Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Adweek Re-Launches
Three brands for the price of one – Adweek is relaunching this week by folding its Mediaweek and Brandweek brands into the flagship publication. According to the WSJ, “[Adweek editor Michael] Wolff said he thinks the new Adweek will have ‘more high-value information’ for professionals and be buzzier because it looks better and aims to break more news, not because its coverage will be more superficial.” Wolff offers the following in his own byline on Adweek, “This is the proposition of the new Adweek: In minute-by-minute reporting on the Web and in close analysis and profiles in the magazine, we will tell the story of the uncertain transformation of our business. We need to be more Tolstoy than trade reporter.” Read more.
Math Trumps Software
In a well-researched article looking at the new importance of math in tech startups, Businessweek’s Ashlee Vance looks at Cloudera CEO Jeff Hammerbacher, as well as others, as case-and-point. CEO Glenn Kelman of real estate site Redfin offers a juicy quote, “The most coveted employee in Silicon Valley today is not a software engineer. It is a mathematician. The mathematicians are trying to tickle your fancy long enough to see one more ad.” Read more.
More Spend Stats
PaidContent’s David Kaplan looks at the latest ad spend predictions for 2011 from Interpublic Group’s Magna Global. In regards to the online segment, Kaplan writes, “Online had a great resurgence last year and this year, Magna expects an 18.7 percent gain [this year]. The advances are driven by growth in display, as well as online video and mobile.” Read more.
Edmund Lee features social display advertising platform Adapt.ly and CEO Nikhil Sethi on Ad Age. Jamal Henderson, brand manager at PepsiCo tells Lee, “They were very aware of all the other longer-tail networks outside of Facebook. That’s the reason why Adaptly’s is so smart — they’re going to put your brand in front of people who are on the next Facebook.” Read more.
Rothenberg Speaks
IAB prez Randall Rothenberg takes a bow in a new feature profile section in Adweek and says in reference to online advertising, “There’s nothing at all wrong with direct response advertising. But it’s a business that doesn’t care about content or context-it just cares about the yield curve.” Read it.
The Personal Web
Returning to his personal blog, News Corp corp dev EVP, Jorge Espinel, expounds on the social experience which is laying the groundwork for a robust “Personal Web.” He explains its features, “Personal Web experiences will employ: (i) basic entities or topics (people, places, businesses, locations, etc.) as key organizing principles rather than categories as the minimal unit, (ii) flexible taxonomies which allow users to group entities any way they want rather than a single editorial-driven classification…” Feeds and recommendations fill out his Personal Web view. Read more.
What Is Media Planning?
Brian Tomasette points to a presentation created by PHD’s chief innovation officer, John V. Willshire, which answers the simple question, “What is Media Planning?” It’s about connecting people and companies/brands says Willshire. See it all on SlideShare. 119 slides but, not to worry, it moves quickly.
WikiLeaks For Your Life
In a piece titled, “How to Fix (0r Kill) Web Data About You,” The NY Times’ Riva Richmond says consumers’ data is everywhere and they may want to corral it before they lose a chance at insurance, applying at a college or even getting a date. Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik provides his company’s viewpoint as he thinks consumers need to prevent “a WikiLeaks for your life.” Read more.
Platform Flashpoint
On the Krux Digital company blog, CEO Tom Chavez takes issue with a recent Lotame opinion piece on AdMonsters and takes issue with the idea that “publishers should not be concerned about a platform provider who also runs a marketplace.” Chavez sees difficulty if you’re a solutions provider and “you’re working both ends against the middle, presumably managing margins for yourself.” Read more.
RTB Visualizations
The Metamarkets Group team says it has put together a visualization of RTB auctions and explains on their new Labs website, “This dashboard displays metrics over an event stream of RTB (real-time bidding) auctions for online display ads. Approximately 5 billion display ads are sold daily in the major RTB exchanges , and that volume is growing. See it.
Mobile Hiring Mode
The Baltimore Business Journal reports that hiring at mobile ad network Millennial Media is going full-throttle as Business Journal’s Scott Dance says, “Millennial Media is expecting to add 60 jobs over the course of the year as it gears up for a potential stock offering (or private sale?). (…) In the meantime, the Canton-based technology company, which specializes mobile phone advertising, is hiring eight people locally right now.” Read more.
AdMob Opt-Out
Android users can now opt-out of Google’s AdMob mobile network according to mobile industry blog Talk Android which also supplies a screenshot. Talk Android’s Dustin Karnes writes, “While we’re personally not huge on clicking on AdMob ads in the first place, it’s nice to see Google handing back a little bit of privacy to those who may not WANT advertising based on whatever their search habits may be.” Read more.
European Self-Regulation
IAB Europe’s self-regulatory framework for behavioral ads was launched last Friday according to ClickZ’s Jack Marshall. Many of the larger ad targeting tech companies have already agreed to the initiative and Evidon, TRUSTe, and Double Verify are vying to provide the behavioral “i” icon. Read more.
Local Ad Changes
PaidContent’s Joseph Tartakoff looks at the shifting sands of Google local advertising and small business strategy as the company has decided to drop its “Tags” ad product from Google Maps. Tartakoff says that “Prior to releasing ‘Tags,’ Google had allowed businesses to purchase what it called local listing ads, which allowed them to promote their profiles in search results and on Google Maps. It pulled that feature only three months after introducing it.” Read more.
You’re Hired!
Quantcast announced that Richard Kosinski has joined the company as Senior Vice President, Sales. Kosinski’s previous executive experience includes Yahoo!, Westwood One, Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, and Media6Degrees. Read the release.
RTB Thoughts
On iMedia Connection, TRAFFIQ’s Chris O’Hara offers his thoughts on upcoming trends influenced by real-time bidding and writes, “Once supply-side players start selling their high-value inventory inside exchanges, the game changes. Soon, private, exchange-based marketplaces will crop up to connect prime demand-side customers with the best available inventory. This will be the future of RTB.” Read more.
Russian IPO And Display
Russia’s favorite search engine, Yandex (with 65% market share and $410 million in revenue in 2010), is set to go public on the NASDAQ market with a valuation of $9 billion according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. Renaissance Capital’s David Ferguson tells the WSJ that Yandex is valued more highly than recent IPO Mail.RU “because the search advertising market, which is Yandex’s main source of revenue, is growing faster than display advertising, which is Mail.RU’s main business area.” Read more.
But Wait. There’s More!
- The ultimate pitch: 11 startups, 8 minutes, 500 investors – CNN Money
- Retailers Retool Sites to Ease Mobile Shopping – The New York Times
- Revisiting The Meaning Of “Engagement” – Forrester
