Publishers Tap Online Events To Grow Their Email Lists; Microsoft To Shut Down Game Streaming Platform Mixer

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

The Check Is In The Email

Online events are a fraction as valuable as real-world equivalents, but publishers are hosting them more and more as a way to build up authenticated email databases. “That is now the starting point of conversations with publishers,” Tessa Barron, VP of marketing at the webinar and virtual event tech supplier ON24, tells Digiday. When Chrome does put the kibosh on third-party cookies in 2022, emails will be the default currency for online advertising. A shoe brand can’t retarget or track its own site visitors on publishers’ sites, as they have done: But if they have that person’s email address and the publisher has the same email address, and both have opt-ins for the data, that’s the next likeliest way to bridge online identity (for now, at least).

Classic Mix-Up

Microsoft will shutter its gaming platform, Mixer, and transition to a partnership with Facebook Gaming. Mixer’s site and apps will redirect to Facebook Gaming starting in late July, and Mixer accounts will transition to Facebook Gaming accounts. Microsoft chalked up the move to its inability to grow the audience to compete with Twitch, Amazon’s gaming platform, despite its placement on the Xbox One interface and exclusive multimillion-dollar contracts with popular streamers. Mixer’s contracts with gamers will expire as the platform transitions to Facebook. “It became clear that the time needed to grow our own live streaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now,” said Xbox lead Phil Spencer in a blog post. Business Insider has more.

Can You Hear That?

WarnerMedia signed a deal with iHeartMedia to co-produce a slate of podcasts to accompany new shows and series for HBO Max. “Today’s streaming fans are hungry for more content the second they finish an episode of their favorite shows, and podcasts are a great way to keep those fans engaged while also giving our roster of creative talent additional tools to extend the worlds of their shows and stories,” said HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly in a release. That follows the announcement last week that Warner Bros. and DC Comics, another WarnerMedia property, signed a deal with Spotify to produce and distribute podcasts based on its superhero franchises.

But Wait, There’s More!