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July 1, 2008

Google and Seth MacFarlane: YouTube-Plus, Banner Ad Band-Aid or What?

Google's deal to distribute a new series from "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane on its AdSense network is nothing new. The company has pushed YouTube videos with text and overlay ads to AdSense publisher partners since at least last October, and as far back as a year ago had a specific deal with MTV networks to distribute MTVN video clips and in-stream video ads to some sites.

The MacFarlane link-up is the same. The videos live on a YouTube brand channel, not inside the ad units. But it's still noteworthy for three specific reasons.

First is the big name talent involved. Seth MacFarlane is super bankable and his “Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy" is a good get for YouTube.

Second, the sponsorships Google and its partner Media Rights Council are trying to sell alongside the clips will be a cut above what it's tried before. Whereas last Fall Google was focused on text, pre-roll and display units, it's now moving into closer pairings of advertiser and content. Google has stated very clearly that it plans to treat advertising in "Cavalcade" as branded entertainment. (Those are Google's own words, though I would argue they shouldn't apply in situations where advertiser content is hitched up to pure unbranded content. When the two are connected, that's traditional advertising, even if the ads happen to be really good. Branded entertainment is standalone.)

Lastly, Google may be trying -- in its oblique way -- to apply a salve to the world's chronic and worsening case of banner blindness. Industry-reported click-through rates, brand impact research from Dynamic Logic, and eye tracking studies from Pew and others have all found the effectiveness of display advertising is in decline. Some are speculating that by moving to distribute quality video content in ad space, Google could help re-sensitize Internet users to banner ads.

I agree with that up to a point. Yet there's only so much Google can do given its low ranking on the display ad totem pole. While ComScore pinpoints it as the third largest ad network in terms of reach, behind Yahoo and Platform A, the vast majority of Google's inventory is text ads. Even so, it's nice to see an ad network operator do something -- anything! -- to aid the humble banner, which continues to be favored by marginal advertisers and neglected by blue chips.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 20, 2008

IAB U.K. Talks to Ad Exchanges after Right Media Ad Misplacement

Following recent instances of ad misplacement involving major U.K. brands, the IAB U.K. has announced it will meet with ad exchanges in order to bring them in line with its IASH (Internet Ad Sales House) accreditation system.

IASH is the IAB U.K.'s official ad network council, which seeks to "encourage best practice among online advertising sales houses through the adoption of an effective code of conduct."

Although only ad networks qualify for full IASH accreditation, IAB U.K. President, Guy Phillipson, believes that exchanges should still follow the council's guidelines.

"Although exchanges, in my opinion, cannot be fully IASH accredited, what they can be is IASH affiliates. Exchanges are showing a willingness to come and discuss this with us, and we will conduct meetings to assess how they can be IASH compliant," he said.

One exchange under scrutiny is Yahoo-owned Right Media. Philipson confirmed that it had been implicated in an ad misplacement, and that it would engage in talks with IASH to address the issue.

He added, "This highlights the way the market is becoming more complicated. The message to advertisers and agencies here is to only deal with networks and exchanges that are IASH compliant."

IASH currently has a total of 19 fully audited and accredited networks, including the likes of Tacoda, ValueClick and Oridian.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 23, 2008

Brightcove Launches Japanese Operation

Online video platform Brightcove has launched a majority-owned Japanese subsidiary, branded Brightcove KK, to grant it instant access to the Japanese market.

Headquartered in Tokyo, the Asian offshoot will operate a localized version of Brightcove's on-demand video platform, offering video distribution and advertising services.

The operation is backed by a $4.9 million investment from four leading Japanese digital media players, including ad network and technology company Cyber Communications Inc. (CCI), content delivery network J-Stream, prominent Japanese agency Dentsu, and information outsourcing company transcosomos.

Publicis also announced this week that it too was branching out further into the Asian market, acquiring Chinese digital agency EmporioAsia, to add to the Yong Yang marketing firm it snapped up last year.

Following its purchase of Digitas in 2006, Publicis also acquired Chinese independent interactive marketing network Communication Central Group (CCG) last year, which it re-branded Digitas Greater China.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2008

FM Green Lights a Green Network

Federated Media has set up a new mini-network in the green publishing category. Its new Green Federation launches with four sites (Inhabitat.com, Giga Omni Media earth2tech.com, Next New Media's ViroPOP.com and GM-VOLT.com), with subjects ranging from design to green tech to video. Ads on those properties today are mostly generic display executions for consumer and telco brands. FM's mission will be to bring environmentally-themed advertisers and products into the fold.

The below chart from Compete shouldn't be considered highly accurate, but it may give a rough indication of audience size at FM's top three green sites. Below that is a chart showing FM's top Green Federation site, Inhabitat.com, compared to category leader TreeHugger.com, which is owned by Discovery Communications.

