Many in the US digital media industry have cherished hope of a day in court against ad blockers. It’s a movement that began with a series of IAB summits last summer and which today is slipping along the spectrum from possibility to fantasy. A year ago, the most likely legal route focused on copyright infringement. […]
Google parent Alphabet finished out Q2 2016 with $21.5 billion in overall revenue, a 21% jump from Q2 2015. It’s also a notable acceleration of growth rate from that year-ago quarter, when top line revenue grew 11%. [Read the earnings release.] The company chalked up the faster growth to investments in mobile and video. “The strength of the quarter […]
Despite similar origins as Web 1.0 content portals, Yahoo’s inability to shake its roots and AOL’s decisive transformation into an ad tech company sent the two down starkly different paths, even as they both landed beneath Verizon’s big red checkmark: the communications giant purchased AOL for $4.4 billion last May and revealed its intention to […]
Verizon won’t complete its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo until next year, but that hasn’t stopped speculation about which pieces of ad tech will come along for the ride. As Yahoo and AOL built their respective ad stacks to serve publishers and advertisers over time, obvious crossovers have occurred. So what’s complementary, what’s redundant and […]
It’s easy to forget, but Yahoo was once the largest and most promising digital media company – its stock a bellwether for the internet sector as a whole. By Q1 2017, regulatory hurdles permitting, that stock will stop trading as the company’s people, its portfolio of brands and its technology assets are absorbed into Verizon. To honor Yahoo’s important role in […]
Facebook wants brands to know that its live-streaming platform is more than a free-for-all for unfettered personal broadcasts. Publisher partners are finding value when they augment Facebook Live within a larger content distribution strategy, even if monetization as a whole remains in test mode. “Facebook Live is a form of branded content for us, and […]
It’s probably not a good idea to use Google Translate on legal language. Roughly two weeks ago, the Chinese government released online regulations that include new rules governing paid search results, embedded links, video ads and email advertising. A buried clause within the edict also seems to outlaw ad blocking – and when Adblock Plus realized […]
To maintain transparent relationships with their agencies, brands must consider significantly investing in things like staffing, continuing media education and legal counsel, according to ANA and Ebiquity. In their most recent report, ANA and Ebiquity issued a long list of recommendations that also included hiring a “chief media officer” to manage agency relationships. It’s a […]
Like many companies, outdoor lifestyle brand Columbia Sportswear was no stranger to using 15- and 30-second YouTube videos as a complement to TV. Because consumers weren’t necessarily going to YouTube for “conversion-based” content like product reviews, Columbia experimented with 360-degree video to make its content more immersive. Columbia sent its production crew out with US […]
Deterministic data from set-top boxes is changing how linear TV is bought and valued. Like the Nielsen ratings panel, set-top box data connects to a physical address and household. But unlike Nielsen’s 40,000 families – which provide a “truth set” for TV viewership – set-top boxes reach millions of households, allowing marketers to overlay […]
