Twitter's Marketing Suite; Time Inc. Makes Video Play

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Twitter’s Marketing Nest

Twitter is rolling all of its advertising products into one big bundle called the Twitter Marketing Platform Program. It will include all of Twitter’s API, measurement and targeting partners. The blog post has some quotes from companies that have found success with the company, especially as it pertains to TV. Read the Twitter blog post.

Time Targets Video

In the FT, Emily Steel says Time Inc. will launch a new digital sports network called 120 Sports. Steel explains, “The video and mobile-centric outlet will produce original sports programming in two minute-long segments. These will include game highlights, analysis and commentary from players and fans.” Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League also have an interest. Read more (subscription). From here, the clips will be ripe for short (10-15 second), addressable video ads.

Double Verifying

DoubleVerify said it has a new patent thanks to technology it started using in 2008. The release claims, “Dual-verification is the only methodology in market that enables a comprehensive and precise view of impression quality measures for both buyers and sellers by providing information on the page itself (actual landing page URL, length of pages, last modified date), how the ad was delivered to the page (ad server daisy chain, ad network associated with the page, cookie information on how the ad was served) and what happened when the ad was on that page (below the fold, competitive collision, frequency, multiple ads, missing geo targeting, ad clutter, some types of ad fraud, ad hijacking).” Read the release. Will this patent reopen the patent wars begun in 2012 with comScore?

Bidding Ad Networks

For advertisers using Rubicon Project’s platform who want mobile RTB, a more robust solution has arrived in the form of a partnership with Dstillery (was “Media6Degrees”). From the release: “With Dstillery’s self-serve platform Houston, Rubicon Project’s ad network buyers can now fully activate mobile RTB capabilities[.]” More here.

Reviewing The Keep

Scott Kurnit envisioned a future in which people would want to save digital ads and go back to them later, so he started AdKeeper around that very idea. But it ultimately didn’t work, says an article by Alex Kantrowitz in Ad Age. Kurnit believes people fundamentally don’t like ads, so he’s pivoted his company to be an ad-free Pinterest-like app simply called Keep. “I have advertising in my DNA and there has never been an ad on Keep,” Kurnit said. “Advertising, more often that not, ruins content experiences.” Read on. And read AdExchanger’s 2012 interview.

Better Targeting

Facebook continues adding targeting options to its advertising platform, with more complex geographical targeting, advanced demographics and more. The company outlined all of the changes on its news site. AdParlor (owned by Adknowledge) CEO Hussein Fazal tells MediaPost’s Mark Walsh of the changes that “rolling them out to the self-serve tool and globally should help the large SMB advertiser base.” Read it.

Piracy Ads

Three-person Digital Citizens Alliance, which is run by former Verisign comms exec Tom Galvin, says that piracy sites it tracked made $227 million in ad revenue in the last calendar year. The Torrent Freak blog covers the news and says, “The major torrent sites have the highest profit margins and earn over $6 million each per year, partly funded by major brands such as Amazon, McDonalds and Xfinity.” Read more.

Earnings