Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
IAC Shows Q1 Results
IAC/InteractiveCorp reported strong Q1 results led by – among others – its Ask.com and Match.com businesses as losses narrowed and revenue grew. Also, IAC reported a $1.5 billion treasure trove of cash. That oughta buy a few ad technology companies – except Diller wants to repurchase stock. WAA-wa. Read more on the company’s results on The Wall Street Journal and IAC’s investor relations website (PDF).
Apple iAd Rates
The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Steel finds that Apple will be charging a hefty premium to comparable mobile deals with its iAd platform. Of course, is there something comparable to the iPad, iPhone, iTouch in terms of mobile experience? Steve Jobs says that’s the million dollar question and according to Steel, that’s exactly what advertisers will be paying to have their fav campaign become an iAd – $1 million. Steel offers, “Apple is planning to charge advertisers a penny each time a consumer sees a banner ad, ad executives say. When a user taps on the banner and the ad pops up, Apple will charge $2. Under large ad buys, such as the $1 million package, costs would rack up to reach $1 million with the various views and taps.” Read it. (No subscription? Try this.)
WPP ZAPs Value Chain
WPP Group is busy building technology according to an investor’s event last week covered by ClickZ’s Jack Marshall. Marshall writes that WPP Media Innovation Group GM Brian Lesser described a new platform called ZAP that combines functionalities of “ad exchanges, data providers, and other technologies” in addition to the company’s demand-side platform, B3. Read more.
You can feel the confidence emanating from VC across … across the Bay Area. Or so says an April 2010 survey of 36 San Francisco Bay Area VCs a.k.a. the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index as Q1 2010 showed a 5% improvement year-over-year. Click here for a graphic on CNET that shows VC confidence is on the upswing.
The Voice Of AdMob
The good ole AdMob blog still percolates as yesterday, the $750 million mobile ad network said via its blog that an update to AdWhirl (an aggregator bought by AdMob prior to the Google acquisition) will now allow “developers to use an unlimited number of ad networks in their apps. Previously developers could add one ad network of their choice, in addition to AdWhirl’s explicit support for AdMob, JumpTap, MDotM, Millennial Media, and Quattro Wireless for iPhone apps and AdMob and Quattro Wireless for Android apps.” Read more.
Google Keyword Tool Update
Search marketers everywhere will like this news and it would seem display marketers will find this useful, too, given the need to understand consumer intent trends. Google’s Keyword Tool has been updated to provide more comprehensive results as follows: “This new version of the Keyword Tool combines the functionality of the Keyword Tool and the Search-based Keyword Tool. This means you’ll get keyword ideas based on keywords you enter, your website content, and user searches – all in one place.” Read more on the Google AdWords blog.
Radio Earnings Up, Death A Driver
Meredith announced in a call with analysts that its year-over-year revenues for radio stations were up 20% to $69 million, but it’s still below the $78 million the company made pre-recession. Among new ad products that drove the increase from 2009 – something called “ONE Service” (On-Air Notification Entry Service). Example: “People can purchase rights to include a name of a deceased in an ‘Obit Michigan’ listing that appears during some newscasts on a Meredith-owned station in Saginaw, Mich. It also appears online,” writes David Goetzl of MediaPost. Read more.
AdGear Pub Platform Gets Atex
Bloom Digital Platforms announced that its publisher ad platform, AdGear, has partnered with Atex which provides software for publishing and media industries with 1,000 customers in 54 countries. From the AdGed blog: “AdGear is now a cog in the Atex platform, providing Atex customers ad serving capability integrated with ad booking, CRM and CMS solutions offered in their DNA suite of products.” Read more.
Ehrenberg On Wall Street Reform
IA Capital Partners VC Roger Ehrenberg is worried that a rush to judgment without proper investigation is going to reverse the positive economic potential of Wall Street as Congress looks to place blame amidst the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008-09. Ehrenberg writes, “The desire to leverage populist rhetoric into votes and a fundamental lack of understanding of how Wall Street and capital formation works, we will likely get a package of regulations that will hurt the US and the global economy fall more than they will help.” Read more.
Online Grocery Biz Bang
If you live in NYC, you may have tasted the easy-street life of Fresh Direct. There’s more online grocery store shopping momentum imminent according to ClickZ’s Tessa Wegert. She notes a myriad of startups focused on the space and data such as “Nielsen says that 38 percent of American grocery shoppers consider it a chore, and about 30 percent of grocery items are purchased on a deal. Market research firm Synovate found … 60 percent of grocery shoppers across 10 markets would ‘go out of their way to shop green'”-meaning they’d rather not drive to the store but have it delivered. Read the good news for CPG media buyers.
Lead Gen Raising Funds
Lead management software provider, Marketo, has raised 10 million in funding. Participating was round leader, Mayfield Fund, and return backers InterWest Partners and Storm Ventures. This brings the total raise for the company to $32 million. Among its products, the company has a popular email marketing solution that was voted “‘Best Mass Emails Solution’ by Salesforce customers on the Force.com AppExchange.” Lead gen-ers, makin’ money.
Coremetrics Updating
Coremetrics announced the imminent release – as in June – of Coremetrics Analytics 2010, an update to its marketing analytics platform. The platform’s dashboard will include “real-time performance metrics… Automated insights and recommended actions through new visualization tools … Contextual navigation and visual discovery for efficient decision making.” Read more. A DSP might be a nice fit with in Coremetrics strategy.
Searching Socially
James Temple of the San Francisco Chronicle chronicles a search paper issued by the Yahoo! Labs team in spite of the fact the Yahoo!’s traditional search engine business is in the process of being outsourced to Microsoft’s Bing. Prabhakar Raghavan, chief scientist at Yahoo is quoted in regards to research data that shows time spent by consumers on search remains unchanged over time. He says, “That begs the question,” he added, “what are the new drivers of what we traditionally thought of as search?” Social! Read it.
“I Want To Be A VC”
Of course you do. A new book written by Jeffrey Bussgang called “Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms” may be able to assist. A complete review is available on the Boston Biotech Watch Book Review. Among the questions answered by the book: “What are the keys to getting along with the VCs who have already invested in my company? (One well-known entrepreneur quoted here called VCs ‘the hire I could never fire.’)” Snap! Get more VC book tips.
Clickable Expanding
Hiring continues at at social and search targeting platform, Clickable. Among the new hires, Maia Benson is the company’s “Senior Director, Strategic Partnership” and comes from LexisNexis where she built the firm’s search marketing business. CEO David Kidder announces all the new team members here on the Clickable blog.
Ecosystem Mappage
Finally, Jerry Neumann’s “mental model” for the industry. See it.
