CBSSports.com Partners With Developers For Apps; The Algo Of People; Measuring P&G Purpose

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Big Media Apps

CBSsports.com announced that it will let developers create applications for use on its site as the company looks to emulate the models of Facebook and Apple among others. Yes, big media is getting its own app store. The Wall Street Journal’s Russell Adams writes that fantasy sports is the test bed, “CBS Sports executives are now hoping to create a hub for this universe of mom-and-pop fantasy operators by letting them build products that will live on CBSSports.com. The site will offer free and paid apps, with CBSSports.com keeping a 30% share of sales of paid ones.” Read more (subscription).

The Algo Of People

On BetaBeat Rick Webb says, “Algorithms can be powerful. But with our tech titans, the idea that more money comes from fewer people appears to be nothing but a myth.” Webb offers a selection of well-known internet companies grown from the algo but that, in the end, rely on people. Read it. This speaks to many companies in ad tech today who loathe the word “service” associated with their tech for fear of a lower valuation. Yet, while some may deny that their “agency of tomorrow” model, the expert service layer on top of the tech is almost always essential. Hal is still a ways off.

Optimizing And Badging

Monetate (AdExchanger.com Q&A) has launched a new update to its platform technology serving real-time needs for landing page optimization. According to Miranda Miller of Search Engine Watch, “Five products inside the [Monetate] toolkit enable unlimited A/B or multivariate testing with real-time data, dynamic badging, in-session customer behavior analysis and more, without coding and outside the IT queue.” Read it. Dynamic badging = The automated “updating of promotional badges using criteria such as best-selling and top-rated, based on Monetate tracking, external metrics, or in-house data,” says Monetate. And, here’s the release.

Measuring Purpose

The purpose-driven marketing mantra (see AdExchanger.com 2010 coverage) of P&G pervades a new book by its former global marketing officer, Jim Stengel, except he calls it “ideals” instead of “purpose.” According to Ad Age’s Jack Neff, Stengel is bringing analytics to bear on “ideals” with the help of WPP’s Millward Brown Optimor. Brand measurement includes the use of “functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure how quickly people associated ideals with brands.” Mr. Sulu, shields up!

Targeting In-Store Audience

From the National Federation of Retailers convention, Fujitsu announced that it has extended its Digital Media Network – Think “in-store content and ad network” – to North America. Fujitsu’s Brian Yates says in the release, “Fujitsu’s Digital Media Network offering gives retailers the tools and services they need to optimize the effectiveness of their digital media advertising campaigns and increase revenue as well as customer satisfaction and loyalty.” Somebody needs to hook that up so retailers can easily take in trade dollars (co-op dollars) to facilitate online campaigns. Or maybe it will work the other way around as in – ad networks servicing e-commerce sites will extend their offering through a Fujitsu-fueled in-store network. Read more.

Cheap CPMs For Sale

On Forbes, Rob Hof covers a new report out by Facebook marketing firm TBG Digital which finds good news for Facebook ad lovers: “Ad rates, measured by CPM, or cost per thousand viewers, rose 8% from the third to the fourth quarter [2011], and 23% since the first quarter of 2011. However, the average CPM of 22 cents is still quite low compared with portals and premium sites that draw a lot of people advertisers want to market to.” TBG founds clickthrough rate surged in the last year on the social giant. Read more. And, see the presentation.

But Wait. There’s More!