Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
VivaKi To Invest?
VivaKi is adding a new exec – Razorfish’s Alyson Hyder – to its team as it looks to, perhaps, spark the investment fires of its VivaKi Ventures unit since Tim Hanlon left the company. VivaKi’s Sean Kegelman has been keeping the Ventures’ fires warm among his other duties tells MediaPost’s Joe Mandese, “Hyder would broaden the perspective of VivaKi’s work with new media and data start-ups to strike early stage deals with companies that could represent competitive advantages for Publicis clients and/or strategic and capital investments for the agency holding company.” Agencies continue to keep an eye on investment as a potential differentiator down the road. Read more.
What He Knew
The Wall Street Journal examines Google’s recent settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over pharmaceutical text ads that linked to unlicensed Canadian pharmacies and violated U.S. government guidelines. The WSJ claims, “Sorting through more than four million documents, prosecutors found internal emails and documents that, they say, show Mr. Page was aware of the allegedly illicit ad sales. Under [last] week’s $500 million settlement, those emails won’t be released, avoiding the possibility of disclosure at trial.” Read more (subscription).
Cisco Buys Again
Continuing to target the enterprise, networking company Cisco said it would buy a collaboration software company called Versly – its second acquisition since its much publicized layoffs and pivot away from its consumer businesses. TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters writes, “All Versly employees will be integrated into Cisco’s Collaboration Software Group (CSG) upon the close of the acquisition. Versly builds plug-ins that enable groups of people to collaborate around content in Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and emails.” Read more. Cisco needs some B2B video ad mojo.
Christopher Heine notes in ClickZ that Kellogg’s is taking the formal step of aggregating all of its cross-channel (or at least a lot of it) with Epsilon. From last week’s Epsilon press release, Larry Bruck, Kellogg svp of Global Media and Marketing Operations says, “By partnering with Epsilon, we will leverage consumer opt-in information to build deeper and more valuable relationships with our consumers by creating highly personalized experiences with each individual.” Audiences matter. Read the Epsilon release.
Touching Attribution
Turn CTO and writer Xuhui Shao returns to his column on ClickZ to finish off his “attribution” trilogy. He brings math and a link to his recent whitepaper on the subject. He offers the basis for this attribution math, “For each converted user, every touch point leading up to the conversion will be considered. The contribution of each touch point is calculated as the sum of its individual contribution represented by the probability of this touch point, and its contribution to other touch points via joint probabilities.” Eat the weeds.
In-Video Advertising, Way In
In India-based online media ‘zine afaqs!, the re-introduction of in-video advertising in India is explored. “In-video” is the same sort of advertising concept that was popular with in-game advertising companies such as Massive which was eventually bought by Microsoft many ecosystem eons ago. Here, MediaMind technology is on display (no pun intended) as afaqs! says, “MediaMind will empower advertisers to change ad formats or content/parts of an ad on a real-time basis as part of its Dynamic Video advertising service.” Read and see more.
The Outsider
DIGIDAY features AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley and the events which have shaped him into being the “The Outsider” CEO that he is today. From DIGIDAY: “Along with Mike Walrath, [O’Kelley] was the technical visionary behind the first online ad exchange, Right Media. The idea of the online ad system operating like Wall Street market was heretical at a time when every company wanted to be an ad network. (…) ‘I didn’t have that old-boy network behind me,’ O’Kelley said. ‘I wasn’t a part of the way things were done in advertising.'” Read more.
Somebody Tell HR
- Valassis CEO Alan Schultz to Retire – Ad Age
- Collective Launches Advertiser Solutions Group; Expands US Sales Team – Collective
- Rocket Fuel Names IAB Asia Chief Ken Mandel to Board of Advisors – press release
But Wait. There’s More!
- TRUSTe Develops TRUSTed Ads for Video to Deliver Comprehensive Privacy Support for Video and Rich Media Advertising – press release
- Vitrue Updates Social Media Management Platform For Brands With Deeper Analytics And More – TechCrunch
- IBM Connections Social Platform Adds Mobile Options – InformationWeek
- Pricing A Follow-On Venture Investment – A VC blog
