Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Former aQuantive Exec Turns VC
Emily Steel interviews former Microsoft ad executive and aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews for the WSJ Digits blog. McAndrews is joining Seattle-based VC company, Madrona Venture Group, and will run a $250 million investment fund. You can read more from McAndrews including his candid comments to Abbey Klaassen on former aQuantive company, Razorfish, being acquired by Publicis in AdAge, where he also appears to take a veiled swipe at holding companies who think they can get in the ad network business.
Cadogan On Moving OpenX
OpenX is featured in its local newspaper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, as CEO Tim Cadogan (AdExchanger.com Q&A) recounts the recent moves by the company from London to his living room to its new offices in Pasadena, California. The 50-person company is poised to take advantage of the burgeoning exchange space with it’s Open X Market product.
AOL Doom And Gloom
AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher covers recent rumors of massive layoffs at AOL and the top to bottom review of expenditures at the soon-to-be-spun-off-from-Time-Warner company. Strategic considerations include how to cut while still driving display advertising, maintain and grow compelling content and grow the AOL ad network business.
Blodget On Ad Market Chatter
Business Insider’s Henry Blodget shares recent “chatter” on the online ad market and says that CPC’s through AdSense are going up (his own personal experience, perhaps?), some premium display is doing well – some not, and Blodget summarizes Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal’s thoughts from the recent Search Engine Strategies. Overall, Aggarwal believes the Search market is flat currently.
Tumri Joins NAI
Multi-variate creative vendor, Tumri, has joined the Network Alliance Initiative which is aimed at supporting industry-wide goals including informing the public on members’ views on and safeguards regarding privacy protection. Read the release.
Citibank’s Mahaney on Recovery
TechCrunch’s Erich Schonfeld covers Citibank analyst Mark Mahaney’s note to clients that the economic recovery – which seems to be slowly taking shape – may be led by mobile and retail. (People love “mobile,” don’t they?) Mahaney says, “advertisers are seeing 10X increase in click-thrus via Mobile device.” (Hmmm, maybe they have reason to love “mobile”?) Though Mahaney did not apparently mention it in his note, it is apparent that the increasing focus of marketers on ROI and efficiency will also lead to a tidal wave of dollars flowing through ad exchanges and buying platforms. It will begin in earnest this fall – write it down!
Display Ads Get Twitter
Yes, even AdExchanger.com can discuss Twitter!
BizReport’s Kristina Knight says that PointRoll has begun taking Twitter feeds and embedding them in their client’s rich media campaigns. One of the first uses was for the the movie ‘Bruno’ as Universal Studios used Twitter to offer messages about the movie.
Liew on Online Ad Networks and Publishers
From LVSP blog, Lightspeed Venture Partners Managing Director Jeremy Liew (AdExchanger.com Q&A) looks at the FTC Chairman Leibowitz’s and Congress members’ thoughts on behavioral targeting and pending regulations which may force serious changes for online advertising network and web publishers. Liew writes, “What (Congressman) Boucher and Leibowitz are talking about is to move beyond this principle and essentially establish an opt in process for third party cookies (which would include the cookies for all ad networks). This is an impossible position. For a start, ad networks typically don’t have space on a publisher page to even ask for an opt in. ”
Digital Out-Of-Home Growing
Media Life Magazine looks at the recent Veronis Suhler Stevenson survey and the expected, rapid growth of digital out-of-home. A media buyer tells writer Toni Fitzgerald about digital’s importance saying, “Out of home has become such a flexible alternative, especially as the digital elements become more mainstream and/or available. This flexibility allows the format to make sense for the quick turnaround necessary in these shorter planning periods.”
TagMan On Tags
Paul Cook of TagMan discusses important issues around ad tags used on web pages that can cause lost revenues. Cooks states, “The standard way to include conversion pixels in iframe container tags can cause a serious loss of conversion data.” Read more on eConsultancy.
