Google has agreed to buy hosted IM platform Meebo in a deal that signals its growing eagerness to wrap its head (and pocketbook) around social and “earned” media– including how to monetize content-driven brand connections. The purchase price was not disclosed, but in an earlier report about talks between the companies, AllThingsD claimed the price […]
It’s official. CRM loves social as it looks to make actionable its vast data sets. The announced acquisition of Vitrue by Oracle a couple of weeks ago has been followed today by the $689 million purchase of Buddy Media by Salesforce.com. Jeff Pashalides, Head of SaaS Advisory at Blackstone offfered his thoughts on the acquisition: […]
Here’s a snippet from the release: “Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Buddy Media, the world’s leading social media marketing platform, for approximately $689 million payable in cash and salesforce.com equity. The transaction is expected to be completed during salesforce.com’s fiscal third quarter […]
Oracle’s deal to buy Vitrue gives it a strong foothold in community management. The execs who brokered it intend for the acquisition to be the foundation of a social platform strategy that will encompass not only to social marketing, CRM and lead generation, but eventually hiring and HR functions too. AdExchanger asked a handful of […]
While the world obsesses over Facebook and its troubled IPO, an older social media entity that used to attract as much attention is trying to rebuild. In July, Myspace marks the anniversary of its hand-off from News Corp. to ad network Specific Media, and the year has passed more quietly than its new owners had […]
Oracle gets deeper into the ads space! The company has agreed to acquire social marketing software company Vitrue. Read the release. No terms have been disclosed. More from Oracle’s corporate website: “On May 23, 2012, Oracle announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Vitrue, a leading cloud-based social marketing and engagement platform […]
Speculation on how Facebook will expand its revenue streams will only become more intense once the social network issues its first public stock offering on May 18th. Although Facebook is the top display advertising seller, according to eMarketer, an SEC filing last month revealed that ad dollars had slipped 7.5 percent, dragging down total revenues […]
As advertisers increasingly turn to audience buying, social media, and other methods of aligning with content that allows them to bypass traditional publishers directly, those outlets need to find ways to maintain their relationship to readers and ad dollars. Last week, The New York Times Company unveiled new tools that support its online content by […]
Vitrue offers one of a small handful of enterprise platforms geared to marketers’ social publishing needs. The six-year-old company says it’s making steady progress in tying social to various corners of the digital marketing dashboard, including analytics platforms, CRM, and mobile. CEO Reggie Bradford recently spoke with AdExchanger about this and other topics, such as […]
Considering that it’s preparing for what may be the most hugely anticipated IPO in a decade, Facebook shook off its “quiet period” shackles and announced the acquisition of photo-sharing application Instagram for $1 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said from his Facebook profile: “This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve […]
James Borow is CEO of Santa Monica-based GraphEffect, a social advertising platform focused on driving a customer’s paid, owned and earned media. The company recently announced an update to its core product, GraphEffect 2.0, which it says, “enables marketers to integrate their social advertising and conversational marketing initiatives…” Read the release. Click below or scroll […]
On Monday, social marketing software company Buddy Media announced that it had acquired UK-based Brighter Option, provider of a self-serve ad product via the Facebook Ads API. Terms were not disclosed. Read the release. According to a post on his company’s blog, Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow said about the deal, “… integrating [Brighter Option’s] […]
Given that “food” is one of the top ad spending categories in the lifestyle space, it makes sense that the largely female-focused blog network Glam Media would build out a vertical devoted to that subject. But unlike the other recent expansions of Glam’s content and related ad offerings around health and wellness, the Foodie channel […]
Today, social analytics company and ad network 33across announced the acquisition of Tynt, a sell-side analytics tools company that aggregates data to tell publishers about their audience, protect their content and even leverage search engine optimization to drive traffic. Read the release. In addition to the new sell-side technology – it’s getting a boatload of […]
Sam Decker is CEO of Mass Relevance, a social content management system for vertical channels. He spoke to AdExchanger.com recently about his company and industry trends. AdExchanger: First, please share a bit about your background… SD: Sure. The first third of my career was in startups in the Bay Area. Some were media startups, some […]
