “Build SEAL teams. Assemble small, talented teams of integrated, cross-functional generalists (sales development, project management, etc.) and specialists (client services, ad trafficking, etc.); and train them extensively.” I love the smell of Ad Ops in the morning. Read more.

In Response

Lotame responds to a new study from Stanford’s Jonathan Meyer about what he says is user data leakage occurring on websites today and facilitated by Lotame among others. Lotame doesn’t mince words on its own site, “Lotame does not buy, sell or otherwise use information related to drug use frequency; Lotame does not buy, sell or otherwise use usernames or other personally-identifiable information (including name, address, e-mail address, phone number or government identifiers).” And there’s more. Read it here.

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Daily News Roundup

What’s The Endgame For Gaming Ads?; Panning Gold From Sludge

Sales Leader

Doug Weaver shares some thoughts on his Upstream Group blog on the DNA of the sales leader of the future. He writes, “The next stage in the evolution of strategic sales leadership will focus on the synthesis of primary and secondary sales channels. The sales leader will break down the walls segregating direct sellers and indirect channels.” A yield magician? Read more.

Drinking The RTB

A new report from Rubicon Project and Econsultancy bubbles up the real-time bidding Kool-Aid publishers have apparently been drinking. From a release: “Nearly half of publishers (44%) now sell their online display advertising via real-time bidding (RTB), which itself is delivering twenty percent more revenue to publishers.” Read more. On Exchangewire, Ciaran O’Kane ruminates, “For me the most fascinating thing about these reports is the numbers around the ad networks. Only 37% of ad networks are using RTB to buy inventory. That’s a really really low number. Why?” Read it.

Branding Through Mobile

ValueClick mobile ad network Greystripe says its adding a new product offering appealing to brands to its product line. The company claims in a release that new ad units, called Ad Boosters, are “social units” with links to Facebook, Twitter, deals sites, YouTube, etal. and focused on specific verticals. Read it. It’s interesting that UGC sites have transformed to the new brand play – whether as an embedded link in creative or part of an online “reach” campaign. Scale has turned the tide for UGC. But, bigger brand dollars are still waiting.

Putting The Lid On Retargeting

Underdog Media’s Jeff Hirsch offers his thoughts on retargeting on iMedia Connection. “Don’t follow me with those pants!” says Hirsch… well… kinda. He writes, “Let’s start talking about ‘polite retargeting’ folks (…) Trust me, if retailers start to attribute their loss of brand value to uncapped retargeting, the results will not be good for anyone.” Read more.

MediaMathMoney

The Business Insider says the scuttlebutt on Ad Tech Avenue is that MediaMath is in the middle of raising a big round of funding. TBI’s Jay Yarow writes, “One source called it a ‘crazy round,’ pegging it at $100 million, but another source familiar with company says that’s way too high.” Mad cash for math men. Read more rumor.

On-Site Algo

X+1 emphasizes its site optimization capabilities in a new display ad product called Media-Aware Home Pages. The company reasons that just because a user isn’t clicking on a dipslay ad, this isn’t a bad thing. There’s still data to optimize! – and publisher web pages, too, that could be used to convert the user. Read it.

You’re Hired!