isocket Adds $8 Million For Ad Tech; Infectious On RTB

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More Ad Tech Investment

Ad platform isocket announced new hires and a new round of funding in a company blog post. Foundry Group (who has invested in the past in Admeld, Triggit, Linksmart and others) is the lead investor in the $8 million, Series A round. Regarding the new hires mentioned in the post: “We’re also welcoming our new CFO, Mark Liao, who joins us from Yahoo where he held senior leadership roles as the VP of Business Operations and VP of Operations Finance for the Americas Region.” Read more. And, read Foundry Group’s Seth Levine on why his VC firm invested.

‘… And I Approve This Ad Tech’

With what is shaping up to be the most expensive presidential race ever heading for a conclusion next Tuesday, expect to see a lot of political analogies the next few days. Writing in Mediapost, Bluekai marketing SVP Cory Treffiletti compares the current state of ad tech to a modern political campaign: ”In the ad tech category there are areas of misunderstanding and also areas of downright confusion fueled by half-truths. When I listen to political advertising, I hear voters confused by the issues, and in many cases misled with half-truths. Sounds similar, doesn’t it?” Read more.

Buy Or Rent Ad-Free

Real estate info site Zillow has made a purchase of its own: it is acquiring Buyfolio, an online and mobile collaborative shopping platform. This is Zillow’s fourth purchase, with the most recent ones RentJuice and Postlets, reports Techcrunch’s Leena Rao. “Earlier this month, Zillow launched an ad-free marketplace for rental professionals and landlords based on its acquisition of RentJuice,” Rao writes.

The Facebook Bucket

Writing for ClickZ, Robin Neifield makes the case that Facebook should not be lumped into the display category. Despite their similarities (micro-targeting, visual nature, interruptive model), they have less in common than you might think. “The nature of the social environment, the mindset of consumers while in social mode, as well as the different platform capabilities make social advertising a different world from display.” Read it.

Yahoo Japan Gets Tagged

Yahoo Japan is looking to streamline the use of its data by partnering with tag and data management tech company BrightTag. The alliance comes a few months after Japanese portal teamed with retargeting specialist Criteo for its performance-based ads. “This partnership greatly improves our speed to market and lays the foundation for Yahoo! JAPAN to bring more innovation and growth to Japan’s interactive marketing industry,” said Masatsugu Shidachi, corporate officer, head of marketing solutions company, Yahoo Japan. Read the release.

Smaato Expands Mobile Ads To Microsoft

As Microsoft continues to roll out its mobile-heavy Windows 8 software, mobile ad platform is expanding its services to devices with that operating system. “Microsoft cares a lot about how developers can monetize their applications and we strive to offer them choice”, said JC Cimetiere, Director, Windows Phone Partner & Developer programs, Microsoft Corp, “Smaato’s broad worldwide network and its support for Windows Phone 8 on day 1 of the availability of our SDK is a great opportunity for Windows Phone developers.” Read the release.

Facebook Options

A couple incremental additions to the Facebook ad palette are bubbling up. Facebook is testing its non-social Marketplace Ads in the newsfeed, InsideFacebook’s Brittany Darwell notes. Read it. Meanwhile Nanigans is offering so-called Dark Page Post Ads, which let a Page Post Ad appear in ad space without ever running on the brand’s page. This allows for more flexibility in audience segmentation. Read the Nanigans post.

Trading Names

In Montreal, Bloom Digital announced it was changing its company name to its product’s name. In addition, the company said in a press release that it was launching two new products, “AdGear Trader, a Demand-Side Platform for advertisers, and AdGear Mobile, a mobile and tablet advertising management solution, for publishers.” Read more.

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