Home Ad Exchange News Varick’s Herman Becomes Chief Digital Media Officer; Microsoft Reports On Display; IAB’s Rothenberg Thinks Apple iPad Could Semi-Privatize Advertising

Varick’s Herman Becomes Chief Digital Media Officer; Microsoft Reports On Display; IAB’s Rothenberg Thinks Apple iPad Could Semi-Privatize Advertising

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Darren Herman Elevated To Chief Digital Media OfficerHerman Takes On New Role

MDC Partners took another step into digital waters as one of its agencies, Kirschenbaum, Bond, Senecal & Partners (kbs+p), announced a new Chief Digital Media Officer and tapped its own – Varick Media’s president, Darren Herman. According to AdWeek’s Brian Morrissey, a search for a replacement for his Varick role is underway as Herman will assume a more “visionary” position. On his blog, Herman writes, “My belief is that if you are going to create a sustaining communications experience in 2010+, you are going to require a digital backbone.” Read AdWeek. And, read the blog.

Microsoft Reports Fiscal Q2

Microsoft made enough money in their fiscal second quarter 2010 (ending 12/31/09) to buy most of the new ad technology companies covered on AdExchanger.com as the company reported a profit of $6.66 billion, or 74 cents a share. Though sales was driven by the company’s software, highlighted by a successful launch of Windows 7, Microsoft also talked display saying that within the Online Services division “search revenue grew, [but] display revenue was hampered primarily by international rate declines.” Read an earnings summary in the WSJ. And, visit the earnings call transcript on Seeking Alpha. Read the Investor Relations press release here.

Entrepreneurs Exchange Shares

Venture capital firm First Round Capital just had its CEO Summit and announced their “Entrepreneur’s Exchange fund,” which was created by the VC firm for its member companies to share in each other’s success. First Round’s Josh Kopelman writes, “The goal of the fund is to allow our entrepreneurs to get the benefit of some tax efficient diversification without giving up their upside prematurely.” Read more.

Rothenberg: The iPad Threat To Advertising

The IAB’s Randall Rothenberg thinks the new Apple iPad is a threat to advertising as the potential for “semi-privatization” looms. Similar to the online service provider model of the 90s – such as AOL – where users logged into the AOL portal but could not travel beyond it and visit the Internet, Rothenberg thinks that the iPad, Facebook and other proprietary experiences will hamstring content publishers. Read more.

More On iPad Advertising

Paul Palmieri, CEO of mobile ad network Millennial Media, shares his thoughts on the iPad’s potential impact on advertising on SiliconANGLE. Palmieri states, “Publishers and application developers see the potential of extending the smart phone ecosystem of pay and advertising-supported applications and mobile web-based content to a new category of device.” Read thoughts.

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Tag Business Gets Rag Business

From its blog, UK-based TagMan announced a client win as “Boden, the international online clothes retailer, has hired independent universal tag management system TagMan for tag management and to help the company understand the full journey its customers take on their way to buying from its websites.” Read more. And, read New Media Age.

Mediasmith Expands Board

Media agency Mediasmith has expanded its board of directors according to a release. Among those named to the board are former Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller, David Carlick, co-founder of DoubleClick and Preston Bealle. Read more.

Monster Coach

Former Flatiron VC partner, Jerry Colonna, has started a CEO coaching business and a blog called the “Monster In Your Head.” He explains the name of the blog in an eloquent post which relives a decision of his childhood, “It became, ultimately, a Monster in my head—a puff of air, a coiled rope, an empty rowboat—that defined me, scared me, and trapped me.” See what he means here. (source: A VC)

Niche Ad Network Eats Another

Martini Media Network – led by Skip Brand whose experience includes stops at Pudding Media, Yahoo!, JiWire, Excite@Home and Cox Communications – has acquired Decision Makers Media (DMM) in a deal that Martini Media claims will enable advertisers to reach reach 40 mm $100,000+ earners in the combined entity. Also of note, Datran’s CEO Patrick Vogt makes a cameo in the release suggesting the company’s Aperture audience measurement platform did some of the due diligence on the deal and confirmed the DMM audience potential. Read the release.

CPA And Las Vegas Cabs

On the MediaTrust blog, Mike Frankel succinctly outlines how CPA offers, or affiliate marketing, is a part of the Las Vegas cab driver ecosystem, which he divined during his recent visit to Affiliate Summit West. “The drivers (affiliates) all work for larger taxi companies (CPA networks) who have long running deals with Vegas gentlemen’s clubs (merchants).” There’s more.

Another Mobile Ad Net Born

In the UK, Orange announced that it will be begin selling mobile audience targeting services through its ad platform and that the sales team from its recent acquisition, Unanimis, will be the sales team leading the charge. Read more on Internet Retailing.

Must Read

Google Rolls Out Chatbot Agents For Marketers

Google on Wednesday announced the full availability of its new agentic AI tools, called Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor.

Amazon Ads Is All In On Simplicity

“We just constantly hear how complex it is right now,” Kelly MacLean, Amazon Ads VP of engineering, science and product, tells AdExchanger. “So that’s really where we we’ve anchored a lot on hearing their feedback, [and] figuring out how we can drive even more simplicity.”

Betrayal, business, deal, greeting, competition concept. Lie deception and corporate dishonesty illustration. Businessmen leaders entrepreneurs making agreement holding concealing knives behind backs.

How PubMatic Countered A Big DSP’s Spending Dip In Q3 (And Our Theory On Who It Was)

In July, PubMatic saw a temporary drop in ad spend from a “large” unnamed DSP partner, which contributed to Q3 revenue of $68 million, a 5% YOY decline.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Paramount Skydance Merged Its Business – Now It’s Ready To Merge Its Tech Stack

Paramount Skydance, which officially turns 100 days old this week, released its first post-merger quarterly earnings report on Monday.

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EssilorLuxottica Leans Into AI To Avoid Ad Waste

AI is bringing accountability to ad tech’s murky middle, helping brands like EssilorLuxottica cut out bots, bad bids and wasted spend before a single impression runs.

The Arena Group's Stephanie Mazzamaro (left) chats with ad tech consultant Addy Atienza at AdMonsters' Sell Side Summit Austin.

For Publishers, AI Gives Monetizable Data Insight But Takes Away Traffic

Traffic-starved publishers are hopeful that their long-undervalued audience data will fuel advertising’s automated future – if only they can finally wrest control of the industry narrative away from ad tech middlemen.