Yahoo’s looking to befriend the devs. During the company’s Jan. 27 Q4 2014 earnings call Marissa Mayer confirmed Yahoo’s plan to use its acquisition of mobile analytics platform Flurry and its SDK as a foundation for a soon-to-be-announced mobile ad network. The Flurry SDK has been installed on more than 600,000 apps, in theory giving Yahoo […]
Verizon’s zombie cookie is now killable. In a development initially reported by The New York Times, the telco will allow its users to opt out from what the privacy community and a censorious media referred to as a “zombie cookie.” Previously, there was no way to opt out of Verizon’s persistent tracking mechanism. Users could opt out of having […]
The name of AppLift’s game is lifetime user value. The Berlin-based mobile game marketing platform launched a tool called DataLift on Thursday aimed at helping mobile advertisers get a better grip on the overall lifetime value of their users. “Price is what you pay, but value is what you get,” said AppLift CEO Kaya Taner, […]
App attribution company TUNE is dog-earing a significant chunk of a new funding round to go on a hiring spree. Announced Thursday, the Series B cash injection was led by Icon Ventures (which happened to have rebranded from Jafco Ventures on Monday), with contributions from Performance Equity Management and Accel Partners, the latter which also […]
Michael Jaconi, CEO of freshly funded mobile commerce startup Button, sees untapped opportunity in the app economy. Specifically, he’s tailoring Button’s Deep-Link Commerce Platform as a utility to help encourage ongoing app usage rather than a one-time app install ad. Uber is among the company’s customers. With a new $12 million Series A round in […]
APAC is one seriously loaded acronym. “There’s a fallacy that exists among many executives in the US that Asia is one block,” said Chetan Kulkarni, CEO of Bangalore-based digital CRM company Vizury. “But it’s actually a complex mix of very different countries that behave in very different ways.” Take India and China, for example. The […]
Local search and advertising company YP launched a cross-device solution that aims to capitalize on the first-party search behavior of the more than 80 million users that tap into its network of search sites every month. YP teamed up with cross-device ad targeting player Tapad to power the tech. Luke Edson, YP’s SVP of National […]
Twitter has acquired Indian startup ZipDial, a company that has capitalized on the opportunity to provide consumers in emerging markets a way to connect with friends, family or, in this case, brands, without incurring large call charges. TechCrunch first reported the deal, and estimated it to be in the $30 million-$40 million range. For Twitter, which has […]
Native app or mobile web? The debate continues – but the answer isn’t necessarily black-and-white. “Big branded publishers need an app – but they also need a definitive mobile web strategy,” said Daniel Meehan, founder and CEO of PadSquad, a mobile publishing company that specializes in mobilizing content for its network of mid-tier independent publishers like […]
Most mobile devices have 14 or more sensors – and they’re all continually gathering mountains of raw sensory information. Eli Portnoy, the founder and former CEO of Telenav-owned Thinknear, has a new venture on the horizon that intends to help make that data accessible to app developers. That’s the idea behind Sense360, which raised $2.75 […]
There’s a world outside of app stores and it’s App Annie’s goal to help developers capitalize on it. On Tuesday, the app analytics company announced $55 million in Series D funding and launched a tool that analyzes the usage data around popular apps, including active users (daily, weekly and monthly), the number of sessions, time […]
In December, JUICE Mobile spun off its beacon network into a standalone ad tech company called Freckle IoT. Already the largest beacon network in the Canada marketplace, the company describes itself as “a testing ground for the activation of next-generation connected devices.” The Toronto-based firm’s goal is to build a platform capable of talking to […]
Mobile isn’t desktop. That might seem like an obvious statement – but just because something’s obvious, doesn’t mean it’s being put into practice. “Some people don’t get it, and for a time, that was us,” said Michael Cukyne, SVP of digital media at Meredith Corporation, where he and his team focus on broadcast stations in local […]
In today’s mobile ad tech landscape, the blind lead the blind. That’s according to Forrester in a report released Monday that aims to help advertisers get some clarity into what’s become an immature and murky market of mobile vendors. Most mobile tech players aren’t clear enough about the services they provide, often using jargon and […]
Halloween 2014 might be dead and buried, but the Zombify app is still alive and well. Zombify is just one of the many “-ify” apps created by developer Apptly, the publisher behind Wolfify, Santify, Vampify, Fatify, Oldify and a host of other face-morphing apps that allow you to apply animated effects to selfies and the […]
