Platforms

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Weathering The Storm IBM settled a lawsuit brought last year by the city attorney for Los Angeles accusing The Weather Channel app of tricking users into turning over data without explaining it would be given to third parties for purposes other than weather alerts, […]

Gaming might have an audience of all ages, but if a brand is just going to slap an ad into a game, then it might as well not bother. “If you just want to run a simple media activation, frankly, you don’t need gaming for that – media can run anywhere,” said Alexandre Tan, VP of […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. AVOD FTW? Subscription video-on-demand services dominate the headlines, but time spent with ad-supported video is responsible for a significant slice of viewing. Year-over-year growth in minutes watched in Q2 among players aside from Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus was more […]

  Lack of measurement has long deterred brands from investing heavily in podcasts. Apple, which has dominated podcast listening in the United States for years, has a history of obscuring how many people actually heard an ad after downloading a podcast episode through its player. That left brand advertisers to negotiate for CPMs without knowing […]

More likely than not, you’ve never heard of BIGO Live. But it’s one of the largest live streaming apps in APAC with around 400 million users across 150 countries. Launched in Singapore in 2016, BIGO Live now ranks No. 6 globally for downloads, ahead of Disney Plus and Twitch, according to Apptopia data for January […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Join ’Em Those that want to survive the streaming wars are making friends with the competition. Apple is bundling TV Plus content with CBS All Access and Showtime at a discounted price of $9.99 per month, Bloomberg reports. CBS […]

Facebook launched a new feature on Friday that will allow small businesses to promote, host and monetize live online events on its platform – and took aim at Apple in the process. The paid online events feature, which will initially be available in the United States and 19 other countries, enables anyone with a monetizable […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Agency Woes Dentsu is yet another agency group that didn’t have a pretty Q2, as organic revenues declined 17.3% to $166 million. International arm Dentsu Aegis Network dragged down the group as organic revenue declined 20% to $100 million, compared to a 12% drop […]

This Isn’t Even My Final Form Will Sony acquire anime streaming service Crunchyroll from AT&T and pair it with its existing service Funimation? According to The Information, the big sticking point keeping that dream from happening is the price: AT&T reportedly wants $1.5 billion. While the initial move to offload Crunchyroll began in May, it […]

Integral Ad Science and Channel Factory, a brand suitability and ad performance platform for YouTube, released a joint product on Wednesday that combines content curation with optimization and measurement for YouTube campaigns. The product, dubbed Channel Science (a portmanteau of their names), is generally available, but only on a manual basis for now. The companies […]

The official advertising boycott against Facebook may be over, but the same can’t be said for hate speech on the platform. Facebook took down 22.5 million posts in the second quarter alone for violating its policies against hate speech, which is more than double the 9.6 million pieces of hateful content Facebook removed last quarter, […]

The TikTok saga roils on, with Twitter now in the ring with Microsoft as potential acquirers for the viral social media app. While Microsoft’s acquisition of TikTok wouldn’t necessarily be about advertising, it could lend technical support and a trusted reputation for TikTok in the United States. Twitter has more advertising synergies with TikTok, but […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Rules Don’t Apply  Apple is intercepting site traffic to publishers on Apple News+ and redirecting it to the Apple News app through updates to iOS 14 and MacOS Big Sur. The move not only cannibalizes publishers’ subscription audiences, but puts privacy-conscious Apple in a […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brace For Streaming Just as NBCU plans to reorg to accommodate streaming, so too will WarnerMedia. The Information reports that the AT&T-owned entertainment company will soon unveil a “major reorganization” that will result in layoffs and the promotion of Andy Forssell, a streaming exec, […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. On The Clock Microsoft’s acquisition offer for TikTok has expanded to the app’s entire global business outside of China, including its operations in India and Europe, Financial Times reported. Previously, the takeover bid just covered TikTok’s business in the United States, Canada, Australia and […]

Did you hear the one about Microsoft maybe buying TikTok? No, really, there’s a potential deal in the works. Amid ongoing drama over TikTok’s Chinese ownership and threats from the Trump administration of a ban on the app in the United States, the technology company most associated with office software could become the owner of […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Reel Good Try Instagram launched its TikTok competitor, Reels, on Wednesday in 50 markets. It’s yet another example of parent company Facebook’s typical “if you can’t buy it, copy it” strategy. The creator-focused tool, which lives within Instagram’s Explore tab, is designed to […]

  Microsoft hasn’t had a rosy history in advertising. The tech giant’s ad business dates back to its failed aQuantive acquisition in 2007, which it wrote down by $6.2 billion in 2012 after failing to monetize display advertising. Microsoft then outsourced its display business to AOL in 2015. Today, Microsoft holds roughly 1.4% of the […]

Jam City is jamming, despite COVID-19. The LA-based casual mobile game studio plans to hire artists, producers, data analysts and people focused on creative strategy. Gaming is one of the few verticals that’s growing during the ongoing health crisis. People started playing more games when stay-at-home orders were announced in March, and the behavior has […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Let Us Track A who’s-who of industry trade groups, advertisers, ad tech companies, agencies and publishers has banded together to form the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media. The group wants to preserve methods of targeting and measuring consumers, which browsers and platforms have been […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. TikTok Flip Flop In the latest chapter of the TikTok saga, Trump said Microsoft can pursue an acquisition of the app – granted that the US Treasury Department receives “a lot of money” for the deal. It’s unclear how the government would get paid, […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Allison Schiff, senior editor at AdExchanger. It’s part of a series of perspectives from AdExchanger’s editorial team. A lot of people in the ad industry probably don’t know exactly what Google’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Microsoft Returns?  Microsoft has been in talks to acquire TikTok from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, The New York Times reported Friday. And then those talks were placed on hold after President Trump signalled opposition, The Wall Street Journal reported. Regardless of outcome, the […]

Despite a healthy second quarter that shrugged off the economic downturn, Facebook CFO Dave Wehner warned investors on Thursday that Apple’s IDFA changes coming in iOS 14 could “prove to be a challenging headwind.” “We’re still trying to understand what these changes will look like and how they impact us and the rest of the […]

The coronavirus pandemic slashed Alphabet’s growth rate from 22% last year down to zero in Q2 2020. Revenues totaled $38.3 billion vs. $38.9 billion the year prior – a 2% year-over-year decline, or 0% once constant currency is taken into account. Like many of its advertising revenue-dependent peers, Google reported steady improvement throughout the quarter. […]

Big tech CEOs – collect ’em all. Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos (making his first appearance before Congress) convened virtually on Wednesday for a historic hearing hosted by the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust delving into the market power of online platforms. The hearing (which was ironically livestreamed on Google-owned YouTube) is […]

After experiencing a slowdown in Q1, ad spend began to rebound at Spotify in June as some markets exited pandemic lockdowns, the company said Wednesday on its Q2 earnings call. Ad spend in April and May were down 25% before inching up to a 10% decline in June. For the quarter, ad-supported revenue increased 11% […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Re-Unified The Trade Desk is updating its Unified ID solution, a shared third-party cookie pool for advertisers and ad tech companies, to function in post-cookie advertising, Adweek reports. The project will be open source, so anyone can use the currency, though The Trade Desk’s […]

Ad management firm Freestar said Tuesday it has acquired Chocolate’s app mediation platform so it can serve more mobile app publishers. Terms were not disclosed. Freestar is largely a services company that performs tasks such as setting up header bidding and optimizing yield for about 400 desktop and mobile web publishers. But the fast-growing company […]