Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Data Supply Chain And The FTC
The former director of the Consumer Protection Bureau at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Lydia Parnes, talks to BostInnovation.com about her time at the FTC. She offers recommendations to startups saying that they should think “about online privacy as a data supply chain. ‘You need to create responsible data supply chain management.’ she said. ‘And that goes beyond ads.'” A unique perspective from inside the FTC. Read more. And, for a perspective on why the free-flow of personal data can be “good,” and there may be too much paranoia floating around, read Farhad Manjoo in Slate.
Amazon Display Strategy
Macquarie analyst Ben Schacter points to Amazon job listings (a snippet: “We are looking for engineers who enjoy working on a v1.0 product… building systems that will form the foundation of highly strategic new businesses.”) and remarks that e-Commerce leader Amazon appears to be stepping into the world of display advertising in a much bigger way. GigaOm’s Ryan Kim paraphrases Schachter’s note to investors, “[He] concludes that Amazon is likely planning to use its consumer data and new ad targeting experience to raise eCPMs for online display ads both on its own site and on third-party sites.” Read more. Mpire Chairman Matt Hulett notes on his personal blog that Amazon has “2 million affiliates generating on average 5,000 impressions per month per publisher, or 120 billion impressions per year.” That’s a mighty big ad network. Read it.
Page Taking Names, Adding Titles
In a re-organization of the executive layer, new Google CEO Larry Page has added “S”s to many VP titles and – according to some – put more of an engineering spin to management of his and Sergey Brin’s brainchild. According to the L.A. Times, among those to get the SVP moniker is Susan Wojcicki who will now be SVP of advertising. The LA Times Jessican Guyann says, “Page has been thinking about how to reorganize the company to cut bureaucracy and politicking while speeding up innovation.” Read more. And, read why Grandma may be part of the plan according to Forbes.
Invite Media CEO Nat Turner looks for certain traits in figuring out if someone can be a successful salesperson and shares them on his personal blog. He writes, “You want someone who you (1) can trust, (2) is articulate, (3) delivers on what they say, and (4) is smart enough to think on their feet and not sound like an idiot.” Read more.
To Exchange
AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley recalls his Right Media days in ClickZ and says it’s time to stop thinking about exchanges as a noun (you know, an ad exchange), but instead think of the word as a verb. He explains, “Every time a buyer and seller meet in the digital ether, whether through RTB or a hosted trading platform, a value exchange is happening.” a-HAAAAAA!! -that’s still a noun!! #winning Read more. I’m just sayin’.
Matomy Media Group Re-Brand
Adsmarket, XTEND and Matomy are now all one brand – the Matomy Media Group – according to a press release which says the reason is “to better reflect its integrated offer of providing one gateway to multiple media distribution channels, platforms, and technologies. Additionally, the Matomy Media Group has expanded its capabilities to support the growing need for mobile advertising as part of an all-inclusive digital media plan.” Ofer Druke is CEO of the Matomy Media Group and Adi Orzel is CEO of Matomy Market and Matomy Media. Read more.
SEO And E-Commerce Pitfalls
E-commerce retailer Overstock.com is still reeling from a Google Search penalty which hurt Overstock’s SEO and cost the company 5% of its revenue. According to Internet Retailer, the reason for the penalty as told to Overstock by Google had to do with improper linkage: “The links were from Overstock promotions on university-related web sites—those with a web address ending in ‘.edu’—that offered discounts to the site operators, such as student bloggers.” Read more.
Intent Data For Spring
BlueKai has released its latest intent data report and says that among the retail intent “gainers,” categories such as kayaks, heels, sandals, barbecues and shorts made the top 5 in February 2011. BlueKai attributes warm weather aspirations and the pending spring season as possible reasons for the intention trends. Download it (PDF).
Summarizing Display
Spreading the data-driven love, Google VP Neal Mohan presented at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference and Tia Gannon of SMU’s Daily Mustang offers a summary. Quoting Mohan, she begins, “Display advertising is all the advertising you see on the internet that wasn’t generated as a result of search inquiry. It is made up of two components that Mohan calls the 2 Ds.” Read about the 2 D’s.
Smowtion Expanding
Argentina-based ad network Smowtion is expanding its offices into the U.S. and positioning itself as a sell-side platform. According to a release, “Smowtion’s network includes over 120,000 Web publishers worldwide, serving an audience of 270 million unique users.” Read more.
Ad.ly Booted From Facebook
The walls are growing at Facebook as All Things D’s Peter Kafka reveals that celebrity tweet and social ad network Ad.ly has been told to take it’s business elsewhere. According to Kafka, Facebook’s reasons cited for Ad.ly’s ouster include: “It doesn’t want any users using their Facebook profiles to sell stuff, period; it wants that to happen on Facebook user pages. [UPDATE: Ad.ly says they have always used pages, not profiles, to pitch stuff].” Read more.
The Travel Data Grab
The U.S. Justice Department has approved Google’s acquisition of ITA software which makes travel reservation software. Google SVP of Local and Commerce Jeff Huber says, “We’re confident that by combining ITA’s expertise with Google’s technology we’ll be able to develop exciting new flight search tools for all our users.” Read the Official Google blog post. Is Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. shaking in their boots? Maybe. The WSJ’s Rolfe Winkler says Expedia is spinning off TripAdvisor and that it may be due to a pending Google-opoly in travel. Read it. PaidContent’s Joseph Tartifkoff writes about the compromise Google had to make to appease regulators: “Google will fund research and development of the back-end technology ITA provides to other travel search engines ‘at similar levels to what ITA has invested in recent years’ and that Google would have only limited access to the data ITA gathers from those companies.”
Read more.
Give Me RTB
Ad server AdJuggler announced that it has launched what it’s calling an “Exchange Media Platform” which it says is “an extension of its ad serving platform that enables publishers and networks to optimize unsold inventory by accessing more than 30 audience-based and real-time bidding (RTB) campaign sources.” AdMeld is powering access to RTB display media sources. Read more.
A New Exchange
Ad serving company ZEDO announced late last week that it, too, is launching (currently in private beta) it’s own ad exchange called ZINC. A company blog post claims, “The ZINC Exchange features only premium, guaranteed inventory – you choose and buy the inventory you want. There isn’t any remnant inventory.” Read more.
Mobile Commodity
Union Square Ventures’ Albert Wenger sees commoditization ahead in the mobile space. He writes on his personal blog, “There are two major commoditization battles brewing now: mobile OS and mobile networks. On your mobile device as an enduser, you don’t really care about some of the major features exposed by a traditional desktop OS, such as the filesystem…” Read more.
But Wait. There’s More!
- WPP’s Ogilvy To Launch China-Focused Division In U.S. – The Wall Street Journal
- Google unveils campaign for display advertising – Business Standard (India)
- VAST and VPAID Update in Which We Chase a Chicken – IABlog
