Home The Big Story The Big Story: Highway To The Machine Zone

The Big Story: Highway To The Machine Zone

SHARE:
The Big Story podcast

The M&A has been relentless this past week, with AppLovin buying the game publisher Machine Zone, Facebook buying GIPHY and Twitter buying the DSP CrossInstall.

On this episode, the team breaks down what each acquisition means. What is CrossInstall, and why would Twitter need to actually own a demand-side platform? Was Facebook buying GIPHY mostly a data play?

And in the week’s Holy S-H-I-T acquisition, the mobile ad startup AppLovin intends to acquire one of the world’s largest mobile gaming companies. Normally, you’d think it’d be the other way around.

Also in this episode, we’ll dive into the changing face of ecommerce. First, Facebook made another foray into ecommerce by introducing Shops. But this time, things are different. We’ll explain how.

Then, we’ll look at Target and Walmart. The two retail giants reported Q1 earnings this week and, surprise-surprise, saw a big boost in digital sales.

What do these changes say about the transformation of Americans’ shopping behaviors during the time of the coronavirus? And how can these two traditional brick-and-mortars leverage this progress to be even more competitive to Amazon?

Must Read

The Trade Desk Has A Grand Vision, But Needs A New Breed Of CMO To Make It A Reality

The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green laid out the DSP’s plan for winning in a new world of advertising that, AI aside, would necessitate major changes in how marketers behave in the market today.

A Publisher Didn’t Get Its UID2 Setup Right. The Trade Desk Didn’t Notice. What Went Wrong?

TTD confirmed that this CTV publisher’s errors would have made its UID2s useless for ad targeting. But TTD also said it wouldn’t have had enough information to flag the issue.

Criteo Faces Tough Headwinds Until Agentic AI Ad Revenue Materializes

Criteo shares dropped by 20% Wednesday morning after the company reported shaky Q1 earnings and revised its guidance downward for the rest of the year.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Disney’s New CEO Is Focused On Two E’s: Engagement And ESPN

On Wednesday, Josh D’Amaro led his first earnings call as the new CEO of Disney. The company closed last quarter with $25.2 billion in revenue, a 7% year-over-year increase. Disney Entertainment advertising revenue rose 5% YOY, but ESPN ad revenue was down 2% YOY, although subscription and affiliate revenue was up 6%.

People Inc. Looks Inward For Growth As Its Search Traffic Downsizes

People Inc. previewed plans to downsize by focusing mainly on its key properties. The strategy makes sense considering its publishing portfolio has lost about two-thirds of its Google traffic.

Kamran Asghar, Global CEO & Co-founder, Crossmedia

POSSIBLE 2026: Industry Experts Dish On AI – And Other Trends To Watch

At POSSIBLE 2026 in Miami, the ad industry was over the hype around AI.