Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Targeting Netezza?
On the WSJ’s Venture Dispatch blog, Robert Armstrong talks “big data” and observes the consolidation taking place in the space such as EMC’s purchase of Greenplum recently. He writes, “Aster Data Systems Inc., Vertica Systems Group Inc., Netezza Corp. (every DSP and ad network’s favorite data cruncher), and even the larger Teradata Corp., are potential targets.” The potential acquirers aren’t who you might think according to Armstrong. Read more.
Social Networks And CPMs
Ad Age’s Edmund Lee says that social networks may be dragging down CPM pricing for display if one takes into account recent ComScore data that shows CPMs for social networks are “only 56 cents, compared to the $2.43 average for the internet at large.” Lee admits that “much of the collective downward pressure on ad prices could be attributed to the mass of inventory altogether — it’s supply simply outstripping demand.” Read more.
It’s Earnings Season!
Citibank analyst Mark Mahaney provided his outlook for Google’s upcoming Q2 2010 earnings report this Thursday: “In Addition To P&L Results, Key Focus Areas – GOOG will provide a fundamentals read for Internet advertising stocks and a sentiment read for all Internet stocks. Specific non-P&L issues of interest include: 1) Google’s strategy to move further down the conversion funnel; 2) Paid Click and CPC growth; 3) International traction and the impact from FX & Hedging activities; 4) GOOG’s ability to maintain/grow margins; 5) GOOG’s new China strategy; & 6) An update on Display & Mobile.” Google IR info will be here.
TechCrunch reports that Israeli-based performance ad network Adsmarket has received $17 million in financing from Viola Private Equity. TC’s Robin Wauters reports “the PE fund will hold 21% of Adsmarket’s shares, valuing the company at $80 million pre-money.” 80 million matches Adsmarket’s estimated revenues for this year. Read more.
A Twitter Video Ad Network
A Twitter (but not owned by Twitter) video ad network has been launched by video hosting service TwitVid and its called SocialAds. Information Week’s Alison Diana writes about the beta test results of the network, “In a private beta test, participating brands generated more than 400 new followers in less than one hour. (…) As a result of seeing the commercials, 2% of viewers began following a brand, according to the video hosting service.” Read more.
SI Moving
Time Warner has decided to move management of its Sports Illustrated website to a new entity called Turner/SI Digital according to the Wall Street Journal (Read more.). PaidContent’s Staci Kramer isn’t so sure about the structure of the deal writing, “This idea sounds as plausible as any until you realize that digital is being hived off from print, that editorial control is being split from the digital business and that it’s all taking place across supposedly finite divisions.” Read her take. And, then her follow-up.
Your APAC Stats Of The Month
ComScore has released website usage data in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and in spite of the much discussed pull-out by Google in China as it relates to its search engine, Google is the “total uniques” leader for May 2010: “Google Sites ranked as the most-visited property in the Asia-Pacific region, reaching 270 million unique visitors.” But, if you’re going by “time spent” (a.k.a. engagement) by each unique user, China-based Tencent wins out: “Tencent Inc. ranked as the most-engaging property with visitors averaging 6.5 hours on the site during the month.” Read more.
The Publisher Loyalty Metric
Scout Analytics announced a new dashboard which includes a loyalty metric that “enables publishers to optimize either subscription or ad revenue by aligning campaigns and engagement profiles.” Read more. In concurrence with the loyalty metric news release, the company also announced a successful deployment of its publisher analytic services with Outsell. Read the release.
The Optimization Of Our Lives
The New York Times looks at the evolution of Google Search and how it is emblematic of the efficiencies created by the Web – and how we pay with our “time spent”. Google Fellow and search specialist Amit Singhal says he thinks it will get even better according to the NYT’s Damon Darlin. Singhal says, “What we are optimizing is that you can have your bread and your cheese and soup and dessert all at the same time, and we put it on the table.” Read more.
Sub-segment Now
Dapper marketing dude Paul Knegten encourages the digital marketing faithful on MediaPost to not only sub-segment target audiences, but products, too. He writes, “(…) this is essentially rehashing the lessons we’ve learned from search engine marketing and applying them to display advertising; I’ve come up with essentially nothing new here.” Nothing wrong with saying it again as it’s still early in the search/display game. Read more. Dapper’s Fixing Advertising event happens July 19 at Rubicon Project’s offices in L.A. – after OMMA Ad Nets earlier in the day.
Search Iterating
Searchandise Commerce CTO John Puopolo looks at three new features that search engines are implementing today to get through the noise of some organic search results. Each seems relevant to the display space, too. One feature he identifies is called “scoped search” or, in other words, “the ability for a search engine to filter and rank documents based on a subset of a document versus the entire document. For example, in searching the plays of William Shakespeare, we might want to retrieve all plays where Romeo is not only mentioned, but is also a speaker in a given act. Scoped search makes these type of specific, semantically rich searches possible.” Read more.
New DSP Site
Finally, demand-side platform Turn has launched a new website. See it here.
