Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Outside.In VC Pockets
Neighborhood news/blog aggregator Outside.In announced that it rang the register with a $7 million round of financing with investors that include CNN, Union Square Ventures and Betaworks . As newspapers struggle to find a solution to drive revenue, local news solutions have been a much-discussed topic. Read more from the WSJ or ReadWriteWeb.
Real-Time Search
Google announced its getting more “real-time” than ever before as it adds FriendFeed, Twitter and blog posts that have just posted to its search engine result pages (SERPs). Whenever you see “Latest Results” in the SERP, it’s the latest relevant news from real-time sources for a keyword phrase. Read more on the Google blog. Rob Hof covers the real-time unveiling.
AdMeld On Mobile Display
Yield optimizer AdMeld said in a release yesterday that it would begin optimizing mobile ad inventory along with standard (PC) display: “Currently undergoing beta testing, the combined product will be available to select AdMeld customers in Q1 of 2010.” Read the release.
Triggit Reflects And Predicts
On the Triggit blog, CEO Zach Coelius provides his recap of the year beginning with RTB and demand-side platforms and ending with a list of predictions for 2010 including, “Once Google makes all of AdSense available to RTB (and it is pretty close now) the media buying world is going to change very quickly.” Read more.
Rubicon Project UK Data
Good news for UK publishers according to Farney Media and recent data from Rubicon Project. Farney Media writes that in a recently commissioned study, Rubicon Project found that 61% of publishers said pricing remained steady compared to a year ago and 22% even admitted an uptick in rate card prices. Read more on Farney Media.
KBSP Gets Ex-Fish
Ad Age reports that Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners has hired ex-Razorfish chief creative, Marc Lucas, to become its chief creative officer as Richard Kirshenbaum steps back from the help of the mother ship. Lucas will be in charge of all “integrated creative work” for KBSP shops Media Kitchen, Dotglu and Lime PR and Promotions. Read more.
The Start-Up Stretch
Jill Gambon of Mass High Tech writes about how startups have learned to stretch every dollar during the recent recession. “To preserve cash, some startups are contracting out software or web development work, rather than hiring employees.” No mention of ping tables being cut from the budget, though. Read more.
Privacy Is For The Naughty
Google CEO Eric Schmidt delivered a solid gold quote when he told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo in a December 3 interview that in regards to safeguarding privacy, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Take that! (HuffPo)
Better Advertising
It was Privacy Monday yesterday! Turn CTO Xuhui Shao announced that Turn has joined a consortium of agencies to create a privacy monitoring tool and establish trust with consumers (and more importantly, government officials) about behavioral targeting in online advertising. Visit the Turn blog. And, www.betteradvertising.com.
New Yahoo! Opt-Out
The new “Ad Interests Manager” from Yahoo! was released yesterday allowing users to opt-out of tracking for Yahoo!’s behavioral advertising purposes. On the site there is a complete list of interest categories in which users get bucketed. Among them, “Automotive > Wagon and Crossover” – a category I would not be caught dead in. Vist the Ad Interests Manager. Or, read the release.
Washington Watch
In Washington, another FTC privacy roundtable was held that included Simulmedia’s Dave Morgan according to his Twitter feed. Morgan tweeted, “FTC chair Leibowitz likens Internet privacy issues to those Justice Brandeis had [with] intro of cameras.” Visit FTC.gov’s privacy roundtable page. Read about yesterday’s event from MediaPost.
Beacon Meets Judge Wapner
Litigation alleging wrongdoing by Facebook for its implementation of Beacon is at the heart of this austerely-designed site. The home page says it all, “Beacon was designed to allow users to share information with their selected friends about actions taken on affiliated, but third- party, websites. The Plaintiffs in this lawsuit are claiming that they did not receive adequate notice and/or choice…” Someone should have called for godsakes! Read more.
BlueKai In-Market Reports
MediiaPost’s Gavin O’Malley reports on BlueKai’s new In-Market Reports which can help advertisers find scalable, targetable audiences through data segments on the BlueKai Exchange according to BlueKai’s CEO Omar Tawakol. Read more.
Are You An MBA 2009?
Well maybe you should be. Everybody’s an MBA as Paul Kedrosky notes that more than any other year this decade, people remain interested in becoming masters of business administration. See the graph.
