Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Spend Predictions Continue Higher
Zenith Optimedia has even more robust optimism for 2010 than before as the Publicis agency’s research group has revised its predictions on ad spend for the year. According to AdWeek’s Steve McClellan, “The upgrade represents an improvement of more than a full percentage point vs. ZO’s April forecast of a 2.2 percent gain in ad spending for the year. In December, it predicted a mere 0.9 percent gain in spending for the year.” Read more.
Raw Ad Networks
The MediaPost Raw blog covered yesterday’s quotes from the OMMA Ad Nets event in Los Angeles. MediaPost’s Joe Mandese quotes IPG Initiative’s Managing Director Michael Hayes as saying audience buying is over, “‘It’s not about audiences,’ Hayes said about the shift taking place on Madison Avenue. ‘It’s about individuals.'” Read more.
Image Ad Network Gets $$
Pixazza has raised $12 million in financing according to a press release. Shasta Ventures led the round with participation from existing investor Google Ventures among others. Pixazza says that it “delivers commerce-enabled photos at a rate of 8 billion image views per year.” Read more. And, see an example of Pixazza technology on their site here. Finally, read more on TechCrunch.
UK-based and Infectious Media’s Andy Cocker reviews Google’s activity in display advertising lately. He writes, “Microsoft (AdECN) and Yahoo! (Right Media) have got some serious catching up to do. At the time of writing, both are still in closed beta trials of their RTB capabilities. What happened last time Google were given the space to develop a lead like this…?” Read more.
iCurrent Acquired By WaPo
News curator iCurrent was acquired by The Washington Post Company last week as the company looks to expand its digital footprint and Read more from VentureBeat. Burst Media CEO Jarvis Coffin comments on the deal from his company’s blog saying Aol. and Yahoo should have bought iCurrent but the two companies have always preferred echoing the TV model, which “has been a critical hindrance to establishing a unique online selling proposition aligned with what users want. So, instead, we sell audience data at a discount to the media space.” Read it.
$100 Mil In Revs
Galen Moore of Mass High Tech asks if $100 million in revenues is a milestone or a stepping stone. I didn’t realize they were that different, but Moore asks “five privately held companies at, near, or past the $100 million mark in revenue.” Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak, says, “For us, $100 million is definitely a steppingstone. We crossed that two years ago and are not looking back. We would consider $1 billion to be a milestone — recognizing that only a handful of Internet-based companies get there.” Read more.
Publishing Milestone
Amazon announced that it is now selling more eBooks than regular hardbacks. The Wall Street Journal quotes CEO Jeff Bezos saying, “The growth rate of Kindle device sales had ‘reached a tipping point,’ having tripled since the company lowered its price to $189 from $259 last month.” Read more.
Creative Agencies And The Ad Exchange
Aaron Shapiro, partner at agency Huge, revisits the world of data-driven advertising with “Ad Exchanges: Disrupting the Digital Agency.” Addressing the impact on creative agencies, Shapiro writes, “Creatives have long held a love-hate relationship with research and analytics. (…) Ad exchanges add a whole new dimension to the level of analytics that can be applied to the creative process.” Read more.