Other FM Federations include Technology, Business & Marketing, Media & Entertainment, Video Gaming. Recently it entered a partnership with BabyCenter to co-sell inventory on a Parenting network.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 20, 2008

Quote of the Day: Jupiter's Emily Riley on Ad Networks

"Advertisers will move their budgets around and around the web, forever. Ad Networks serve a huge percentage of all of the display ads shown online, so even if advertisers test smaller sites, or different sites, they could not possibly make enough spot buys to equal the sheer volume they can get from one or two network buys. In addition, networks represent the most measurable portion of display advertising: therefore it is the most immune to economic downturn."

-Jupiter Research analyst Emily Riley, writing on display advertising during a recession.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 19, 2008

Media Buyers Take Aim

Intergi created "Media Buyer's Revenge, a first-person shooter that understands why your heart pounds every time the phone rings, and every time Outlook alerts you to new e-mail.

Of course, while the game is played from the perspective of a media buyer, and has sales people in the crosshairs, Intergi itself wants you media buyers to advertise on game sites on its network. But happy shooting!

Posted by Enid Burns at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Microsoft Memo: We'll Win in Display

Most analysts and investors still believe Microsoft's bid for Yahoo was strictly a search play. Display ads -- if they figured into the strategy at all -- were mere garnish to the main dish. Microsoft needs to compete harder with Google, and Google's power is contingent on its search market share. End of story, right?

Not exactly. In a memo to staff, Microsoft Platforms & Services President Kevin Johnson, identified the company's top ad-related priorities ahead of its Advance08 advertising conference this week. Among those priorities: "Win in display advertising."

"We have an advantage in tools, agency assets/relationships and a team laser-focused on capturing the display ad platform opportunity. As we build from a position of strength, we will increase engineering resources to drive even more innovation," Kevin wrote.

It's an area where Microsoft needs to show it means business. After all, the company has no fewer than five display platforms, including the MSN Network, DrivePM (courtesy of aQuantive), MSN Direct Response, AdECN, and high-profile individual relationships with sites like Digg, Facebook and WSJ Digital. Yet it has not yet consolidated those offerings into a unified platform offering, the way Yahoo, through AMP, and AOL, through Platform A, have both begun to do with their sprawling display ad holdings.

ClickZ will be on the floor at Microsoft's Advance08 event tomorrow and Wednesday, so check back with us for insights on how Microsoft plans to position its ad platforms and services in the wake of the Yahoo deal implosion.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 29, 2008

Report: Adify Sold to Cox for $300M

Advertising network Adify is being acquired by Cox Enterprises for $300 million, the Associated Press is reporting. The deal is said to be announced today.

"We're absolutely convinced at Cox that online revenue is continuing to grow," John Dyer, Cox executive vice president for finance, told The Associated Press.

Adify is one of many ad networks that have emerged over the past year.
It got its start in the niche vertical network world by introducing a network of blog sites associated with Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 15, 2008

Lead Gen Firm Q Interactive Expands into U.K.

U.S. based lead-gen network Q Interactive has announced that it is extending its operations to the U.K., and has engaged a London-based staff. The firm's TrueLeads service gathers consumer contact information from partner sites (by consent), and passes this on to marketers for sales and CRM purposes.

The move will seek to continue the company's U.S. success in a "rapidly expanding U.K. market," according to Q Interactive President and CEO Matt Wise.

The network currently includes publisher sites Weather.com and About.com, and advertisers such as Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo.

Gayle Guzzardo, SVP of product management at Q Interactive, currently chairs the Interactive Advertising Bureau Lead Generation Committee, which seeks to generate and maintain standards and best practices in an area subject to scrutiny from regulatory bodies and consumer organizations.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 9, 2008

Advertising.com Launches Inventory Management Platform

And you thought PubAccess meant you were watching Nova or Jim Lehrer. Nope, it's the new Web-based ad management platform for smaller publishers from AOL's Advertising.com. The service will allow publishers in the Advertising.com display network to block advertisers or ad categories, view activity reports and access the network's optimization technology. The company claims this will generate higher CPMs for publishers.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 26, 2008

Guardian Says 'No Thanks' to Phorm

Phorm recently partnered with a three leading U.K. ISPs, and has been working hard to allay privacy concerns stemming from its use of IP-based targeting technology.

In what could portent a blow to the companies attempt to make inroads into the British advertising marketing, Guardian News & Media has just politely said thanks, but no thanks to the prospect of working with Phorm's OIX advertising exchange.

"Our decision was in no small part down to the conversations we had internally about how this product sits with the values of our company," Simon Philby, the Guardian's advertising manager, is reported to have written in an e-mail to a concerned reader.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 24, 2008

Another Big Publisher Ditches Ad Networks

Earlier this year I wrote about Gawker's abstinence policy with regard to ad networks. "We feel there absolutely is value in not wasting our readers' attention on cheap, ugly advertisements... and maybe some good karma too," Gawker sales head Chris Batty told me at the time.

Now another major publisher is following suit. ESPN has decided to sever ties with ad networks and exchanges, according to a story in MediaWeek this morning.

