Google Acquires mDialog; Ad Tech Nonprofit

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Google Gobbles Up mDialog

Google acquired mDialog, signaling its interest in more digital advertising. mDialog is a small-fish tech provider in the digital video ad space that services some major media companies and broadcasters. In a Google+ post concerning the acquisition, Google says, “We’re committed to offering more ways for publishers to monetize live, linear and on-demand video content across all screens. While nothing’s changing for their customers immediately, over time we’ll work with the mDialog team to incorporate their technology and expertise into our DoubleClick product suite.” The deal closed for an undisclosed sum. Read more via Adweek.

Ad Tech Nonprofit

A coalition of 20 ad tech companions, which include Rubicon, OpenX, Dstillery and Casale Media, are forming a nonprofit that seeks to simplify programmatic ad buying. DigiTrust will create a standard ID for Web visitors rather than allow individual companies to use their own ID. If the industry adopts the DigiTrust ID, publishers’ sites could load faster due to a reduction in tags on their pages, ad tech companies could share information more simply and a new set of privacy controls could crop up. Rubicon VP of Product Jordan Mitchell will serve as chairman and interim CEO of DigiTrust. Ad Age has the story. And read the release.

Holding Hands For Pre-Roll

Cross-device ad platform provider Drawbridge announced new capabilities on Thursday that give its advertisers access to a supply of premium pre-roll video inventory via Drawbridge’s integration with LiveRail. Read the press release. Meanwhile, Datonics became a VivaKi Verified partner on Wednesday. The alliance marks a data partnership that extends Datonics’ data to VivaKi’s programmatic media solution, Audience On Demand. The alliance will “provide VivaKi advertisers with access to (Datonics’) search, purchase-intent and life-stage data segments,” according to CEO Michael Benedek, “as well as an unlimited number of custom keyword-derived segments.” Read the press release.

Amazon’s Phone Under Fire

Amazon’s new Fire phone may not be an easy sell, the NYT reports, due to a high price point and an obligatory two-year AT&T contract. Yet an interesting new image recognition feature will help Fire owners snap a picture of any item and be directed to Amazon’s site for purchase. “Helping people take care of their shopping tasks is an important job to do in any smartphone,” said Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos. “But that’s not what the phone is all about,” he added, calling that notion “too simplistic.” What, no ads? Read more.

Mobile… WTF?

“All programmatic means is automation, so we’re not getting into any less of a complex role,” said Twitter head of marketplace development Paul Gelb during Neo@Ogilvy’s “Mobile… WTF?” conference on Thursday. Speaking on automation during a panel titled “Does Device Matter,” Gelb continued, “Your users are changing, their behavior is changing, but you have the opportunity and the ability to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. If you’re not doing it, someone else will. There are going to be winners and losers. I think the people who are approaching programmatic intelligently are asking how do we address complexity overall? How do we define the core benchmarks that we want to deliver and make that more addressable?”