Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
IPG CEO Says Not So Fast
Wait, maybe the economy isn’t bouncing back as quickly as everyone had hoped in the ad world? Michael Roth of ad holding company Interpublic Group tells Dow Jones Newswire, “We are encouraged by what we saw in the first quarter and for the second quarter, we continue to be on plan… but the recovery is still in its early stages.” Read more in The Wall Street Journal.
Adometry’s Ewel On IAB Guidelines
Adometry CEO Jim Ewel thinks that the new exchanges and ad networks guidelines put forth by the related IAB committee (final version released yesterday by the IAB – click here) are all well and good, but the rubber still needs to meet the road, so to speak. Ewel writes on MediaPost, “Whether the guidelines are successful or not depends of course on the rate of adoption, and to a certain extent on whether buyers vote with their dollars, rewarding those networks and exchanges that go to the trouble of getting certified, and punishing those who don’t.” Read more.
Adnetik Adds Back Office
Adnetik added another partner as it announced Intacct as a new, back office partner to support Adnetik’s real-time buying. Intacct positions itself as a cloud financial management and accounting applications company. According to the release, Adnetik “selected Intacct for its easy to use interface, extensive reporting capabilities and unmatched financial consolidations functionality” according to the release. Read it.
Fox Audience Network (FAN) has let go of 15 of its employees – primarily in the sales group according to TechCrunch. Is this the streamling before the sale of FAN? Maybe not. It may be due to focus on FAN’s self-service platform called MyAds as FAN’s Adam Bain says in a memo published by TechCrunch, “We are moving this headcount into engineering and product so we can continue our platform growth for the next fiscal year and in the long term.” Read more including promotions within the pubilsher ops team.
Former Rubicon Seller Batson Joins DDS
JT Batson, formerly of Rubicon Project, has moved on to Donovan Data Systems where he’ll be “president of the company’s Digital Business” according to a release. DDS CEO Michael Donovan adds, “His expertise, experience and relationships are the right fit for DDS as we continue to provide world-class digital ad management solutions to clients.”Read more.
Turn Partners With Better Advertising
From the Turn blog, demand-side platform provider Turn said that it is the first DSP to partner with Scott Meyer’s Better Advertising for its Power “I” product. Turn CTO Xuhui Shao writes in a release on the blog, “DSPs need to act proactively to address concerns and fears from consumers and consumer privacy groups. With Better Advertising, we’ve developed the best tools and practices for marketers to ensure consumer privacy protection.” Read it.
Ad Exchanges: Live Free Or Die
In a succinct post, MDC Partners’ Darren Herman takes issue with most of the display ad exchanges today saying – after he lists all the major exchanges – “With the majority of the above players including the big two (AdX, RMX), there is a major conflict. They also sell media.” He wants something else. Following up Herman’s post, angel investor Jerry Neumann takes it a step further and says that these are “The last days of the ad exchange” from his Reaction Wheel blog. Read it.
DSPs Change Media Buying
From ClickZ, Tessa Wegert covers the move toward media buying efficiencies afforded by the demand-side platform model. Her conclusion does not mince words as Wegert writes, “It’s up to buyers to recognize their value now, and to make the switch to what stands to become the future of media buying.” Read more.
Adchemy On Multi-Variate Tests
Multi-variate testing on the web doesn’t work according to a new article on ad platform Adchemy’s website. The article reads, “They take too long to reach statistical significance. It can take six weeks—sometimes up to a year — to tee up the experiment, develop it, launch it, get the results for it, and then deploy those results. By that time, the subject of the test could be totally irrelevant.” Read more.
Foundry Group On RTB
Foundry Group partner Seth Levine discusses on his personal blog his firm’s investment in demand-side platform Triggit. Levine writes, “…while I’m not one for sweeping (and superlative) predictions around the future of the ad ecosystem (here I’m specifically not predicting the death of all ad networks), it’s clear from my vantage point that more and more inventory – both remnant and non-remnant – will be processed through real-time platforms.” Read more.
World Cup Uniques
Akamai regularly makes available a view of usage across its network of servers for “the highest peaks since inception of the Net Usage Index for News (August 18, 2005), based on total visitors per minutes.” Wednesday’s U.S. vs. Algeria soccer (or football, if you prefer) match finished second in all-time usage tracked by Akamai’s system – nearly 40% higher than #3 – when Barack Obama was elected U.S. president. See it.
Break Media Adding Verticals
Vertical ad networks continue to thrive for particular niches and Break Media announced a whopping 23 new vertical ad networks covering the following according to a release: “Business/Finance, College, Auto, Travel, Shopping, Parenting and Gaming. These categories expand on previously existing verticals including Film/Television, Humor, Lifestyle, Music, and Sports.” Read more.
The Monster Vertical Ad Network
Monster Worldwide announced two additional features to its Career Ad Network including better analytics that provide ROI tracking and something called Career Ad Network Direct which will drive “onterested candidates will now be guided directly back to the employer’s career site or ATS-powered requisition.” Read more.
Publishers Need Floors In RTB
The Zedo blog says that the second-price auction in RTB exchanges can be bad: “Take this example of a local advertiser who is happy to pay $4.00 CPM because he is getting a satisfactory cost per conversion. With the new RTB ability to vary bids, the advertiser may find that for some users the next highest bidder is paying $0.40 CPM. Now, the advertiser will only pay $0.41 CPM instead of $4.00 for those users. This is a 90% loss of revenue for publishers.” Zedo advocates floors. Read more.
YouTube Beats Viacom For Now
In the near term, Google’s YouTube has won its battle with Viacom barring a successful appeal by Viacom. AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka summarizes the decision, “If the ruling holds up, it’s a big blow to traditional copyright laws. Or spun another way, it’s a huge victory for technology companies using the DMCA as a defense.” Read more. And, read YouTube’s take. Finally, read Viacom’s.
ZelnickMedia Buys Alloy
Zelnick Media has bought teen media company Alloy for approximately $125 million. According to the New York Times Media Decoder blog, “ZelnickMedia said that the former Nickelodeon chief executive Geraldine Laybourne would serve as the chairman of Alloy’s board. The co-founders of Alloy, Matt Diamond and Jim Johnson, will remain chief executive and chief operating officer, respectively.” Read more.
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