Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Board Member Falls
Yesterday, Yahoo! board member Patti Hart became the first casualty of CEO Scott Thompson’s credential vetting miscue. Read the release. All Things D’s Kara Swisher reported that the company at which Hart is CEO (International Game Technology) requested she leave the Yahoo! board because, well, it was distracting to her day job. Yahoo! also said that it was forming a special committee to review the whole mess. Read that release, too.
When DMPs Collide
Wait, no. DMPs colliding isn’t the story here even though each has its own DMP offering. Online ads is all about frienemies. Turn said yesterday that it was integrating the intent data from eXelate into its Audience Platform. I’d say this is part of the display ad “app” trend as platforms make it easier for buyers and sellers to use a wide-range of solutions for which they might otherwise have to contract and configure directly. Read the release.
Partner Program
BlueKai announced it’s own partner program (apps!) yesterday as the company breaks down the different silos of partnership thusly: Media Partners, Branded Data Provider, App Partners, DMP Partners, Privacy Partners. Read the release. Bruce Beigel from Winterberry Group speaks the app gospel in the release: “This partner program will help to simplify the the whole process of connecting the data sources to each other and making the data actionable.”
Remember the seminal Natural Born Clickers study from comScore? comScore’s John Mangano says, sure, those clicks may not mean much, but wait, they mean something. And drugs are at the root of it all. In a post on the comScore blog, marketing VP Mangano writes, “So while the amount of traffic that goes to a branded drug site from a click is relatively small, it is highly qualified traffic. As a result, while the click on a banner ad may not be an appropriate metric for many industries, it remains an important measure of ad effectiveness for the pharma industry.” Read more.
Tablet (Ad) Trends
New data pulsing from mobile ad network Jumptap shows that Kindle Fire usage has hit a speed bump said the Company. From the release on the Jumptap blog, “Kindle Fire usage soared on the Jumptap network following the winter holiday season. In January, the Fire represented 33 percent of all tablet usage on the network, rivaling iPad’s 48 percent share. Since then, Kindle Fire’s share of traffic has decreased to 22 percent, most likely due to the successful launch of iPad3.” Read more.
Post Acquisition Acquisition
It seems Amobee hasn’t stopped acquiring in spite of the fact the mobile advertising firm was acquired by telecom company Singtel in January. Amobee said in a release yesterday that it had acquired AdJitsu as “Amobee will leverage AdJitsu’s cutting-edge technology to accelerate the innovation of highly interactive and spectacular 3D mobile ads.” 3D in a phone? See the AdJitsu site for an example. And, read the release. No terms were disclosed. AdJitsu was a part of Cooliris.
‘Algo’ Change At FB
Nieman Journalism Lab’s Justin Ellis reports that Google isn’t the only one that can make a change in an algo and hugely effect traffic to digital properties. Facebook has apparently affected a few including The Guardian. Guardian’s Tanya Cordrey tells Ellis about her company’s experience, “We’re still learning a lot about our Facebook app, and as with all brand new content platforms, (…) Major changes made in the last month or so by Facebook have indeed resulted in a fall in usage since early April. However, this is not a signal that users are ‘abandoning’ social reader apps, rather that articles which were previously surfaced predominantly in a user’s newsfeed are now much less visible.” Read more. Stories like this make publishers nervous as they decide whether or not to publish more content through Facebook. But with so much traffic, can publishers risk NOT being on FB?
The DSP Invasion
DSPs and audience buying are alive and well in China as AvasuDSP announced that it, too, is offering an “end-to-end solution” for media buying through RTB and other demand sources. Read the release. The company used to be called “Avazu” but is hammering the point home by adding the popular acronym DSP (which stands for demand-side platform in case you’ve never read AdExchanger before). Visit the site.
Display Rambo
Do you have what it takes to work in online ads? Do you code for a living? Do you shoot first, talk later? Then maybe you’re tough enough for the new recruiting pitch from Criteo – see it!
Police Blotter
- Myspace Settles FTC Privacy Complaint – Information Week
- Facebook spammers made $1.2 million a month, fined $100,000 – ZDnet
But Wait. There’s More!
- Creative Destruction: How Advertising Is Swallowing the Creative Class – Gawker
- Demand Media raises outlook on first-quarter revenue beat – Reuters
- Here’s A Tool That Gives You Control Over What Advertisers See – Byte
- Fewer stores, more digital shoppers – Internet Retailer
- Hey Publishers, Time to Increase Your Video Ad Load – Ad Age
- Facebook Social Ads Ascending According to Marin Software Research – press release
