Apple Is Acquiring; YuMe Is Connecting

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Local Apples

Apple has been busy during the weekend as news broke that they’ve picked up a couple of companies on the “local” front. All Things D reported early on Friday that Toronto-based crowdsourced location data company Locationary is now part of the fold. Read about it. On Saturday, Bloomberg reported that online transit navigation service HopStop has been scooped up, too. Read more. Location data may be the new cookie – whether you’re addressing the consumer with ads or content – or a devilish, native mix.

The End Of Advertising

In a rebuke of direct marketing and, perhaps inadvertently, part of his company’s own business model, LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue tells Forbes’ Adam Tanner that direct marketing is on the way out: “Going back to ‘Mad Men,’ going back to 1950s, so much of that was a whole bunch of people who were essentially ignorant of the opportunities that existed in the world around them. Advertising is a distribution mechanism to get the word out. That’s not the world we live in anymore.” Read more. That could be difficult positioning for a growing media company.

Connecting To TV

In advance of its IPO, YuMe is continuing to make connected TV deals as it did with Samsung Electronics (2012 press release) and LG (2011 interview). This time the deal is with a music video app provider called VidZone. What’s that? From the release: “VidZone launched successfully in Europe in 2009, [and] has been downloaded by more than 7.5 million PS3 users and has delivered over 3 billion ad impressions.” Read more. YuMe’s strategic investor is connected, too – Samsung Ventures.

India’s Ad Problems

India is a huge market for advertising, but a lot of companies prefer to stick to tried and true methods rather than getting “creative,” according to ClickZ. Prabhvir Sahmey lays out six reasons advertising is still behind in India, including lack of understanding of scalability and “dots not being connected.” Sahmey writes, “Success in RTB depends on consolidation, data management, creative management, as well as audience measurement. All of these are enabled using technology.” Read more.

Mobile Privacy

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Netflix As Frankenstein, Because It’s A Live; Vice Ads Take Over The Big Platforms

The Commerce Department released a mobile privacy proposal that would require app developers to inform consumers, in short-form, of what data is collected and why. This method, according to MediaPost’s Wendy Davis, is problematic because the terms are ambiguous in many cases. Read more.

Reaching For Agency Biz

comScore publicly released its pay-for-play ad network numbers for the month of June on Friday. It’s interesting to note that retargeter Criteo, which comes in 7th by reach in the U.S. according to comScore, has decided to “pony up” the fee. This could signal increased focus on agency business which this list attempts to target – especially as Criteo’s prez Greg Coleman pushes toward brand business and moving up-funnel. See the comScore release. When/if Criteo goes public (in the fall?), they’re going to be looking for “easy” areas of expansion to feed the bottom line.

Consolidation For Whom?

Tech consolidation is looming, and Eric Franchi, co-founder of Undertone, believes agencies will be the driving force, which he details in a post for Ad Age. Part of his reasoning is that agency budgets are keeping the ecosystem thriving and eventually these agencies are going to consolidate vendors, leaving a lot of smaller players behind. Furthermore, the talk of brands delaying payments would be disaster for smaller operations. Read more.

Earnings