Google's Wildfire Adding Agency Partners; About.com Still In Play, Repeat, Still In Play

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Google & The Agency

Google will work with agencies to sell its social media marketing platform services now available through its acquisition of Wildfire. That was the message of yesterday’s press release as Google’s Wildfire “selected Likeable as a preferred channel partner. Likeable, a full-service social media and word of mouth marketing firm, will now resell Wildfire’s Social Marketing Suite to its brand clients”. Read the release. It will be interesting to see if Google can “sell-up” its DoubleClick Marketing platform services with the relationships that Wildfire creates. Social is not just earned/owned, of course. It’s plenty paid, too.

Ad Tech Landscapes

comScore’s Kirby Winfield had enough time on his hands to post a “CRO’s View of the Ad Tech Landscape” on his personal blog. He writes, “I took a whack at distilling this into a CRO style view: there are really four major groups of prospects for an ad tech BD maven, with sub groups as noted.” See if you agree.

The Ad Exchange

Google Ad Exchange product guru, Scott Spencer, returns to the Google blog stage as he introduces new ad exchange GUI improvements to publishers on the DoubleClick Publishers blog. DFP users enjoy ad unit level category blocking versus the old, less specific account level category blocking says Spencer. Read more. Feels so good. Compared to all of the fireworks out of Facebook and its ad strategy, it’s been a relatively quiet, ad summer for Google. Is the giant sleeping or ready to pounce? Likely the latter. Need more DFP talk – read more on AdMonsters from Google’s Sean Harvey about “Teams.”

Diller’s TurnAbout

Barry Diller is making a $300 million bid for the NYTCo’s guide site About.com and its related properties according to Reuters’ Peter Lauria. That’s above the $270 million we’ve heard being offered by Answers.com two weeks ago. Lauria writes, “IAC wants to combine About.com with Ask.com, which has undergone a strategy shift over the last two years from generic search engine to a question-and-answer style service. The idea would be to leverage the content served up on About.com to answer questions users pose on Ask.com.” Read more.

Social Ads Marketer

Syncapse, which acquired Clickable last June, says it has inked another deal with Reckitt Benckiser. According to the release, Syncapse will “help interlock social media marketing programs [for RB] on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ across more than 20 brands including Clearasil, Durex and Lysol.” Read more. Syncapse wants to create a story, and likely an exit, similar to Buddy Media and Vitrue.

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BLiNQ, It’s Official

As previously scooped by TechCrunch, Gannett has acquired Facebook marketing platform BLiNQ Media (last week’s AdExchanger Q&A) for a rumored $60 million. According to the release, “BLiNQ will continue to operate its core business as part of Gannett’s portfolio of brands, providing technology and media solutions for social advertising and engagement to agencies and brands. As part of Gannett’s Digital Marketing Services organization, BLiNQ will help develop innovative social marketing solutions for businesses that want to reach local consumers.” Read more.

Condé Nast Takes Flite

The ad side of the business of magazine publishing remains squeezed, so perhaps this is a good time to reposition as a tech incubator. That’s what Condé Nast appears to be doing by taking an 11 percent stake in cloud-based ad firm Flite. ““We’re going to need a more scalable, more robust set of digital offerings that meet our consumers’ and marketers’ needs,” said Robert Sauerberg to the NYT’s Tanzina Vega. Read it. “We are actively, at Condé Nast, looking at a variety of targets to accomplish this strategy.”

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