Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
The Yahoo! Ad Formula
On The Register, Cade Metz writes about economist/mathematician Preston McAfee who is evidently working on the Right Media Exchange as well as inspiring a sweatshirt worn by Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz. Metz writes, “Bartz refers to the McAfee creation on her sweatshirt as The Magic Formula. This epic piece of math — which is also worn by McAfee and his children on occasion — made its debut earlier this year. In short, it’s a formula designed to keep Yahoo!’s largest advertisers as happy as possible.” See the formula.
The Microsoft Display Strategy Is Search (?)
Microsoft continues to try to corral the search space while it lets the display opportunity whither. Or is it? Could a Facebook partnership for search be the answer to offering a powerful integrated display and search offering? All Things D’s Kara Swisher reports that according to her sources, Microsoft and Facebook are in discussions on extending their existing Bing search pact “that includes the possibility for the software giant’s Bing search service to mine anonimized data from consumer usage of the social networking site’s recently introduced Like buttons.” Search retargeting combined with Facebook “Like” data for display inventory across exchanges and other supply aggregators! Is the Facebook ad network far behind? Read more.
Local Ads Ringing Bell
On his Screenwerk blog, Greg Sterling covers local online advertising company ReachLocal finally ringing the bell at the NASDAQ Market Site in New York City on Tuesday. ReachLocal has been public since May. Sterling writes Tuesday, “Perhaps in honor of today’s date, shares are trading at just over $14. The company’s market cap is $393 million.” The ticker is RLOC. See the happy RLOC people.
From All Things D, Peter Kafka notes that mobile ad network Greystripe is touting its mobile web business in addition to its mobile app business these days as the company looks to address new opportunities. Kafka provides an example of the mobile ad world beyond the app: “This is what Google (GOOG) was getting at when it introduced a new YouTube mobile Web site this summer, designed to replace the dedicated app it had built for the iPhone and other handsets. The message: You don’t have to use apps if the browser works well.” Read more.
Ad Network Black Box Works
AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley provides “A Bit of Clarity on the Issue of Transparency” in a think piece on ClickZ. O’Kelley defends the world of ad networks and says, “If an ad network, after months of testing and scouring the Web, discovers a site that performs three times better than anything they’ve ever seen – do they have an obligation to make that public? I sure hope not.” Read more.
Big Database Stuff
At the International Conference Of Very Large Databases (hey, is this a leftover April Fools joke?) in Singapore, Songting Chen, architect of data and scalability at Turn, has presented a new white paper of his called “Cheetah: A High Performance, Custom Data Warehouse on Top of MapReduce” according to the Turn blog. You know you want to read it. Here it is (PDF). And, check out the impressive list of papers being presented by wide-range of digital engineering types at the conference here.
Apple Subscribing Newspapers
Apple will offer newspapers an easy way to offer subscriptions as the company layers on the SaaS for needy, offline news looking for a way to continue their offline subscription ways digitally. In the San Jose Mercury News, a source predicts, “Apple probably will take a 30 percent cut of all subscriptions sold through the company’s online App Store, and as much as 40 percent of the advertising revenue from publications’ apps.” Read more.
Media Trading Is Your Future
MediaWhiz CEO Jonathan Shapiro opines on “The Future Of Advertising” on Huffington Post and sees a financial markets-like future for media. In one of his predictions, Shapiro writes, “Media buying becomes media trading. As the science of marketing emerges and audience targeting technologies mature, media buyers will act more like traders.” Read more.
Fighting Over Talent
TechCrunch chief Mike Arrington says that Facebook and Google are fighting over talent as Google employees have migrated to Big G. Arrington says that Google is not taking the challenge laying down with big counter offers to waffling employees. He adds, “Some are saying that Google’s aggressive counter offering is actually creating a much bigger problem by encouraging even loyal employees to dip their toes into the Facebook pool.” Read more.
Search Informs Display, Etal.
iProspect CEO Rob Murray provides some search tips on the Searchandise blog and ends up going “cross-channel”. On the subject of lead gen, he writes, “The fact of the matter is that your prospective customers perform searches every day as a result of their exposure to the other marking channels that your company may be engaged in, such as TV, radio, print, direct mail, outdoor, email, online display, etc. Given that, it is incumbent on you to be aware of the messaging – and the keywords contained therein – being used within those other demand generation channels.” Read more.
