Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Choose Your Weapon
The Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Vranica takes a look at recent efforts by a combo of Publicis Groupe, Microsoft, Yahoo, CBS and Hulu that is trying to find a more effective way to advertise through online video. The answer? Let the consumer choose what ad they want to see. Vranica notes, “Tests found that ‘ad selector,’ a format that lets online-video watchers pick one of three companies’ ads to watch, outscored other ad formats.” Read more.
When In Doubt, Rebrand
Comcast announced that it was rebranding itself as Xfinity which and offer the same internet, phone and TV services but with the new name, which company officials likely hope makes the customer forget about lost connections and internet outages. Thus far, feedback on the new name has been swift – Seattle Post Intelligencer says results from an informal survey say the name is reminiscent of a gaming console. Read it. And, read Comcast’s blog.
AdMeld Real-Time Conference
A standing-room crowd enjoyed nearly a full-day of panels and presentations around real-time bidding and current innovation in the digital ad world. The space seems to appreciably grow in months not years. Among the nuggets from the event was report put together by Forrester and funded by AdMeld called “Media Buying Goes Real Time.” Download it here (PDF – requires sign-up).
GigaOm’s Liz Gannes takes a look at BlueKai’s privacy preferences that can be managed by the consumer. BlueKai CEO Omar Tawakol says the aim of the extensive privacy preferences capabilities is “to raise the bar high enough that we (the industry) do it for ourselves instead of waiting for legislation.” Read more.
Matching Content And More
UK-based Cognitive Match announced that it has raised $2.5 million in another round of funding. According to TechCrunch, the company is “applying artificial intelligence, learning mathematics, psychology and semantic technologies to match content (product, offers, or editorial) to realtime content.” Read more.
TRAFFIQ Iterates Tools
In a release, TRAFFIQ says that it has added “advanced targeting, inventory packaging and deal negotiation geatures” in a new rev of its platform. The new functionality also allows publishers to create “channels” of inventory which TRAFFIQ says makes it “much simpler for publishers to quickly set up storefronts and promote themselves.” Read the release.
HTML 5 Chatter
There’s been some chatter lately that HTML 5 will replace or strongly compete with Adobe’s Flash format and upset the fruit basket for Adobe. John Herrman of Gizmodo isn’t so sure. He writes, “At heart HTML is just a framework, a glimpse, and an ideal: Its real effect on the internet continues to be defined by the companies and web developers who choose to adopt its many pieces—and it is further shaped by those who don’t.” Read more on the choices.
Akamai Reports Earnings
According to Dow Jones Newswires, Akamai made $40.1 million, or 21 cents a share, compared with $40.5 million, or 22 cents a share, a year earlier. Results were slightly ahead of expectations. Read more on the WSJ. Seeking Alpha notes a Goldman analysts prediction prior to the earnings call that Q4 revenue from Acerno totaled $11 million. On the actual call, Chad Bartley of Pacific Crest asked, Can you say if [Acerno] did in fact grow more than 100% sequentially, given the seasonality? Seems like you guys expected that to more than double.” To which CFO J.D. Sherman said, “Yes. It’s in that ballpark. But again, we’re not going to break out the ADS business going forward.” Read the transcript.
The Government Media Buyer
New Media Age reports that governmental org The Central Office of Information in the UK has appointed WPP Group’s GroupM as its media buyer of choice. The media planning is worth $250 million and spans channels which is different than its previous, segmented approach to planning according to NMA. Read more.
