Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Rothenberg Heads To Time, Inc.
Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) chief Randall Rothenberg is saying adios to his executive duties at the venerable ad trade organization and moving to the publishing world where he’ll assume the title of Chief Digital Officer at Time Inc. According to ClickZ’s Zach Rodgers, this is a new position within Time. Rodgers adds, “Rothenberg will leave the IAB on January 17 to take charge of Time Inc.’s interactive brands, which include SI.com, Golf.com, Time.com, Life.com, and CNNMoney.com. (…) He’ll report to CEO Jack Griffin.” Read more.
Google Promoting Its Own
The Wall Street Journal’s Emir Efrati says that Google is increasingly showing its own niche content site links above those of others in its search engine result pages, and companies that are being pushed down the page are complaining. Efrati writes, “Google (…) says that prominently displaying links to them is more useful to Web searchers than just displaying links to sites that rank highly in its search system. But the moves mean Google increasingly is at odds with websites that rely on the search engine for visitors.” Read more.
Verifying The Insights
Ad verification firm AdSafe Media released its third quarter review of display advertising and, according to the report, highlights (or lowlights in certain cases) included: “48% of display inventory was served via Ad Exchanges / Real-Time-Bidding Platforms / Sell Side Platforms, 33% was served via Ad Networks and 19% was served directly via Publishers.” Get more in the PDF (sign-up required).
It’s off – at least, this week. The possible Aol/Yahoo! merger won’t be happening as according to Crain’s New York’s Matthew Flynn. Flynn said that his source told him, “AOL tried to either get enough backing to make a run at Yahoo, or get Yahoo interested in buying it. Yahoo didn’t bite, and AOL didn’t have its ducks lined up to be a buyer.” Read about it.
Full-Metal Attribution
From the recent Search Insider Summit, MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan reveals Yahoo! North American display maven’s deep, dark thoughts (Ok, maybe not so dark) on the next big challenge for marketers. She writes, “Calling it ‘full-funnel attribution,’ Zinman told the packed room of marketers, that advertisers must insist that search and display teams collaborate and coordinate media buys to ensure that budgets are allocated correctly. The alternative risks creating a ‘cacophony’ that costs the client money.” Read about the noise.
The End Of Privacy
In what may be shaping up to be a competitor to the “What They Know” series from the Wall Street Journal, editors at CNN ominously title John Sutter’s piece “The internet and the ‘end of privacy'” and indicate its the first in a series of pieces on the subject of consumer privacy. The first article highlights how sharing and social data has made consumers more vulnerable as “even basic information on online social networks can be used what the U.S. government calls ‘social engineering attacks.'” Read more. Another article looks at Facebook ID data and the recent furor over its usage. Read it here.
Being Choiceful In Tens
Like Top 10s? Ad Age has delivered an end-of-year issue called “Book of Tens” in which the publication looks at 10 influencers, events or ideas within whimsical categories related to the advertising biz. Among the Tens, “Jargoniest Jargon We’ve Heard All Year” which included such phrases as “At The End Of The Day,” “Open The Kimono,” and this nasty one – “choiceful,” which means according to the Ad Age editorial team, “This means something, just not what most users think. The connotation, before it was embraced by business folk, was about making frequent and sometimes contradictory choices, i.e. being fickle. As such, it may secretly be an apt use of language. But deciders should use ‘decisive’ to convey the intended meaning.” Read more.
Turning Off The Cookie
According to TechCrunch, a former Googler, Brian Kennish, has created a browser plug-in called Disconnect which disables third-party data tracking. Kennish tells TechCrunch, “I called it quits at Google three weeks ago so I could help web users better understand the data they’re unintentionally sharing and develop tools that make it simple for them to control this data (I’ve been referring to this effort as Web 2.1, a privacy patch for the web).” It’s unclear how this is different from existing tools like Better Advertising’s Ghostery, but there is obviously a lot of pent-up energy to bring privacy solutions to the consumer. Read more. Disconnect is available for Chrome and Rockmelt here with Firefox and Safari versions promised in the future.
GroupM COO Dubious About Innovation’s Future
ClickZ’s Jack Marshall talks to GroupM COO John Montgomery who shares his thoughts on self-regulation and momentum he sees for the do-not-track list among other topics. Montgomery things that innovation could screech to a halt with new regulation: “This is going to hit the innovators, and the new people coming into the marketplace that are yet to invent fantastic things that will change our lives. What’s really starting to happen is venture capital companies are saying ‘you know what? We’re not going to pursue [investment in new online services] because the model is dependent on behavioral advertising.'”
Read more.
Signal, Curation, Discovery
Federated Media’s John Batelle relates a story from his recent visit with digital advertising and media types in New York City and sees an evolution as it relates to discovery (search). He writes, “In short, over time, the problem has not gotten better, it’s gotten far more complicated. If all search had to do was categorize web content, I’d wager it’d be close to solved by now.” Enter signal and curation to help with your discovery. Read what he means.
You’re Hired!
Resonate Networks is hiring as the company announced, “Sung Shin joins as Vice President of Product Management from comScore, and Elaine Harvey as Vice President of Software Engineering from Parature.” Read the release.
Swedish Ad Network
Goteborg, Sweden-based ad network Admeta said that it has received investment from two Admeta founders as well as a group of three investors including Chalmers Innovation Seed Fund, Layline Partners and KL Ventures. Read the release on Admeta’s site.