Both Gawker and ESPN have expressed hope other publishers will follow suit. It's a great sales move, since it sends a message of love to brand advertisers and appears to take a stand against the math-driven approaches to ad targeting being championed by the major Web companies. But don't look for a general publisher rebellion against networks. Abstinence may work for sites representing a potent media brand in a narrow category (like ESPN), or for networks independently run on a shoestring (like Gawker). But dozens of others are deeply reliant on the incremental revenue offered by arbitrage and algorithms.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 7, 2008

Time's Running Out to Comment on FTC's Behavioral Targeting Rules

If you had it in mind to share your $0.02 with the FTC on its recently proposed self regulation rules for behavioral targeting, you'd better get on it. The deadline to submit comments is just a few weeks away.

The language of the suggested rules is very broad, which the FTC believes is necessary for them to be effective in governing the future evolution of BT. One requires "reasonable security" of consumer data. Another proposes companies keep data only long enough to fill a "legitimate business need."

The FTC also wants to make data collection more transparent to consumers, of whom it says "few appear to understand the role that data collection plays." To that end, it's calling for a prominent opt-out mechanism on all sites engaged in behavioral targeting.

You can read and comment on the proposed guidelines document at the FTC's site. Remember, if you don't make yourself heard now, you're not allowed to complain later.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 29, 2008

For Real Networks, Low CPCs but Less Traffic with Sendori

Following a second round of funding in November, third party domain redirect marketplace Sendori recently enabled phrase and exact match options in its auction-based system. When advertisers win bids on generic domains, the system redirects users that have directly-navigated to that domain to advertiser sites. Direct navigation occurs when a user enters a URL into a browser window. For instance, a user who directly-navigates to CreditCardDeals.com might be redirected to a Visa offer landing page through the Sendori system.

With the new exact match capability, advertisers can restrict redirects to a specific set of domains rather than a broader collection including similar URLs. An auto insurance advertiser might choose only to have redirects take place when a user enters NewYorkCarInsurance.com, but not the more generic CarInsurance.com.

Sendori President and CEO Ofer Ronen believes the new matching option makes for "more ways to optimize campaigns."

According to Ronen, the company has worked with over 72,000 advertisers, most of which are lead gen or direct response oriented. "They're looking for ROI…. It's less for branding," he told me during a talk late last year.

Real has been using the system to promote its casual game destinations since late September. In this case, Real uses search advertising -- and now Sendori -- for performance-based campaigns, unlike big brands like Procter & Gamble or Coke that may be willing to pay relatively high rates for search ads to drive traffic to branded entertainment and game destinations for branding purposes.

For Real, the amount of traffic coming in through Sendori is much less than from Google, John Marini, online marketing manager at Real, told me recently. "It's incremental gain, but it's not a ton of traffic," he said, noting Google paid search ads drive around 40,000 users per day into Real games, while Sendori drives "more like in the hundreds."

Still, the low CPC rates make up for it. "[Sendori is] kind of a boon for us since we can drive traffic in at a lower CPC," he added.

Marini does wonder about the effect of the domain redirection service on users. For instance, if a generic game domain redirects to RealArcade.com one day and one of Coca-Cola's free games the next, "there's inconsistency," from the user's perspective, he said. "I think the user intent is slightly different than search," he continued.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 22, 2008

Ad Sales and Ops Jobs Could Figure Into Yahoo Layoffs

Reports that Yahoo will shortly lay off several hundred staffers should come as no surprise to those of us who have tracked the company over the past year (See ClickZ's recent coverage linked below). CEO Jerry Yang foreshadowed this moment during his very first earnings call in July when he promised change at the company. And he more recently reinforced that promise with his October declaration that Yahoo would narrow its focus to become a "starting point" for consumers and a powerful Web-wide inventory source for advertisers.

Reading between the lines, one spin on those comments goes like this: Content operations jobs are going away, and by the way, we'll be eliminating the walls (and redundancies) between our ad network holdings.

If that interpretation has any merit, many ad sales and operations folks at BlueLithium, Right Media and its in-house network sales group might be getting pink slips for Valentine's Day. If I were a betting man I'd put money on it. After all, back in September Jupiter analyst Emily Riley told ClickZ Yahoo was "considering merging and retraining sales teams" and "centralizing sales efforts" across all its acquired properties.

Related:

Yahoo Shows Signs of Display Ad Growth in Q3, Builds Publisher Network
Yahoo's Exec Departures: Brain Drain or Natural Exodus?
Yahoo Buys BlueLithium, Dreaming of Network Dominance
Yahoo's Yang Promises Changes Following Q2 Earnings Talk

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 9, 2008

Gawker Media's Experiment in Ad Network Abstinence

Gawker Media may be known for slinging mud and dishing dirt, but the publisher keeps a clean nose with the ads it allows on its 15 blogs.

Last week I was poking around IO9.com, Gawker's just-launched sci-fi blog, and noticed a bunch of non-ads had usurped the site's traditional banner placements. These were arty-looking photographs labeled simply "Gawker Artists." Click through and you get a long list of Gawker-published artists and their works. Very unGawkerlike.

Curious, I pinged Gawker sales honcho Chris Batty, who told me the program began when the company decided to throw off ad networks a while back.

