MarketShare Predicting For Ticketmaster; Walmart Buying Social Tech; Ad Network Buying Content

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

MarketShare Predicting For Ticketmaster

Analytics company MarketShare (AdExchanger.com Q&A) has announced a deal with Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster that will enable the ticket seller to better predict and price tickets for events. According to the release, “Ticketmaster has been actively working with four professional sports teams and Live Nation’s concert business to develop a range of data analytics products that take a holistic approach to ticket demand analysis. Ticketmaster plans to roll out its dynamic pricing tools for the MLB, NBA and NHL and concert tours.” Imagine if that platform was hooked into a DSP with media driving awareness, offering tickets at various price points, etc… we’re just getting started. Read the release.

Marketers Acquiring, Too

It may not be just tools and infrastructure providers that will acquire the ad tech ecosystem. Marketers – especially the big ‘uns – have needs. Yesterday, Walmart announced the purchase of social networking tools provider Kosmix whose team will now become part of the new @WalmartLabs group as the brick-and-mortar retailer tries to get cozy with its socially-connected customers. Read more in Ad Age. Read the release. And, read a Kosmix blog post by a happy Founder. No word on the price tag but Kosmix had raised $55 million to-date.

Game Publisher Consolidating

Former MySpace founder and current MindJolt chief Chris DeWolfe is on the acquisition trail as his company acquired gaming portal Hallpass Media and app developer Social Gaming Network. The New York Times’ Deal blog’s Evelyn Rusli writes, “While Myspace continues to lose money, MindJolt, a profitable enterprise with more than $20 million in revenue and 20 million monthly users, continues to expand its base.” Ch-ching. Read more.

Larry’s Pending Shopping Spree

All Things D’s John Paczkowski tries to step into the mind of Google CEO Larry Page (cue screaming noise) and find out what Page might want to acquire. Paczkowski thinks AdMeld’s a possibility: “Admeld is a big player in this increasingly important space and integrating it into Google’s Display Network might be a wise move. (…)” Paczkowski says AdMeld’s price is $500 million. Read it.

Tracking Engagement

Creative-focused ad technology company Moat is featured in an article by TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld. Moat’s Jonah Goodhart divulges some Moat intel, “Typical clickthrough rates on display ads are less than 10 out of every 10,000 visitors (or 0.1%), whereas about 500 of every 10,000 people (5%) spend at least half a second hovering their mouse over an ad, and 1,000 out of 10,000 (10%) touch the ad in some fashion without clicking on it.” Read more.

UK Publisher Loves RTB

New Media Age’s Gina Lovett quotes Sky’s Matthew Turner who says the broadcaster “is currently putting 18% of its multi-million-pound display budget through real-time bidding, but that he expects this will grow to as much as 50% as the market becomes more established.” Read the RTB Kool-aid.

Third-Parties Booted

In case you missed it last week, Pandora pulled off all of its third-party ad providers according to CNNMoney. Though Google, Medialets and AdMeld, among others, were affected, CNNMoney’s Laurie Segall writes, “Pandora emphasizes that it has no evidence that these partners were violating users’ privacy — but it’s taking the ‘better safe than sorry’ route. It will keep serving ads in its mobile apps, but it will handle all the infrastructure itself.” On April 5, The WSJ noted that in an SEC filing Pandora admitted receiving “a subpoena related to a federal grand-jury investigation of information-sharing practices by smartphone applications.”

Ad Network Acquiring Content

Matt Sanchez’ SAY Media (formerly VideoEgg and Six Apart) tells The Business Insider that his company is on the verge of acquiring a content site in the first of a series of purchases to leverage SAY’s ad network and tech. TBI’s Dan Frommer provides more SAY details, “By bundling many smaller sites — generally with teams of 15 people or less, with fewer than 5 million monthly readers — the idea will be to build strong communities and not dilute vertical-specific content or strong points of view by trying to make the sites too broad and mainstream.” And then fill those freeloaders full of sweet ads! Inside voice. Read more.

Building Awareness In-Text

Surrrrree.. you can build awareness with in-text ads…. Surrrrre. Actually, the UK’s BrandChannel says that in-text ad network Vibrant Media may have done it for “U.K.’s #1 FMCG beauty brand, Rimmel London.” See it now!

Remarketing Report

The FetchBack blog offers a free copy of “Remarketing Done Right, Maximize Display Effectiveness by Optimizing Your Approach” by Forrester’s Joanna O’Connell and crew. Read a bit about it. And, then download it (PDF).

Mobile Merger Worries

The Center For Digital Democracy is taking issue with AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile as organization exec Jeff Chester writes, “Driving this deal is a recognition that mobile phones are ushering in a significant transformation of how consumers navigate the Internet, allowing for unprecedented merging of online, offline, and location information on a consumer.” Chester sees danger for the consumer in the deal as mobile information is aggregated. Read more.

Banner Ad Graphic

Need a nice graphic showing “standard” banner ads steady growth according to last week’s IAB online ad spend data for 2010? See it here on eMarketer. Emarketer explains, “Somewhat surprisingly, banner advertising, which includes basic static display images, saw strong ad spending growth in 2010—up by 23.1%—and accounted for 23.9% of total online and 62.9% of all display ad spending.”

But Wait. There’s More!