Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Shah Acquires Ziff-Davis, Looking For Data Gold
With the help of Great Hill Partners, former Time Inc. executive, Vivek Shah has acquired technology-focused publisher Ziff Davis where he will now becomes its CEO. Shah promises that this is “the start of a new digital media company.” What’s more, it looks he’ll be mining for “intent” as he tells The NY Times, “If you’re reading five printer reviews, I probably have a sense that you are in the market for a printer,” Mr. Shah said. Read more. People and companies get in the publishing game because they see the sell-side opportunity. Interesting! In fact, he tells PaidContent’s Staci Kramer, “There’s a huge data opportunity. You take the audience that this company has and you recognize that that audience can be made available to marketers across lots of other sites, lots of other platforms.” Read more from PaidContent. And, read the release.
Demand Media’s Bradford Declares War
CRO Joanne Bradford tells Edmund Lee of Ad Age that content machine Demand Media, which she emphasizes is human-driven, will pass by AOL and then Yahoo! among the Web’s largest content players saying, “We want to be the biggest, best destination for brands.” No timetable is given but it should be noted that if you’re a big content player, you’re a big display and/or audience-driven media player. Here comes Demand Media. Read more.
Bonjour! VivaKi’s Hecht Moves To Paris
Now that David Kenny is leaving VivaKi, VivaKi Nerve Center chief Curt Hecht is moving to the center of the Publicis storm – Paris – for one year says AdWeek’s Brian Morrrissey. According to Morrissey, “It’s a move Hecht said would allow him to expand VivaKi initiatives like Audience on Demand to new markets and bring an American view of tech innovation to Publicis management there.” Read more VivaKi moves on AdWeek.
According to Mike Shields of Mediaweek, MTVN’s Tribes/vertical ad network strategy is moving forward in mobile. Shields writes that three new mobile Tribes “include an Entertainment Tribe, featuring Comedy Central’s and Spike’s Web sites; a Casual Gaming Tribe, including sites AddictingGames.com and Shockwave.com; and a Music & Youth Tribe, which includes MTV.com and CMT.com.” Read more.
Porting Flash To HTML5
On Network World, Amy Vernon says a group that owns mobile ad network RevShock is trying to break the iPad/iPhone compatibility impasse and has developed a new product called Smokescreen which could unlock the iPad for Flash-inclined developers. Vernon says, “it promises to eliminate the need for heavy lifting, by automatically converting Flash to JavaScript/HTML5.” Read more. And, see the video demo.
Yahoo! Gets New CTO
Where’s the Yahoo! search talent going now that Microsoft is taking over the company’s site search? According to the Yahoo! corporate “Yodel Anecdotal” blog, Yahoo!, Raymie Stata (LinkedIn profile), who was VP and Chief Architect of Search and Advertising, has been named Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President. He’ll report to Chief Products Officer, Blake Irving. Read more. Stata has been with the company since 2004 in various technological capacities.
Distro Adding Content
Comcast Corp. COO Steve Burke said at last week’s All Things D Conference that technology is allowing a distribution platform to become a significant content player. In The Wall Street Journal, writer Gabriel Kahn paraphrases Comcast’s Burke, “…Owning the content would allow Comcast to more easily deliver TV shows and movies to consumers on their living room TV sets, as well as computers and mobile devices.” It better! Read more.
Burstly Announces More Funding
Mobile ad management company Burstly announced that SoftBank Capital and Founder Collective have joined their Series A round of funding. This follows investment by initial “A” participants GRP Partners and Rincon Ventures which totaled $1.8 million according to TechCrunch in March. Read more on Burstly’s blog.
Internet Makes U Smarter
The Wall Street Journal gave the microphone to NYU professor and Web pundit Clay Shirky who sounds off on the idea that the Internet makes you smarter even though it may appear that its silly videos, mindless news sites and social media madness drives in the opposite direction. Comparing the Internet to the invention of the printing press, Shirky writes, We are living through a similar explosion of publishing capability today, where digital media link over a billion people into the same network. Read it.
DSPs And The Value Chain
Demand-side platform strategy is being felt around the globe and Sonal Patel takes a look at DSPs and the display advertising value chain on her personal blog. Patel says that the Asia-Pacific region’s value chain is” actually not so horrendous compared to the ones seen in the US or Europe.” Read more. She adds that even though APAC may be behind in technological innovation in comparison to the U.S., “This is not to be seen negatively but in fact this is an opportunity for APAC to leapfrog concepts that the US tried and tested and failed.”
Sorry, Sales Guy
Mark Mannino writes on is personal blog, “One of the biggest challenges facing publishers today is that direct sales forces still think they are selling the site. Sorry, sales guy, the world has moved on.” It’s about audience says Mannino. Time for “Mr. Omniscient Publisher.”Read what he means.
Ad.ly Turns To MySpace
Twitter ad network Ad.ly has signed an agreement with MySpace for a sponsored-Tweet-like product according to Jack Marshall of ClickZ. Marshall writes that MySpace users registered with Ad.ly can “publish advertiser content in their updates in exchange for payment, of which the social network will take a cut. Users can decide which messages from advertisers they want to support.” Read more.
