Amazon's Video Ad Plans; Programmatic TV Challenges

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Ad-Supported Episodes

Amazon is experimenting with ad-supported TV, TechCrunch reported Monday. The Amazon Instant Video app on iOS now offers HBO content for free, and the company will support select episodes with ads. This free content feature is already available on Kindle Fire, as well as on Roku, but Amazon denied plans to launch a fully ad-supported free media service. Read more.

Automating TV Ads

In a feature for Broadcasting & Cable, contributing editor George Winslow unpacks the challenges to programmatic advertising as it relates to traditional TV marketing. “Using massive databases, complex algorithms and advanced advertising capabilities first developed for the online world, programmatic buying systems promise to greatly streamline the buying and selling of inventory first for TV programming on digital platforms, and ultimately on linear TV as well,” writes Winslow. However! “Much work remains to be done in terms of standards, reducing latency for ad insertion, changing long established workflows, data management systems and improved measurement.” Read on.

Hacking The Recommendation

Hacker group Syrian Electronic Army successfully hacked Reuters’ website Sunday, redirecting visitors to a message criticizing the media site’s Syria coverage. The infiltration used New York-based content recommendation platform Taboola by injecting a redirect code into Taboola’s widget on Reuters.com. Read on at Network World. As Rob Leathern tweeted, “This will not be the last ad tech hack of a big pub.”

Facebook’s New Video Metrics

Facebook announced on Monday an improvement to how the company will rank videos people and pages upload directly to the social media platform. Facebook’s goal is to understand what content is most popular, so that only relevant videos appear in the news feed. Factors for determining video relevancy include time spent watching videos, numbers of likes, comments and shares. Early tests showed that audiences grew around relevant video content. Page owners can access the new video metrics section in FB’s Page Insights to clarify how audiences are reacting to their uploaded videos. Read more at Facebook’s newsroom.

Matomy Buys

Matomy Media Group bought a majority ownership position in Team Internet AG, a “direct navigation search company.” The deal closed Monday, raising Matomy’s ownership stake in Team Internet from 20% to 70%. “Team Internet has developed an innovative approach to incorporating performance-based marketing capabilities that are based on an optimization algorithm within the direct navigation business for both desktop and mobile devices,” said Matomy CEO Ofer Druker. Read the press release.

But Wait. There’s More!