Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Rubicon Project Worth $250 Million
The Business Insider has let loose with – at the very least – some admirable link bait by publishing “The Digital 100: The World’s Most Valuable Startups.” Checking in at #49 is The Rubicon Project ($250 million estimated value) who is in the midst of trying to execute a rumored deal for/with Fox Audience Network assets. Perhaps this will assist CEO Frank Addante with the deal. Read more. If the valuation is true, competitors PubMatic and AdMeld are likely very happy. In 30th place is MediaBank with a juicy, half billion dollar valuation. In 33rd place, Quantcast comes in at a $350 million valuation. Turn gets 54th place with a $225 million valuation. And, Specific Media gets 59th place with a $200 million valuation.
Big F’n Ads
The Home Page takeover is reincarnated as a “social” ad unit on MySpace according to Mediaweek’s Mike Shields. MySpace is running an HD video that eliminates the home page for a few seconds while MySpace visitors get to see a preview for the controversial new movie about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Read more.
Apple Carving Out Publisher $$$
From Nieman Journalism Lab, Apple may be the newspaper world’s next devil as it twists news gathering organizations arms and wrings dollars from subscriptions collected through Apple’s proprietary iPhone, iPad and iTunes platforms. Ken Doctor writes, “Just when newspaper companies thought they’d seen a big, new opportunity to establish strong new reader revenue lines on the tablet, their dreams have hit the pause button. Apple says it wants 30 percent of that emerging reader revenue – including ongoing digital subscription streams…” Read more.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tells the secret of Facebook’s advertising abilities in a new BusinessWeek article, “The whole premise of the site is that everything is more valuable when you have context about what your friends are doing. That’s true for ads as well. An advertiser can produce the best creative ad in the world, but knowing your friends really love drinking Coke is the best endorsement for Coke you can possibly get.” Read it.
The Holidays Are Comin’!
MocoNews’ Tricia Duryee notes that mobile ad network Millennial Media would not be doing its job if it didn’t say in its recent, monthly, state-of-mobile report: “It is imperative that brands double down with mobile for the 2010 holiday season.” Indeed, and don’t forget to sign-up for the AdExchanger.com newsletter for the holidays, either. Duryee pulls out an interesting data point on targeting from the report: “41 percent of campaigns used location as a way to target their audience.” Read more.
DOOH Indoor Vs. DOOH Outdoor
In Abu Dhabi publication The National, Ben Flanagan notes a flagging outdoor out-of-home advertising industry but that may be A-OK because digital out-of home (DOOH), in particular, is more cost efficient when its indoors. Flanagan quotes quotes MEC’s local DOOH media guru Hady Sassine: “‘Most of the suppliers in the market plan to shift from static to digital. Whenever you go inside, the cost of digital is much less than outside,” says Mr Sassine, adding that 50 to 70 per cent of the digital OOH spend in the UAE is inside malls.” Read more.
Everlasting Cookie Nightmare
Bizo CEO Russell Glass warns that the advertising industry needs to remain vigilant as new technologies sprout up all the time which can introduce potential online privacy nightmares for all. He cites a new JavaScript API as a potential concern: “I was just informed by our VP Engineering about a new Javascript API called “Evercookie” that basically creates the Everlasting Gobstopper of browser cookies: a cookie that never goes away, and respawns itself whenever a user deletes their cookies. Think Flash cookies, but way more persistent.” Read more. DO NOT CLICK THE “Evercookie” LINK IN THE ARTICLE UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE COOKIED FOREVER -according to Bizo.
Mobile Announcements Galore
Medialets has introduced “Adaptables,” which it describes as a “flexible and adaptable mobile rich media ad format.” Read why. Crisp Wireless and AdMarvel have come together in partnership harmony as Crisp rich media ads will run through Opera Software-owned AdMarvel, a mobile ad serving and analytics company. Read more.Nexage announced that it will be supplying mobile inventory to DataXu’s newly-updated demand-side platform. DataXu CEO Mike Baker is also on the board of Nexage. Read about it. Finally, BrightRoll announced that it has added pre-roll video ads for mobile to its online pre-roll video ad capabilities that can be controlled from a single platform. Read more on Adotas.
Convergence For TV, Online Video
INVISION (AdExchanger.com Q&A with board member Christine Watkins), which provides back-end solutions for sales and planning and is run by former Platform-A chief Lynda Clarizio, has signed a deal with video monetization platform, FreeWheel. FreeWheel has made deals all over the place. The BD team is on fire. INVISION clients will be able to use “FreeWheel’s flagship product, MRM, [and] seamlessly plan and manage their television and online video advertising campaigns.” Read the release. And, read even more from David Kaplan at PaidContent.
More Ad Week Festivities
As part of OMMA Global and Advertising Week, BlueKai is hosting an event with executives from InterCLICK, MediaMath, ContextWeb and Rocket Fuel, Inc. to discuss the new data-driven advertising world and highlighting CPG case studies. Lunch and learn presentations start at 1 p.m., this coming Monday, September 27 at the Hilton New York (Sixth at 53rd). Sign-up and more info is here.
Targeting Mobile Conversations
Social conversation targeting solution Compass Labs (AdExchanger.com Q&A) has struck another business development deal. This time, the company is working with Echofon to target users of Echofon’s desktop and mobile applications. Think: an ad, next to a Twitter feed, through your iPhone Read more.
Advertising Is Content
Former Tacoda and current Simulmedia CEO Dave Morgan plays the contrarian in his Online Spin weekly blog post and says advertising IS content. Morgan writes, “Advertising IS content, and is valued when done well. Ads and the information they contain or the emotions that they evoke are just as much a part of media communications as any editorial content.” Read more.
You’re Hired!
Adap.tv announced that it has hired Jason Shulman as vp of sales. Shulman’s experience includes x+1 and Aegis’ Carat. His new boss, Toby Gabriner, President of adap.tv, said in the release, “As a former colleague of Jason’s, I am certain that he will bring unparalleled insight and guidance to his position as Vice President of Sales and help fuel adap.tv’s continued growth.” Read more.