"Due to these inefficiencies in the internet spot market, we had a fair amount of inventory that went unfilled," Batty wrote back. "I thought that giving the promotional space away to artists would be a nice thing for artists (and for readers) and that's just what we've been doing since."

Batty said Gawker makes no revenue directly from the program, but added, "We feel there absolutely is value in not wasting our readers' attention on cheap, ugly advertisements... and maybe some good karma too."

Not only that, but I wouldn't be surprised if Gawker eventually sees an additional benefit by re-sensitizing jaded readers to some of the ad space on its properties.

More recently Batty set up an exhibitor program where other sites can display galleries showing the work of Gawker artists. Batty said most exhibitors are small-time site operators who want to support artists while prettying up their sites a bit.

But he added, "I would welcome other high quality publishers' participation in the program for the purpose of better engaging their readers, helping artists and maybe even themselves in the process -- by draining the network swamp and getting hard to work on creating online marketing experiences valuable enough to cover the cost of original content creation."

Have you or any publishers you know overthrown network ads, partially or entirely? If so, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 7, 2008

Burst Media Bursts into Mom Ad Network Battle

Burst Media is the latest to get into the niche ad network race targeting women and mothers as a demographic. The ad rep firm launched the Burst Moms Network today, comprised of 150 Web sites targeted mothers, promising over 197 million impressions per month, according to the company.

There's no denying that advertising online to mothers is a growing segment, and Burst isn't alone in launching an ad network to focus on the demographic. Last November, Warner Bros. Television Group launched the MomLogic Network, Federated Media signed Baby Center, and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia launched Martha's Circle, all to reach mothers searching for information online with targeted advertising. Which should remind all of us that Mom is a strange and powerful force in our lives. You should call her.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 20, 2007

What European Consumer Advocates Are Saying About Google/DoubleClick

As the FTC finally gives the green light to Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, all eyes are now on Europe's investigation of the deal.

Following its initial warnings issued in late June, consumer group BEUC has once again written to the European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes to express concerns over Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Doubleclick.

The BEUC (The European Consumers' Organisation), which represents 41 pro-consumer groups from across Europe, is arguing that the deal is "not in the interest of European consumers." The letter cited three main areas of concern: pricing and competition, harm to consumers, and matters of privacy.

Firstly the correspondence suggests that the deal would have a significant negative impact on pricing, and could ultimately impede on publishers' revenue. It states that Google would be free to raise prices and prevent rival networks from using Doubleclick's technology, resulting in Web publishers seeing "a reduction in the revenue they receive from Google" and passing these costs on to the consumer.

On competition grounds it argues that the deal would place the entire online advertising market in jeopardy, as the company would "dominate both major pipelines for online advertising." It goes on to state that "there will be no real alternative to the combined entity for advertisers and web publishers," which will apparently result in the "significant harm" of European consumers.

Finally the letter expresses concerns over consumer privacy and welfare, stating that the merger would create a structure that would "almost certainly be less respectful of user privacy." It argues that privacy protection is a competitive differentiator in the ad serving market, and that the merger would eradicate incentives for Google to innovate in the area since competition will have been diminished.

The European Commission is now carrying out a second-phase investigation into competition concerns surrounding the deal. As previously reported by ClickZ news, disapproval from the European Commission is likely to result in a collapse of the entire deal irrespective of the FTC's decision, since both companies generate significant revenue from within Europe.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 26, 2007

FIM to Serve Ads Outside News Corp Empire

In February, MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media, a News Corp company, acquired ad tech firm Strategic Data Corporation to handle the ad management back end for a portion of the display ads on its sites. At the time FIM said it would use the system to manage ads targeted to all sites in its network, excluding FoxSports.com, IGN Entertainment, Rotten Tomatoes, Fox.com, and of course, MySpace.

Now FIM President Peter Levinsohn says that ad management platform is near ready, and could eventually extend to media properties beyond the FIM and News Corp walls. According to Reuters, Levinsohn told an audience at the Reuters Media Summit in New York today the platform could be unveiled as early as the first half of '08.

This is no big surprise, considering Yahoo is also aiming to be the next big ad network and AOL already does it with Advertising.com. Oh, and Google serves a few ads on other properties, too....

"We're well down the path in terms of discussions with some of the other News Corp properties to do ad serving," he said, according to the story. "Ultimately we'll take the company off network and become an ad network for assets outside of the News Corporation empire."

So, does that make his boss Darth Murdoch?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 14, 2007

eBaum's World, Gorilla Nation to Offer Video Overlays

Alliances to support in-video advertising, and especially video overlays, are coming fast and furious. This week we learn that eBaum's World, the flagship site for ZVUE Corporation, will work with ScanScout to identify brand-safe video inventory and deliver contextual overlays to it. And ad rep firm Gorilla Nation has partnered with video ad delivery specialist Panache to offer its publishers the ability to run numerous formats, including overlays. Truly no one can claim rights to the overlay format any longer, if they ever could. VideoEgg has claimed to be the first, and if they're right hen good on 'em, though I suspect the cable nets might have something to say about that.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 6, 2007

Deja News All Over Again...Yahoo Partners Hedge Bets

Meet the new newspaper network. Same as the old newspaper network. It's got Gannett and Tribune at the helm and it's entirely speculative.