Adelphic has mobile programmatic on the brain – which makes sense for a mobile DSP. The company said Wednesday that it had closed its Series B to the tune of $11 million in a round led by Blue Chip Venture Co., Google Ventures and Matrix Partners, bringing its total funding to $23 million. Adelphic – which […]
As smartphone penetration increases, especially in Asia, advertisers are looking to tap into global app audiences – and InMobi is looking to get ahead of the trend. The mobile ad network said Tuesday that advertisers and agencies will be able to buy mobile app segments in 36 countries via programmatic-direct deals on the InMobi Exchange. […]
Urban Outfitters’ target customers might be married to their phones – but it’s more of an open relationship than one might think. “The attention deficit disorder in the population we’re trying to serve is the highest of any business I’ve worked at,” said Jim Davis, the apparel retailer’s director of CRM and interactive marketing. “The question […]
It’s clear what makes a bad mobile ad – desktop banners scrunched down to smartphone size or disruptive interstitials with tiny, seemingly invisible Xs. That’s the kind of thing mobile ad startup Yieldmo is on a mission to eradicate. “We’re sitting at the intersection of ad-tech and design,” said [x+1] and Rocket Fuel vet Eric […]
There are a plethora of reasons why it makes sense for Publishers Clearing House (PCH) to double down on mobile – the biggest one being its ever-growing trove of first-party data. To that end, PCH Digital, the company’s digital and advertising arm, announced Wednesday that it has acquired mobile programmatic company Plethora Mobile as part […]
If your KPI is LTV, then you need to pay attention to more than just CPA. And now in English: If an advertiser is looking to acquire users with high lifetime value, quantity without quality is money down the drain. “Advertisers are willing to pay high prices to retain good users – it’s actually amazing […]
App-install ads are where the mobile cash is – at least for now – and Yahoo is starting to capitalize. The company said Tuesday that it’s making app-install ads available through Gemini, Yahoo’s self-serve marketplace for native and mobile search ads. Advertisers will be able to promote their apps to roughly 550 million monthly mobile users […]
Nexage is the cherry on top of Millennial Media’s multiscoop technology sundae. Millennial’s acquisition of Nexage, first announced in September, officially closed on Thursday evening. “Not to sound like Jerry Maguire, but the Nexage deal completes us,” said Matt Gillis, president of platforms at Millennial Media. Millennial has been actively acquiring tech since early last […]
App developers are engaged in an eternal struggle to acquire users, keep them, and understand what the heck they’re doing. But it’s the “who” and the “why” that are the most compelling questions. On Thursday, app analytics company App Annie released an expansion of its mobile intelligence product line designed to help advertisers and app publishers […]
The merits of deep-linking are clear – considering the numbers on smartphone penetration, mobile needs direct links as much as, if not more than, the web – but deep-linking is not just a matter of embedding app links into the mobile experience and calling it a day. Not only do app developers have to consider the […]
It’s become generally accepted wisdom that brands aren’t dedicating dollars to mobile at a rate commensurate with consumer time spent. That said, certain big brands like Walmart and Heineken are embracing mobile as a key part of their advertising initiatives. “Going forward, we will always view campaigns as mobile-first,” said Ron Amram, senior media director […]
Sub-Saharan Africa is a mobile market on the verge, and Opera Mediaworks is looking to take advantage. The global mobile ad platform acquired South African mobile ad network AdVine in an effort to expand its footprint into Africa, a region now home to more than 600 million mobile phone subscriptions. Ericsson predicts that number will push […]
Monetizing an app is never child’s play, but it becomes even more difficult if the app in question is aimed at children. Clark Stacey, CEO of game publisher WildWorks, knows about those challenges firsthand. Wildworks, which recently rebranded from Smart Bomb Interactive, has been working in close collaboration with the National Geographic Society since 2010 […]
While Apple arguably can do whatever it puts its hand to, its recent move to bring programmatic to iAd doesn’t have everyone impressed. JUICE Mobile president and CEO Neil Sweeney didn’t mince words: “They should have done this five years ago.” And that, Sweeney said, begs two related questions. One, Is Apple going to be […]
Mobile carrier data is rich data – it’s deterministic, it’s first-party and it has cross-screen potential. Berlin-based data company zeotap is looking to help mobile carriers capitalize on that richness. Founded earlier this year, zeotap has secured $1.3 million in seed funding from HitFox Group and several angel investors, which it plans to use to […]
