Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Funding The Valuer
PandoDaily made note yesterday of a new $30 million round of funding by digital media valuation company Integral Ad Science. See the SEC filing. Pando’s Erin Griffith references the comScore patent battle that Integral Ads has moved beyond: “After its patent battle, Integral Ad Science beefed up on its own patents. The company last month was issued a patent for ad blocking, which sounds counterintuitive for an ad-tech company. But the firewall tool under the patent is for making sure that brands don’t end up buying ads next to content they don’t want to be seen near.” Related: Integral Ads was talking “bots” in November – read it.
AllThingsD is no more, but two of the minds behind it, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, have launched a new publication called Re/code. The site falls under the Revere Digital company, with NBCUniversal News Group and Windsor Media as investors and partners. The company will continue to produce events as well as operating news sites and apps. Read more. And read the NYT’s take on Re/code. Meanwhile, AllThingsD’s owner, The Wall Street Journal, has launched WSJD in its place. Read about it.
Shifting Consumption
Millennial men are flocking to the Internet for news consumption and leaving magazine publications such as GQ and Maxim behind. This wave of bro media, as Digiday referred to it, is attracting large advertiser dollars despite risks to brand safety. “You don’t sell skinny jeans in Disneyland,” said Solly Solomou, founder of UK-based TheLadBible.com. “You have to be naive to say brands aren’t going to connect themselves with this type of content if that’s where their audience is.” Read more.
Digitizing CRM
India-based digital CRM company Vizury is looking to dip into the venture well with a $20 million raise. Vizury CEO Chetan Kulkarni tells TechCrunch, “We’ll invest in building local products for markets like China, because that’s the only way it can become a billion-dollar market.” Read more. Kulkarni spoke to AdExchanger in November. Read that one.
Preempting Privacy
If marketers aren’t proactive about data collection and privacy, it could end up costing them in the end, according to Ad Age. Although consumers ask for more relevant ads, argues Jonathan Salem Baskin, it doesn’t mean they are willing to give away all of their personal information for free. As organizations like the Federal Trade Commission start making the issue more public, consumers will likely become more diligent about the data they share. Read more.
Demand Up, Expanding Out
Opera Mediaworks is expanding its presence in Latin America, according to Mobile Marketing Watch, as demand for ads in the region accelerates. The team behind Hunt Media Ads is joining Opera Mediaworks across multiple countries in the region. “Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, represents a market of over 600 million consumers that are rapidly adopting the mobile Internet,” says Mahi de Silva, CEO, Opera Mediaworks. Read more.
Privacy
But Wait, There’s More!
- Will Digital Ads Become More Than An Interruption? (video) – Sharethrough’s Patrick Keane on Bloomberg
- Google’s Eric Schmidt: “Mobile Has Won” – Marketing Land
- Why I Still Pay for Content and An Opportunity for Publishers – Darren Herman
