ComScore Video Ad Rankings; FTC Commissioner Wants Ad Network Oath; Cisco Is Acquiring Again

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

The Rankings Are Out!

Touting the delivery of its new “YouTube Partner” video stats, comScore released its July 2011 video rankings for the U.S. Among the video ad networks in its pay-for-play rankings, comScore says Adap.tv climbed ahead of Tremor Media in terms of video ad views.
Read more. On Friday, display ad network rankings were released with many of the usual suspects present including “Google Ad Network, Yahoo! Network Plus and Aol Advertising” leading the way. Download it (PDF).

Ad Networks Under Oath

According to CNET, J. Thomas Rosch, a Republican commissioner on the FTC, thinks that ad networks need to give a sworn statement as to what they doing in regards to tracking the user. Quoting Rosch at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum, CNET’s Declan McCullagh quotes Rosch at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum: “We could ‘direct [ad networks] to answer under oath questions about their information practices.'” Needless to say, Rosch supports a much more invasive Do-Not-Track approach. Read more.

Cisco Is ALIVE!

Cisco made its first acquisition since its big layoffs and cost reductions in April due to, in part, under-performance of its consumer-focused businesses. The company announced a $31 million purchase of AXIOSS which “will enable Cisco to extend network and service management technology across its Internet Protocol (IP) network platforms,” according to PC Mag. A video ad network or monetization platform might be nice, too. Read more.

In-Image Ads

A new advertising platform called Stipple is offering advertisers a way to get their message in-image. Comparing it to Kontera and Vibrant Media of in-text ad fame, Scott Fulton of ReadWriteWeb writes, “Whenever the reader’s mouse pointer passes over them in a picture, up pops a little screen, perhaps with a price tag and links to a vendor.” According to Fulton, all publishers need to do is install a Stipple tag to activate the system. Of course, they do. Have another piece of candy? This is somewhat reminiscent of Milabra (AdExchanger.com Q&A – now defunct) and Image Space Media (AdExchanger.com Q&A).

Big Trends For The Next Decade

Venture capital dude and prolific blogger, Mark Suster, writes on his personal blog that there are two big themes he sees in digital media in the next 5-10 years. The first is offline/online integration: “Think about it, when you shop at Nordstrom they should know as much about you as Amazon does when you’re shopping online. (…) They recommend up-sells and cross-sells of products. Nordstrom sales reps are trained to do this to, but of course they can’t know every customer that walks around the store. Or can they?” Read about the other.

Selling Solutions

Sales trainer Daniel Ambrose says that solution selling is the way to go if you’re a publisher looking to drive revenues. Yahoo! would likely agree with this (see AdExchanger.com Q&A). Ambrose ephiphany occurred at a conference when a publisher said, “My salespeople talk to advertisers and agencies about the client’s customers and how to reach them. That is an advantage because their own needs are precisely what clients and prospects want to talk about.” Read more.

APAC And Ad Networks

On Exchange Wire, Ciaran O’Kane talks to Pixel Group CEO Kevin Huang about the digital media business opportunity in South Asia. Huang says, “The ad network market is still in its infancy in Asia (…) Most advertisers still prefer or allocate a larger piece of their budgets to traditional media and when it comes to online, major portals and newspaper sites still get the lion’s share.” Read more.

Self-Service Ch-ching

On his Screenwerk’s blog, Greg Sterling talks to Yext CEO Howard Lerman about his company’s strategy. Lerman says that Yext’s Pay-Per-Call strategy has a finite appeal but is much more enthusiastic about the company’s Power Listings opportunity. Sterling does some quick math to look at Yext’s revenue potential: “The company charges $399 per year for PowerListings. And if there are potentially about 700K SMBs willing to sign up and pay Yext’s $399 fee the potential revenue to be made is $279 million annually.” And, it’s all self-service. Read more.

But Wait. There’s More!