Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Aegis Announces Its DSP
In an article in New Media Age, agency holding company, Aegis, announced that it’s entering the agency demand-side platform/trading desk fray and its DSP will be ready in a “few months.” Carat MD Rob Horler tells NMA, “We’re building it from the ground up rather than the top down. We won’t pretend we have one and then never use it.” Read more.
Omniture Announces Display Ads; Adobe And Media
Is the Adobe acquisition of Omniture making more sense? “Let’s leverage those web analytics pixel positions,” says Adobe as Omniture is getting into the display advertising business. Could Adobe be growing a media practice? From the release, “Omniture is partnering with leading ad networks and services to provide a solution that will help customers easily find and remarket to past visitors.” Among the inventory suppliers are Rubicon Project, WPP Group’s 24/7 Real Media, FOX Audience Network, Tribal Fusion, Traffic Marketplace, and Collective. Read the release.
Pete Kim says on his blog that the next step could be for Adobe to buy a DSP and complete its stack after what he views as Adobe’s entry into the dynamic ad space with this Omniture display announcement. Read it.
All of this follows an announcement that Facebook ad data will be added to Omniture’s SearchCenter Plus marketing dashboard. Read more from Adweek.
Data, data, data, data, data, data, data, data, data.
Tobaccowala: Get Your Pocketbooks
Chief strategy and innovation officer for VivaKi and industry sage, Rishad Tobaccowala, said at the 4As Conference this week that agencies can survive but they’re going to need to ante up. According to AdAge, Tobaccowala theme was clear, “Young, hungry talent can transform this business, but you’re going to have to pay for it.” Read more and see the video of his presentation.
Facebook’s Billion In Revenue
Inside Facebook quotes its “Inside Facebook” sources saying that the social media giant reach between $600 and $700 million in revenues for 2009 and should approach $1 billion in 2010. Almost all of last year’s revenue was due to advertising – except for a smidge of revenue ($10 million est.) from virtual goods. Inside Facebook finishes off its Facebook predictions with a $20 billion run rate “in the future.” Read more.
Tomio Geron writes on The Wall Street Journal Venture Capital Dispatch blog that Google may do away with “earn-outs” where executives from Google-acquired companies are incentivized to stay on with Big G and keep driving the business. During a panel discussion with Google, a Walt Disney Group exec identified the issues with earn-outs: “It can sometimes be difficult to disentangle what value came from the start-up and what came through the association with the acquiring company.” Read more. Dave Sobota, director of corporate development at Google said the new solution is, “We tend to have pretty generous packages but they’re time-based, whether in equity or cash, instead of specific milestones.”
Kopelman On Ecommerce Innovation
Finally! FirstRound’s Josh Kopelman expresses surprise from the RedEye VC blog about “how little transformative innovation has occurred in ecommerce” in the past 10 years -except for the last 10 months. Kopelman says that new paradigms in online shopping have appeared including “private sale shopping sites, behavioral data augmentation and API’s that allow for syndicated shopping” among others. Read more from the former Half.com chief.
Murdoch Partners With Apple
Rupert Murdoch has announced that he’s partnering with Google’s new arch nemesis, Apple. In a speech, he told members of the Real Estate Board of New York that the WSJ will be integrated into Apple’s iPad. Read more from the WSJ. Murdoch’s plans remain fairly straightforward: he wants to be paid for online access to content from any of his properties – and that includes getting paid by Google for News Corp. properties which populate Google’s search results.
WashPo Not Charging For Now
Speaking to the Economic Club in Washington D.C., Washington Post CEO Don Graham said his publication has no plans to charge for online access. Steve Case, also in attendance, was so inspired that he tweeted about it. Read more from The Business Insider.
Raising Angel Vs. VC
Ben Horowitz, “the Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz,” posts on Marc Andreesen’s blog and looks at the conundrum of when to raise an angel round vs. a venture capital round. Horowitz identifies angels as wealthy individuals who aren’t going to take a year-and-a-day to close a transaction and usually be comfortable with investing a small amount of money – say, $50,000. Read more. (source: Cogmap blog)
Datalogix, Netezza, Big Data
Netezza scored another client win as big data services continue to grow – this time with Datalogix, owners of NextAction. Datalogix’ CTO says the new Netezza TwinFin server will be used to analyze “massive volumes of online and offline data.” Read the release.
Google’s Reserve Price
On The Search Agents, there’s an interesting overview on how Google’s paid search ad auction works, which may also be a lesson for display advertisers. Writer Bradd Libby says, “Many advertisers think that they are competing with other bidders for ad positions. In fact, they are first competing with the reserve price that Google sets. Beat it and your ad gets shown. Bid less and it does not, regardless of how ‘relevant’ it is.” Read more. (source: @jonathanmendez)
When Sitting On Panels
From his Both Sides Of The Table blog, GRP Partners’ Mark Suster makes recommendations on what your strategy should be if you’re sitting on an industry panel. Educate, entertain and have a dialog says Suster, who adds that a good panelist should feel free to “bring the controversy” – the audience likes to see blood spilled. Read more.