An online ad network is supposedly in the works featuring three Yahoo newspaper consortium partners, Hearst, Cox and Media News Group, and G and T. Sorry, no twist of "M" with this G and T: McClatchy doesn't appear to be involved.

The Chicago Tribune had the mostly-unsourced story today (can't imagine how they got it…).

"Sources close to the situation said Gannett Co., Tribune Co., Hearst Corp., Media News Group and Cox Newspapers may band together to form a common ad sales force that could offer national advertisers 'one-stop shopping' for ad space on big-market Web sites across the nation.

The consortium, which would both overlap with and compete against another network set up last year by Yahoo Inc., would capture seven of the top 10 U.S. markets, one source said. The hope is that it would grow by attracting such other companies as the Washington Post Co. and McClatchy Co."

Somehow I'd bet they already asked McClatchy. Doesn't anyone remember the Wall Street Journal's big piece from January on the GMT network? It was supposed to wallop Yahoo's growing network of paper partner sites. Or, at least, it would show Yahoo the newspapers could still consort on their own without the company that had been siphoning their ad dollars all these years.

In fact, the Journal story even employed the same ol' tired phrase in the intro, noting, "Gannett Co., McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. are planning to offer advertisers one-stop shopping for display ads on Internet sites."

Later, after adding several additional publisher partners, Yahoo got McClatchy to join its consortium.

So, the one glaring omission with this "new" would-be network is McClatchy. One would guess if McClatchy were involved, the Chi Trib story would have been titled something like, "GMT Network Grabs Old Partner Back from Yahoo Grip," or "GMT Finally Signs on Partners…Sort of…We Hear."

I called McClatchy and got nothin'. I called Tribune and got nothin'. I called Cox, Hearst and Media News Group and got nothin'. Yahoo wouldn't talk, either, but no surprise there.

Gannett VP Corporate Communications Tara Connell talked, though: "We continue and have been for some time talking with whoever wants to talk about something like [an online newspaper ad network], but beyond that we're not commenting."

The looming question remains: What happened to McClatchy? Well, not that this is a reason, but let's not forget McClatchy owns RealCities -- yes, it's a newspaper ad network. And it just added a new publisher partner.

So, why would the Yahoo partners, including a main instigator Media News Group, be involved?

Why not?

Ken Doctor, newspaper industry pundit and lead news analyst at media market research firm Outsell, said it best when I spoke with him this afternoon. "It's interesting that some of these other companies are at least entertaining talks with Tribune and Gannett. It's a hedge," he said. "It behooves them at least to have an alternative. They're concerned that they're placing too much of a singular bet on Yahoo," he added.

Oh, and considering a full Yahoo ad platform integration seems a long ways off, and the paper publishers could be getting restless, they might want to shake some action.

"It doesn't hurt for Yahoo to know that other talks are going on," said Doctor.

UPDATE: I just got an e-mail from Leon Levitt, VP of digital media at Cox, who confirmed the The Chicago Tribune story. He and Tim Landon, president of Tribune Interactive, were the only named sources in the article, actually. Levitt wrote the new talks don't infringe at all on the Yahoo relationship, which will be more of a national advertiser play.

"Other conversations are more focused on selling the extraordinary reach of local newspaper online sites, which are almost always the number one local site in terms of audience....Any conversations outside of the Yahoo! partnership are targeted at this opportunity," he wrote.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Oh Quigo

Rumors that Quigo will soon be acquired by AOL are yet unconfirmed. Yesterday an AOL spokesperson replied with the standard, "We don't comment on rumors or speculation." And calls to Quigo have not been returned.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 5, 2007

Aggregate Knowledge Looks to Pique Consumer Interest

Describing it as an "adSense for content" system, Aggregate Knowledge officially launched its Pique Discovery Network for placing targeted ads on publisher and e-commerce Web sites today.

The Pique Discovery system places specific ads on a page based on the purchasing or general interests of previous Web site visitors. An online consumer interested in bedding might be shown display ads for throw pillows on the same page, according to Paul Martino, CEO and founder of Aggregate Knowledge. The company offers four versions of its system, including Pique Multi-Site Discovery for placing ads across multiple sites in the network, Pique Onsite Discovery for only a single site, Pique Email Discovery for dynamic ad placement in e-mails each time they are opened, and Pique Affiliate Discovery for updated affiliate ads. The system works by collecting traffic data via JavaScript code on a site which then funnels to the Pique Discovery Engine.

The Network has signed on a number of customers including SmartBargains.com, DelightfulDeliveries.com, Vinfolio, The HealthCentral Network and others.

"Our average conversion on Delightful Deliveries, besides the Christmas season, is three percent, but when people use that Aggregate Knowledge discovery window it's 10 percent higher," said, Eric Lituchy, founder and CEO of Gift Web site DelightfulDeliveries.com. "So it's pretty powerful."

