Perennial IPO; Attacking The Bot

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

Perennial IPO

The initial public offering (IPO) cavalcade is not over for digital marketing tech. Ad marketplace Rubicon Project is next and has chosen its bankers. Bloomberg notes, “Rocket Fuel Inc.’s successful offering in September and the rally that followed Twitter’s IPO last month have instilled a renewed level of confidence. TubeMogul … is also planning an IPO for next year, people with knowledge of the matter said.” Read it. A bit more from LA Business Journal.

Attacking The Bot

The IAB is stepping up to help buyers, publishers and networks with detecting and preventing fraud by releasing a best practices document (pdf). “There’s no magic bullet for eliminating fraudulent traffic, because there’s no single method by which criminals exploit the digital advertising system. We’ve prepared this overview of the issue and a set of best practices to start the industry on a path to root out these corrupt practices,” said Tom Phillips, CEO of Dstillery and co-chair of the IAB Traffic of Good Intent Task Force. Read the release. In a post on his Searchblog, Federated Media CEO John Battelle looks at white papers outlining the “bot” challenge for the industry. Read it.

More Bot Battles

In the war on fraud, Microsoft has singled out one particular outfit, dubbed ZeroAccess, by taking legal action, according to The Wall Street Journal. This particular botnet was more sophisticated than others have been and so far Microsoft hasn’t found the source. Read more.

Beyond The Check-In

Foursquare is bulking up its user intent opportunities by offering recommendations for what to order at restaurants or by pushing special offers without the user having the app open, according to VentureBeat. It’s also ramped up the social aspect by providing a feed of what friends are doing nearby, along with recommendations for nearby places. Read more.

Competition Investment

Google is investing in a mobile ad company that it thinks could help bring its mobile ad performance closer to its desktop ads. According to GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram, Google led an $8 million financing round for YieldMo, which uses A/B testing to improve effectiveness and monetization. YieldMo founder Mike Yavonditte’s previous startup, Quigo, was acquired by AOL for $361 million in 2007. Read more.

Smart Gut

CEO Jonah Peretti acknowledges the role data plays in steering the ongoing success story of news media platform BuzzFeed, but doesn’t call it the be-all and end-all. “It’s good to not always trust your gut, to have some skepticism about it, and to constantly have new data coming in and constantly question what you actually know,” Peretti tells Fortune Magazine’s Andy Serwer. But don’t be a slave to the data – he says that it’s important to keep gut-level decision-making as part of the content-building process. “It’s dangerous to only follow the numbers. I think there’s a lot of overoptimization on the Web.” Read more.

Paywall Power

Rupert Murdoch’s News UK operation appears to be offering hope for paywall strategists everywhere. FT.com says that The Sun has more than 100,000+ monthly digital subscribers paying £2 per week with an estimated annual revenue run rate of £10 million (US $16 milion+) for its news offering. But as FT.com’s Robert Cookson notes, “The digital subscriber number remains well below the daily sales figure for The Sun’s print edition, which is about 2.1m.” Read more (subscription).

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