Barrett Reported To Depart Yahoo; The Live Video Limit

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Barrett To Depart Yahoo

The news that Yahoo Chief Revenue Officer Michael Barrett would be leaving the company has been hinted at since Ross Levinsohn departed in July as acting CEO and head of North American sales. Although no official word about the exiting of Barrett, the former CEO of AdMeld, arrived by late afternoon, Ad Age’s Jason Del Rey cited unidentified sources that Barrett’s days at Yahoo were done following the hiring of CEO Marissa Mayer’s erstwhile Google colleague, Henrique De Castro, as COO. Read more.

RTB Liquidity

In an opinion piece on AdMonsters, Digilant (née Adnetik) CEO Ed Montes delivers the data-driven Kool-aid but not before starting with some cold water, “..before my digital brethren rejoice or heap praise upon one another we should note that the RTB marketplace lacks the required liquidity for perfecting pricing and often lacks the requisite transparency.” Read more.

Facebook Giveth

And Facebook taketh away, as InsideFacebook’s Brittany Darwell reminds us in a piece on TBG Digital’s ejection from the Preferred Marketing Developer Program. The company violated rules against talking about Facebook product tests. While it retains access to the Ads API it has been stripped of its badge. The intention is to get it back but, as Darwell writes, “It doesn’t seem that Facebook has a formal process for re-entry into the PMD program, and neither company provided details about what TBG would need to do in order to regain its ads badge. We’ve heard of companies losing PMD status, but it’s unclear whether any have rejoined.” Read more.

Retargeting Freak Out

On Marketing Land, Danny Sullivan informs the masses about retargeting through Facebook Exchange and one of its customers, Walgreens. Walgreens didn’t respond directly to Sullivan’s queries, but he writes, “Currently, I no longer get either ad above, which were showing this morning. I also don’t get ads for any new items I put into my basket. It could just be something that’s unique to me, but I suspect Walgreens might have been a bit freaked out by my question and put retargeting on hold.” Read more.

Don’t Forget Display

In a new Forrester report, “The Purchase Path of Online Buyers in 2012,” sponsored by GSI Commerce and its sister agency, True Action, Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru derides last click attribution, “Because so many customers touched multiple marketing touchpoints prior to a transaction, it is critical that eBusiness professionals consider the full path to a completed transaction, particularly when tactics like display advertising or affiliate marketing are involved.” Get the report (pay with some PII).

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AI-Powered Astroturfing; ‘Vote’ Is A Four-Letter Word

QR Code Tombstone

The Wall Street Journal reports on a new print technology that connects to online through the screen. Sounds simple from the WSJ’s description of “touchscode” – “A user only needs to place the printed item on the screen of a tablet or smartphone—or place the screen on the item—and the invisible code immediately connects to the online content. No need to summon your device’s camera and snap a shot of a bar code.” Read more (subscription). If it works, the loyalty card business will love this. Online/offline attribution may have found a new friend, too.

Cross Platform R&F

Product releases from comScore and Nielsen are coming fast and furious as the companies race to master cross-platform audience measurement. ComScore’s latest entry is a multi-platform version of its validated Campaign Essentials product — launching in the U.S. today. It promises unduplicated audience validation across TV, web (display/video), and mobile (smartphones/tablets). Kate Sirkin, EVP global research director for Starcom MediaVest Group, says, “vCE MP is a welcome addition to the multi-platform marketplace because it addresses the need for demographics, reach/frequency, and GRPs within and across platforms.” Press release.

Live Video Limits

On his Streaming Media blog, Dan Rayburn analyzes live event video statistics of the jump from the “edge of space” by Felix Baumgartner. He notes that Akamai infrastructure was behind the streaming broadcast rather than Google’s YouTube where most viewers were taking it in. “One thing that was clear from this webcast is that Google still can’t seem to handle large-scale live events on their network.” Is Akamai the Time Warner Cable of the future? Maybe they are already… and it would seem they are in a sweet spot for bringing together attribution-related data. Read more. Akamai is poking its head out a bit more on the retargeting front with a marketing budget, too.

Expanding Video Ads

The Wall Street Journal Office Network, the Dow Jones company’s out-of-home digital video business news property, has been working on improving the quality and effectiveness of its ad units. The WSJON, which operates in 760-plus office buildings, is adding IAB standard video ad units and is partnering with GfK MRI Doublebase on audience data and metrics to boost ad performance. “In addition to being preferred by our viewers, WSJON2.0 delivers increased advertising impact with stronger ad recall,” says WSJON CEO Jim Harris. Read the release (PDF).

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