Adobe Distances Itself From Its Ad Cloud; Amazon Adds Podcasts To Its Music Service

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Ad Cloud Out

Adobe is charging ahead with its plan to phase out the managed service ad network part of its Advertising Cloud business. Back in June, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen referred to this type of largely IO-based network buy within Advertising Cloud as “no longer core” to the overall value proposition. [Read AdExchanger’s story: Adobe Exits The Managed Service Business – What Does It All Mean?] On the company’s third quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Narayen told investors that consolidating the organization is helping to eliminate “all the inefficiencies,” and that “now, we feel like it’s all going to be profitable growth as we invest in the Digital Experience business.” Adobe is currently working with its Advertising Cloud customers to wind down its transaction-based offerings. Overall, Adobe had a fairly good quarter, with $3.23 billion in revenue, up 14% YoY and strength across its three main clouds: Creative, Document and Experience. Speaking of the Experience Cloud, its revenue was $838 million for the quarter, a 2% increase year over year. Digital Experience subscription revenue was $729 million, a 7% uptick over last year – which would have been 14%, excluding Advertising Cloud.

Podcasts In Your Shopping Cart

Add to cart: toilet paper, cat treats … podcasts? As of Wednesday, you’ll be able to get your podcasts from Amazon, just like everything else, The Wall Street Journal reports. Amazon will make podcasts available through its music subscription and ad-supported offerings. As of now, Amazon Music will only earn podcast revenue from ads that run alongside its originals or exclusives. Initially, Amazon won’t share listener data with podcasters, but it probably will do so eventually, possibly via an analytics platform. For the sake of content creators everywhere, the hope is that analytics arrive sooner rather than later. As the WSJ points out: “Lack of reliable listener data has made it difficult for podcasters to maximize ad income, because they can’t tell advertisers who is listening to a podcast or for how long.” [Related in AdExchanger: Podcast Measurement Is Finally Improving As The Landscape Consolidates.]

Another Branch In The Stream

Bloomberg Media is upping its streaming investment, with plans to reboot its QuickTake program on Nov. 9, according to The Hollywood Reporter. QuickTake originated as the Twitter-based news network TicToc in late 2017, a spinoff of Bloomberg’s coverage of the 2016 debates. It was renamed in 2019 because of, you know, that other TikTok. But now Bloomberg CEO Justin Smith smells new opportunity with traditional linear TV in decline. QuickTake 2.0 will launch with 10.5 hours of original content per day, although the pub hopes it’ll be able to ratchet that number up to a full 24 eventually. The service will be available on mobile devices, via social media and on CTV platforms, such as Roku, and will be ad-supported with inventory available both via direct sales and programmatically. At some point down the line, Bloomberg hopes to also tap into content and licensing deals with the streaming big guns, including Netflix and Hulu. Streaming services produce a lot of great content, they’re just not able to do it all that quickly, and big broadcasters are mainly focused on broad news audiences. QuickTake has its eye on niche audiences and rapid turnarounds.

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