Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Brightcove Gets $12 Million More
Bringing its grand total to $99 million in venture capital raised (let’s pass the hat and get ’em up to an even $100 mil), Brightcove announced that it has raised $12 million led by existing investors Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners according to The Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Vascellaro. Not a bad sum for a space already teeming with competition from the likes of Google’s Episodic (bought last week), Ooyala and Comcast’s ThePlatform says Vascellaro. Read more.
Digital Changes Creative Budgets
Mark Young, GM of the Global Trade Marketing Advertising team, writes on the Microsoft Ad blog that digital is going to change the way the creative budget is spent. Young says, “Another big shift I think is coming for digital is leaving more of your production budget unspent at the beginning of a campaign, so that you not only optimize the best creative, you can also introduce new creative as you learn and listen to your customers about the campaign.” Read a little more.
Art Of Intros
As Donald Trump is to “art of the deal,” then First Round Capital’s Chris Fralic is to “the art of the introduction”? At the very least, Fralic gives his top 10 tips for intros in a TechCrunch opinion piece. He writes, “It often makes sense to consider the benefits of using a ‘Firewall’ – the best/easiest example is via LinkedIn where it’s easy and completely up to each party to forward or accept the Introduction. Another alternative to a direct introduction is for the Connector to forward information to the Target to see if they’re interested first.” Read more.
Digital Agencies Fail
Karen Macumber, SVP of Media at AMP Agency, pulls no punches which she gives 5, count ’em 5, reasons that “certain” digital agencies will fail. In punch number 5, Macumber punches, “Digital agencies that look at the evolution of technology to predict their target consumers’ behavior will not succeed.” More beatings here.
Patent Madness
Facebook is facing a lawsuit by a patent owner who claims the idea for online communities. The patent is described thusly: “An invention of software and hardware that would establish ‘novel systems and methods for creating a community for users with common interests to interact in.'” Read more at Law.com.
iPad Audience
The Piper-Jaffray investment banking research team did not take the weekend off last weekend as they surveyed consumers who were standing in line for an iPad in Minneapolis and NYC. The study reveals that the diabolical plans of the new iPad audience: “74% planned to use their iPads to surf the Web; 38% to read books; 32% to e-mail; 26% to watch video; 18% to play games and other apps; 8% to listen to music.” Read more from CNN’s Fortune blog.
Snopes – Inventory Of The Gullible
Demand Media needs a Snopes.com, don’ t you think? The couple which owns and operates the site responds to the human gullibility algorithm as a story in The New York Times illustrates. “The popularity of Snopes – it attracts seven million to eight million unique visitors in an average month – puts the couple in a unique position to evaluate digital society’s attitudes toward accuracy.” An attitudinal targeting treasure chest!
You’re Hired
The Rubicon Project continues to hire as it announced Ben Trenda as VP of U.S. Demand, who will be offering the demand-side of Rubicon to “ad networks and other third-party sales channel partners.” Former Experian VP Eric Matza takes the Director of Product Marketing role. Read more. Meanwhile at MDC Partners’ Varick Media, Niraj Nagpal has joined the company as of last as an Account Manager afterspending time at Adconion Media Group working on clients such as Verizon, Bank of America, General Mills, and Kraft amongst others.
Integrating E-Commerce Into Facebook
Adgregate Markets keeps pumping out the partnerships. Today’s partnership is with Demandware which provides an “on-demand” e-commerce platform to retailers such as Nine West, Burton and Columbia Sportswear. Adgregate’s in-media, e-commerce banner technology will be integrated into the platform so that Demandware’s “retail clients can use Adgregate’s ShopFans (the social version of Adgregate’s tech) to easily embed the entire shopping experience within Facebook, without ever requiring would-be customers to ‘click out.'” Read the release.
Startup Accounting 101
Fred Wilson continues his series of Monday posts which he admits he’s tiring of but can’t help providing a quick-and-easy resource for startups looking to understand the purpose behind some of accounting’s key instruments such as the Income Statement, the Balance Sheet, and the Cash Flow Statement. Read this week’s installment – “Analyzing Financial Statements.”
