Yahoo! 'Tucks In' Sell-Side Platform 5to1, Officially; Parsing Privacy; Glam Adds Moms

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Yahoo! Adds 5to1

If it’s a relatively small $$$ acquisition, it qualifies as a “tuck-in” acquisition in M&A parlance. Yesterday, Yahoo! officially “tucked in” sell-side platform 5to1 which is Yahoo! EVP of Americas Ross Levinsohn’s former company. According to the release, “5to1 focuses on premium brands and media partnered in a marketplace environment, enabling major media publishers to fill unsold inventory with premium advertisements. 5to1 works with more than 20 premium publishers.” Read it. TechCrunch notes that former FIM will join Yahoo! and that 5to1 had raised $13 million to date and sold for “around $30 million according to multiple sources.” Read more. Given that Right Media Exchange’s best inventory comes from Yahoo!, it will be interesting to see if 5to1 inventory will be used to augment the exchange’s scale.

Parsing The Privacy Debate

Kate Kaye breaks down all the privacy legislation currently moving through the halls of the U.S. Congress in an article on ClickZ. She says if ad industry trade groups and marketers “had to pick one of the six recently-introduced online privacy bills, some would be more palatable to their business interests than others.” See which one is your favorite. On Media Future Now, Kaye adds, “There’s a key difference between what the [Digital Advertising Alliance] has enabled and what the FTC and much of the legislation is pushing for; that is, the ability to opt out from ad tracking as well as targeting.” Read more.

Engagement, Baby

On the Inside Adwords blog, Google announced that video ad pricing would no longer be sold on a cost-per-click basis. Instead, the company is opting for engagement metrics and “the view”. Google’s Baljeet Singh writes, “Beginning on May 25th, we’re changing the pricing structure of this format to a cost-per-view (CPV) model, shifting the focus to actual viewership.” Read more. Another nail in the click coffin.

Personalization Means Discovery

On his Geeking with Greg blog, Greg Linden takes issue with writer Eli Pariser who claimed in a recent book “that personalization limits serendipity and discovery.” Linden says Parser has it all wrong writing, “Eli has a fundamental misunderstanding of what personalization is, leading him to the wrong conclusion. The goal of personalization and recommendations is discovery. Recommendations help people find things they would have difficulty finding on their own.” Read more.

Glam Adds Moms

PaidContent’s David Kaplan writes that Glam Media has added a UK moms site called BabyWorld. Kaplan writes that the deal is “meant to both spur the company’s growth in the ‘family/parenting’ vertical and solidify its presence in the UK. The deal also reflects a growing consolidation within the mom-blogs segment, as advertisers and brands follow female consumers into the space. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.” Vertical ad networks continue to roll on. Read more.

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Attribution Is All The Rage

Encore Media Metrics’ Steve Latham looks at why attribution is such a big deal these days. He sees five key trends as driving the need for attribution including a resurgence in display advertising. He writes, “as the economy recovers, brand-building is once again a strategic priority. In the digital arena, display media offers the most efficient and scalable way to create demand for your brand.” Read more on MediaPost.

Reviewing Blinckx Acqusition of Burst Media

Video search engine Blinckx announced its latest quarterly earnings which includes, in part, the financial results of recently acquired ad network Burst Media. From the release: “The display banner advertising currently sold on Burst’s networks attracted an average Cost Per Mille (CPM) of US$1.49 over the year ended 31 December 2010; in contrast, blinkx’s standard, untargeted video pre-rolls were priced at a CPM of US$20 in 2010.” Blinckx hopes to split the difference in terms of driving CPMs up on the Burst network metrics. Read the release.

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