AOL Buys Vidible; Vox Raises $46.5M

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AOL’s Video Spree

AOL is growing its video empire and on Monday snapped up Vidible for an estimated $50 million, Re/code reports. Vidible is a video management and exchange platform that works with 150 publishers, and the company claims to generate more than 2 billion video views per month. The buy stacks Vidible on top of AOL’s Adapt.tv buy in 2013 and its acquisition of 5Min in 2010. Press release. And read AdExchanger’s recent coverage of Vidible’s anti-fraud solution.

Vox Raises

Some of Vox Media’s’ fresh $46.5 million round, led by General Atlantic, will support an ad tech buildout. “Our Hymnal platform, which is our ad platform, that’s another way to work with publishers as well as advertisers,” CEO Jim Bankoff tells AdAge. “[Vox’s ad formats] are built to be extensible beyond our sites.” Read it. Re/code reports that Vox’s total valuation now comes to $380 million, less than half that of BuzzFeed. “Our investors and our board see a lot of opportunity, and they want us to invest in new things. But they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think the business is working,” Bankoff added. Read that.

Curbing The Social Data

A report from the UK’s Commons Science and Technology Select Committee urges social media companies to simplify their terms and conditions. Chairman Andrew Miller said Facebook’s recently updated privacy policy “highlighted serious concerns about the extent to which ticking the ‘terms and conditions’ box can be said to constitute informed consent when it comes to the varied ways data is now being used by many websites and apps.” This comes in the wake of Twitter’s blog post clarifying its data collection policies. The BBC has more.

Mobile Commerce Swell

Based on its online commerce data, PayPal reports that this year’s volume of holiday purchases broke the record for consumers shopping on mobile. On Thanksgiving, the company saw a 47% YoY increase in global mobile payments, and on Black Friday that jumped to 62%. TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez notes that PayPal rakes in $1 for every $6 worth of ecommerce exchanges it facilitates, “which puts it in a unique position to analyze shopping data and draw insights.”

Adslot Links Up With Operative

Programmatic direct promises to eliminate IOs. Adslot, a player in the programmatic-direct space, signed a global partnership with another paperwork eliminator, Operative. The workflow automation company simplifies billing and ad trafficking for publishers. With the partnership, publishers can do deals with Adslot’s agency buyers within Operative’s platform, giving the programmatic-direct player a foothold among Operative’s users. Read on.