Yesterday’s most highly-anticipated presentation of the day came and went like a dusty, desert breeze as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg offered what amounted to a sales pitch at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) annual meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona. It appeared Facebook and Sandberg didn’t understand the audience: leading brand marketers from around the globe […]
Curtis Hougland is founder of Attention, a full-service social media marketing agency and part of MDC Partners. Hougland discusses his agency, social media marketing and more. AdExchanger.com: In social media, what is the unique approach to addressing audiences that isn’t present in other digital or traditional channels? CH: We can actually engage in conversations, which […]
In spite of recent announcements that Facebook has surpassed Google and Yahoo! for overall display impressions, ecosystem feedback suggests there’s a difference between what a Facebook or social display impression (Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc.) offers and that of a “regular” display impression – i.e. through a standard IAB-sized display ad unit. With this challenge in mind, […]
One of the complaints about Facebook advertising has been the inability to sync any advertiser’s ad campaign efforts with other, non-Facebook, cookie-based efforts. In other words, if you’re a brand marketer looking to raise awareness for a particular product, you’ll need to use Facebook (FB) advertising’s own metrics – which could include anything from demographic […]
Today, social media marketing company Buddy Media announced the acquisition of Spinback, a social commerce analytics and technology company. On Buddy Media’s company blog, Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow explains how attribution was at the center of the reason for buying Spinback: “By combining sharing and conversion tracking into one elegant technology solution, Spinback shows […]
Search and display ad platform provider, Efficient Frontier, has announced the integration of Facebook Ads into its platform. Efficient Frontier CEO David Karnstedt said in the press release, “While other players in the market may now provide Facebook advertising to their clients, they are not truly optimizing across the other channels to improve performance in […]
Nikhil Sethi is Co-Founder of Adapt.ly, a social advertising platform company. AdExchanger.com: What gave you the idea for Adapt.ly? NS: I founded a company while studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern University, focused on self-serve direct mail technology, and about 9 months in, I realized I wasn’t focused on the reasons I started […]
Vikram Sharma is CEO of ShopLocal, a multi-channel online services company. AdExchanger.com What problem is ShopLocal solving today? VS: ShopLocal solves the problem of achieving in-store traffic toward key promotions and deals in an age where consumers have multiple options to purchase that don’t require them to actually physically visit their local Walgreens or JCPenney. […]
Last Wednesday, WeShop, a consumer-focused, group buying network currently in private beta announced a $4.25 million Series A round of investment with participation from Jonathan Miller of News Corp, and Martin White, and Carlos Sala, “respectively the former Founder/CEO, and CFO, of Abacus Direct, which was sold to Doubleclick in 2000.” Read more. CEO Antony […]
Rapleaf announced a partnership with NetProspex, as Rapleaf will enhance NetProspex’ marketing contact database with “a social layer of data” with the goal of allowing “B2B marketers to successfully decipher the social demographics of business prospects and customers.” Read the release. Joel Jewitt, Rapleaf’s VP of Business Development, discussed the partnership and B2B social data. […]
Social ad targeting firm, Lotame, named Eric Porres it’s Chief Marketing Officer in a release today. Read it on the Lotame blog. Lotame also announced that it’s paying the piper (ComScore) to be included in the ComScore ad network report as the company looks to position itself against the reach of traditional ad networks. Porres […]
Seth Goldstein is the co-founder and CEO of SocialMedia, a social advertising platform. AdExchanger.com: AdKnowledge acquired SocialMedia.com’s ad network last week as noted here by TechCrunch. Where does this leave SocialMedia.com? We are excited about the transition of our ad network to Adknowledge. This move will allow SocialMedia.com to focus solely on its core business […]
Andy Moeck is CEO of ADISN, a creative optimization technology firm. AdExchanger.com: Why did you start Adisn? AM: We started ADISN because we were tired of seeing ads or having ads served to us with zero relevance to what we were doing and interested in at that time. From that point, we saw a few […]
Eric Wheeler is CEO of 33Across, a social advertising technology company. AdExchanger.com: Any update you can provide on momentum at 33Across? Hey, what does the name, 33Across, mean anyway? EW: We’re working with a number of major brands and media agencies – The 33Across SocialDNA™ platform enables marketers to identify and anonymously target people with […]
Brian Halligan is CEO of HubSpot, a social marketing optimization company. AdExchanger.com: What are the special concerns that the SMB has when it comes to online marketing that HubSpot solves? BH: SMBs have myriad specific concerns that can be summarized in two general concerns: First, expertise. They know they need to get involved in inbound […]