Posted by MatthewNelson at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 24, 2007

Targeting Mobile Campaigns by Carrier

At CTIA this past spring Millennial Media launched its Decktrade mobile ad network. Now at CTIA this fall, it's releasing Decktrade 2.0, which offers benefits for advertisers including improved campaign creation, one-click campaign management, and improved reporting and purchase history. Within the campaign management Decktrade allows advertisers to create one campaign across multiple carriers, which previously required separate buys and budget allotments for each carrier. On the publisher side, Decktrade cleaned up the campaign approval process, payout process, performance statistics, and code integration.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 22, 2007

Shelter Media Is at Home with Adify

Home and Garden content and retail site network Shelter Media is the latest to use Adify's ad sales and management platform. The network features 33 publisher sites reaching 1.3 million visitors, according to Adify, including Absolutehome.com and BuildersSquare.com.

Other recent additions to Adify's ad platform clients include education content network Hot Chalk and sports blog network Yardbarker.

As the Web continues to splinter off into more and more niche sites and networks, platforms like Adify are filling a gap between Google AdSense-style contextual networks and larger networks, allowing small publishers to have more control over their ad offerings and campaign management. Platforms like Adify are also giving small publishers the tools to sell direct to advertisers and agencies.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 17, 2007

ADSDAQ Exchange Opens for All Publishers

ContextWeb's ADSDAQ ad exchange opened to all site publishers today following a testing period during which A&E Television Networks and others supplied inventory. The company's Web app lets publishers set CPMs, and if inventory can't be sold for a publisher's required minimum CPM, ADSDAQ plugs in ads from networks including Google AdSense, Advertising.com and Yahoo's Right Media (another ad exchange firm).

The company said it plans to start testing a self-serve app for advertisers and agencies not already invited to the exchange early next year.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 8, 2007

Podaddies Joins the Video Ad Insertion Race

Updatable video ad insertion, especially for mobile devices, has a lot of potential for advertisers looking to provide new ads to already downloaded videos, even if the technology is still clearly in its early running. This week another horse got into the race in the form of Podaddies, which is a combination of video ad network and a technology that can be linked directly to videos so they can have new ads played with them.

I met up with Nate Pagel, CEO of Podaddies, in San Francisco's South Park and he told me that his system will not only provide updated ads to videos on Web pages, but also to devices like the video iPod when its connected to the Internet, or through other mediums like blogs or e-mail.

"Everything you can do on a Web page, you can do on a download," he said of his system's ability to provide updated ads by placing code directly into online videos.

Podaddies has been around since it launched last December, but is now trying to get the word out to advertisers and agencies that its service is available after securing some $1 million in additional funding from The Band of Angels, The Angels Forum and other investors. Pagel told me he recognizes companies like Kiptronic, ScanScout and YuMe are his competitors, but he believes Podaddies' ability to do dynamic ad insertion will win out. His system works with Quicktime and Flash formats, but not with Windows Media as it's not as highly adopted with podcasters. He is watching Microsoft's recently released Silverlight technology however, and told me "I'm a fan, and we're looking at it, but it's not on the roadmap."

Podaddies first task is bringing small and medium sized video content distributors to its service he said. "Right now it's about independent video sites that don't have a way to monetize their content," Pagel said. "We help those folks stay in business by providing them advertising."

Posted by MatthewNelson at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Crossing the Rubicon… Into Beta

Rubicon Project, a publisher-side ad management platform, opened its invitational beta today granted to the first 500 publishers to sign up. According to company founder Frank Addante, the Rubicon Project addresses two trends: a lack of advertising technology available for Web sites, and rapid growth of ad networks. The system lets publishers optimize their inventory across the 300-plus ad networks, which continues to grow as specialized ad networks form.

"Tap into one of these networks, and you're not reaching the full, available market," said Addante. He also said media buyers spend across multiple networks. The interface used by publishers allows for a site to adjust inventory allotments across all ad networks, and shows real-time statistics on each ad network.

Addante has founded five companies, including L90/adMonitor which was eventually acquired by DoubleClick. The founder reunited with key members of his original team to form The Rubicon Project.

Posted by Enid Burns at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2007

Facebook Shopping

Following the release of the Facebook API availability, micro-advertising company Chitika took the experienced it developed with its eMiniMall ad unit, which runs on numerous blog sites, and created similar unit for Facebook. Using the Facebook platform, Chitika built an API, which Facebook application developers can use to integrate and display revenue-generating eMiniMalls directly on their applications.

The advertised products will show up alongside paid merchant listings from Chitika's merchant partners and allow users to search and compare stores to find the best price. The existing network for the eMiniMall unit is primarily comprised of blogs and smaller publisher sites. Chitika felt the Facebook opportunity was a good way to expand its offering. "The excitement here is that social networking sites are being looked at as a very fertile ground, as new horizons for advertising and the advertising industry as a whole is exposing ways in which we can make this advertising model work," said Chitika CEO Venkat Kolluri.

Chitika provided information on the Chitika Facebook API and how developers and other advertisers can access its new channel.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 18, 2007

See Spottt Run

Does this sound familiar? A new company initiative launched today at TechCrunch 40 Conference 2007 in San Francisco called Spottt is setting up a system where like-minded Web sites can post ads on each others sites for free. If you've been around the Internet for awhile it might, and even Spottt founder Philip Kaplan owned up to it very early in his presentation.

