Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Digital Ad Madness In NYC
There are a ton of ad industry events in New York City next week! It would appear that part of the impetus for all the meetings, conferences and falderol is Internet Week New York. But, this is much busier from a digital ads perspective than, say, popular fall advertising events such as Advertising Week or ad:tech week. Is this the new Digital Advertising Week? See the AdExchanger.com events page for a partial list – keep in mind, it doesn’t include the all-important parties.
Levy Says No More Acquisitions; Kenny Exits
The last time Maurice Levy said he wasn’t buying, his Publicis Groupe ad holding company bought Razorfish. He’s saying it again to The Wall Street Journal, “There is nothing big left to buy.” Who will it be? Read more from the WSJ. In other Publicis news, Managing Partner, heir to the Publicis CEO role and former Digitas CEO David Kenny (AdExchanger.com Q&A here) is leaving the company effective June 30, 2010. Levy has agreed to postpone retirement as the company searches for an heir. Read more from ClickZ.
Analysis On Data Processing, Exchanges
MediaPost’s Joe Mandese provides a nice summary of the competitive environment containing MediaBank – where Yahoo! GM Bill Wise was just hired as CEO – and Donovan Data Systems. Mandese writes, “The appointment of Wise as MediaBank’s new CEO is telling, because his experience in developing online media-buying exchanges suggests that MediaBank may have plans beyond simple data processing and analytic services.” Read more.
Richard MacManus discusses “The Coming Data Explosion” on ReadWriteWeb. Lots of fun data points here including an estimate that more data will be created from 2009 to 2012 than in the history of the planet according to HP CEO Mark Hurd. MacManus adds, “We don’t know yet which computing or Internet companies will be most successful over the next 5-10 years, but one thing is for sure. They’ll have to know how to process and make sense of massive quantities of data flowing through the Web – and do it in real-time.” Read more.
Are VC-Backed Firms Good Investments?
On his personal blog, Chris Douvos, Co-Head of Private Equity Investing at The Investment Fund for Foundations, provides an overview of how institutional investors look at the venture captial world, which includes a few pain points. One of the questions he asks, “Will VC-backed firms continue to be good investments?” From the institutional investor’s perspective, perhaps, if you like the lottery. Read more and see the presentation.
Digital Is Good For Media
The Hollywood Reporter (THR) notes Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes cheery comments about the benefits of digital at an investor conference. According to THR, Bewkes said, “‘Digital is good for media,’ if managed well.” Nice one. Is Time Warner good for digital? Read more.
Newspapers Movin’ Up Online
That’s not a misprint. According to News & Tech, newspaper web ad sales rose during Q1 2010 for the first time since 2008. Of course, the increase is in part due to low comparables in the empty ad caverns of 2009. News & Tech reports, “While the print ad component of the total – $5.2 billion – fell more than 11 percent than year-ago totals, online ad sales rose almost 5 percent, to $730 million.” Read more.
Digital Ads Suck
Frederic Filloux says on Slate’s Big Money website that digital ads are not floating his boat – at least from his news editor position. Why is he so edgy? Filloux says, “A significant part of my income, past and future, rides on advertising.” He offers two reasons for the sucking which includes: poor design; and something he calls – “Badly sold, badly bought.” Read what he means.
XA.net and Lotame Partner
XA.net and Lotame have partnered “to offer advertisers and agencies access to Lotame’s audience engagement segment data through XA.net’s advanced online media management and optimization platform.” Interesting to see Lotame leveraging its data products and segments – could be a way for ad networks to evolve. Read more.
UK Privacy Laws
On iMedia Connection, Improve Digital’s Nic Peters looks at the coming directives from the European Union regarding consumer privacy and online advertising. Peters says, The industry is certainly showing a high level of commitment to demonstrating to everyone that cookies can be good for us. And if it continues to do so, the practice has huge potential to drive the online advertising sector forward.” Read more.
New Positioning, Site For Lotame
Lotame has repositioned itself as a “marketing technology company” with audience segmentation secret sauce and has a new website to show for it. See it.