"Yeah, LinkExchange," he nodded, referring to the now defunct network of Web sites that was launched in 1996 and purchased by Microsoft in 1998, primarily for its mailing list, according to Kaplan.

LinkExchange had a successful run in the early days of the Internet, and even claimed eBay as one of its first ten listings, as Kaplan reminded the audience. Now it seems that he and Spottt are looking to replicate that system, with the help of parent company and ad network AdBrite. They're hoping to attract small and long tail publishers looking for easy advertising options.

With the logo "You pet my back, I'll pet yours," Spottt itself will make its revenue through selling inventory in a two-for-one system. When a publisher places two ads from a Spottt partner, the reciprocating company will run one ad from that publisher and one from Spottt, Kaplan said.

Already the site seemed to have some support in the form of TechCrunch 40 forum contributor Guy Kawasaki, the CEO of early-stage venture capital firm Garage Technology Ventures. "I like it because as a blogger and a Web site owner I truly understand the pain you are solving," he said.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Seeks Global Privacy Standards as DoubleClick Deal is Challenged in EU, Australia

Google said last week it would advocate for global standards on privacy protection, which could ease the privacy outcries and regulatory snags that tend to accompany its product and business moves around the world.

Speaking at a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) meeting on ethics and human rights in France Friday, Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer put forward proposals for new global privacy rules protecting consumer data. In a blog post earlier today he stated that “as long as there are no global standards for privacy protection, individuals and businesses will remain at risk as they operate online.”

Fleischer went on to suggest that the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) framework laid out at the 2004 conference provided an appropriate foundation on which to build, arguing that “if privacy principles can be agreed upon within the 21 APEC member economies, a similar set of principles could be applied on a global scale”.

Cynics may point out the timing of the announcements in light of hostility towards the proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Doubleclick. In an e-mail sent to ClickZ, the Executive Director for the Center for Digital Democracy Jeff Chester stated “It's clear that this is motivated in part to dampen the growing opposition to the takeover. Google is attempting to head-off a global regulatory digital train-wreck.”

Fleischer played down links between today’s announcements and the pending deal however, describing a “sustained multi-pronged effort by Google to improve privacy practices”, and stating that “We would do this regardless of whether DoubleClick were part of the equation or not.”

Of course, Google is no stranger to Internet privacy concerns. Worries about its practices date back to 2004, when Privacy International filed complaints against targeted ads in Gmail. Doubleclick or no Doubleclick, it seems that Google has learned its lesson, and this time round is rather sensibly adopting a pre-emptive, rather than reactive approach.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 7, 2007

Monetize Video Content on Mobile

Transpera is a mobile technology company close to launching with a white label video product. The business model is to partner with content companies, particularly video content, and bring the media to mobile while stitching in ads seamlessly. The targeted ad unit is similar in execution to one offered by Ad Infuse on ZooVision content. Execution has to be seamless as mobile users won't have patience to wait for load time, buffering, and an ad. The ad units, typically under :10, stream right into the entertainment.

Discovery primarily happens on the Web, site visitors can send a video clip to their mobile phone. The sticky application then encourages users to download an app to aggregate more video and share with friends, who will also sign up. Company founder and CEO said Transpera builds discovery tools on the Web, but once users get the video, they'll naturally visit the site via mobile for more content.

Ads, sold either by the content company or Transpera, can by dynamically targeted based on an aggregate of user behavior across the network. Site registration data can also be applied to targeting. Location-based targeting by phone number is another option for advertisers.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 14, 2007

On Glam and Publisher Branded Ad Networks

The controversy about Glam's traffic stats just won't die. This week the debate reignited in a VentureBeat story and a TechCrunch post ("Is Glam a Sham?"), both evidently triggered by a rumor the company is pursuing a $200 million private funding round.

Critics harsh on Glam for touting its "largest destination" status among aggregators of women online, when the bulk of its inventory comes from a big ad network -- and one that's not overwhelmingly female-centric at that. (The Glam Network has large traffic contributions from MyYearbook.com among other gender-neutral sites). Certainly Glam deserves some of the rough treatment it's getting, mainly for comparing itself to iVillage in the first place, which as ClickZ covered earlier this summer is off-base. Comparing it to Gawker Media's audience – younger, more style conscious -- makes as much sense.

Yet Glam was the first small-time premium publisher I'm aware of (please correct me if I'm wrong) to experiment with repping off-site inventory to kick up display ad revenues. Of course, Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft all long ago built ad networks while maintaining central properties, and they succeeded to the point where high-end publishers with direct sales forces almost seemed to have ceded the whole concept to them. Then Glam jumped in, and many others have followed suit, including WaPo, MSNBC.com, Heavy.com and, yes, iVillage.

Plenty of people dislike the model Glam pioneered, feeling publishers should own their ad inventory. Gawker's Nick Denton told me as much a few months back. However, I was also present weeks later when Tacoda Chairman Dave Morgan counseled Denton to ramp up an ad network of his own. (Denton's response: "You're evil, you know that?" Morgan's retort: "Hey, I'm all about enabling free content online.") Denton seemed half convinced by conversation's end, so look out for a Gawker extended ad network.

Does it matter that Glam's central brand is weak and its traffic sourced all over the Web? I like David Card's relativist analyst. For big brand advertisers and the agencies that rep them: not if Glam can guarantee premium placement. For direct marketers: very little. For consumers: oh yeah. I'd add that it can be tough to court that first, most lucrative group of constituents if you haven't already built a strong consumer brand. Glam's trying to make up for that with lots of ad sales firepower. So far, the strategy seems to be working out fine.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 8, 2007

Apollo Group picks up Aptimus

In what strikes me as an odd pairing, Apollo Group, which provides online and on-campus education, is set to acquire online advertising network Aptimus for approximately $48 million.

Apparently the company wants to use the ad network to "advance Apollo's continuing efforts to enhance the efficacy of its online advertising investments in support of its mission to increase awareness of and access to quality education services," as it said in a statement. Which means I suppose, that if not enough folks know about you, buy your own ad network to fix it.

Apparently Aptimus will still work with Internet publishers and advertising customers in other industries, so it might bring in some funds. But on first blush the deal seems to be more of a deal to replace its current exclusive management contract with Advertising.com, which is expiring over the next few months, by allowing Apollo to manage its Internet marketing internally.

Of course, Apollo Group also runs the adult learning annex University of Phoenix, which is a major buyer of online advertising (if all the ads I've seen online are any indication), so perhaps it is better to buy the cow than the milk.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Australians are coming to Personalize Your Video Ads

The personalized video advertisement space is getting a bit more crowded now that an Australian company is coming to American shores to take on Visible World and the like. Qmecom is a Melbourne-based company that recently opened up an office in San Francisco, and plans on opening one in London as well.

The company is touting its Personalized Video Advertising Platform as a means of breaking up online video advertisements into components and then creating geotargeted ads to viewers.

"What's unique about us is we can decompile video. We do not change the integrity of the ads. The blends the cuts etc., stay in place, and all we do is breaking down the granular creative assets," David Cannington, VP Americas for Qmecom told me.

Whether its truly unique or not will be played out as the company takes on Visible World, which has been doing targeted ads on television for sometime, partnering like crazy, and recently made the move to online video targeting as well.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 7, 2007

MIVA to Cut Its Own Ad Spend

Performance-based online ad network and toolbar provider MIVA plans on cutting its own ad spending. As noted in the company's Q2 '07 earnings announcement, the firm spent $9.1 million in Q2 2007, up from $7.5 million the previous quarter.

But, the company said in a statement, "The approximate $1.6 million increase in advertising spend did not yield the immediate anticipated results in toolbar growth and revenue." So, it will reduce ad spending this quarter. I'd guess the company does mostly online advertising.

MIVA's reported revenues for Q2 2007 were lower than the same quarter in '06, down from $41.4 to $39.6 million. In Q1 '07 they came in at $43.2 million.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 3, 2007

CBS Mobile: Enough Inventory to Spread Around

CBS's mobile division made a deal with four mobile ad networks earlier this week. The Wall Street Journal reported the availability of text and banner ads for mobile Web sites and video commercials through partnerships with AdMob, Millennial media, Rhythm NewMedia, and Third Screen Media. CBS created its mobile division in February and had its internal sales team selling ads for its initial three WAP sites. With industry-wide complaints about not having enough available inventory, it's a good sign when CBS is able to spread its inventory across four networks.

Third Screen Media, one of the networks named, recently released a few stats on progress. The company said it reaches nearly 50 percent of all U.S. mobile content subscribers according to Telephia data. The deal with CBS creates a good deal of overlap, but also presents opportunities as the network builds a larger presence on both on carrier decks and the mobile Web.

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 28, 2007

TribalFusion to Build Out In-Stream Contextual Video Network

ROO and TribalFusion are planning to work together to improve how video offers are targeted against text-based content online.

The companies' joint announcement today is light on details and heavy on bombast (the deal "will forever alter how consumers view pre-roll advertising," and will make "clicking through to a video link a far more compelling proposition than ever before," etc.) but the gist of it is that sites in the Tribal Fusion network will be able to offer video content and ads relevant to the Web page a person is on.

The example given is that of a person reading a newspaper site article about indie bands, who is then offered videos about the music discussed on the page they're reading. People who watch the video will then be able to purchase that music if they want it.

Part of what's interesting here is that Tribal Fusion appears to be growing its pre-roll ad inventory by partnering with a video content aggregator (ROO) and serving video content into display ad space. I can't be sure how the final iteration of the agreement will work out, but by using inventory on its partner sites to invite Web users to click content related to a page they're on, the company increases the amnount of high value in-stream inventory it can sell. As a bonus, Tribal Fusion can contextually target those pre-roll and in-stream ads, since it will be able to infer the topic of the video.

Who knows if any of this will actually happen, but the potential is there.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack