Articles of the Day
FTC Investigation Into Google/ DoubleClick: Boom or Bust? - The Federal Trade Commission’s preliminary investigation into the Google/DoubleClick deal has more to do with marketplace competition than with privacy, say some industry analysts, and may even help the search giant further shape the future of the online information industry.
ABC News, Heavy.com & AOL Turn To CGM - Several new announcements illustrate how media companies are increasingly relying on consumer-generated media (CGM) to flesh out their lineups.
Skybus To Be First Airline To Take Ads On Web Site - Columbus, Ohio-based discount air carrier Skybus is looking to derive ancillary revenue from all sources. It will be the first airline in the U.S. to take outside advertising on its Web site–and seeks to follow on the successful model in Europe of Ryanair. Travel Ad Network will sell the inventory.
Social Nets Rise Rapidly in U.K. - Social networks were the big U.K. gainers in comScore’s April World Metrix ratings. Bebo, the subject of recent takeover speculation by Yahoo, rose 6% from March, to 8.3 million unique users. Facebook showed the most growth of any U.K. site–up 38% for the second straight month.
Top Online Publishers Losing Battle With Ad Networks - IN TODAY’S MARKET, PUBLISHERS ARE challenged to find ways to expand beyond their organic growth to keep up with increased competition for marketing dollars. More inventory to sell means a greater share of the advertising spend. Unfortunately, publishers are losing a battle with large ad networks for market share, precisely because the networks can grow faster and bigger by aggregating thousands of other sites. The most recent Web traffic data from comScore’s reports reveals that ad networks commanded most of the unique visitors in April 2007. In some cases, the networks had twice the number of unique visitors than the sites usually associated with that vertical.
Going Vertical !!! - With the entire buzz being generated through numerous consolidations and mergers, it’s interesting to witness the trend towards vertical ad networks and away from the previous model of broad-reach, broad-targeted networks. The first wave of the network model focused on large reach networks, such as ValueClick and Advertising.com. The second wave focused on behavioral targeting being layered over the existing infrastructure, offering advertisers the ability to reach the same audience either contextually or based on previous traffic patterns and usage, thereby giving birth to behavioral targeting. The current trend appears to be focused on building a singular portal to reach a specific audience by tapping into them via a collection of smaller to medium-sized sites of a similar contextual relevancy.
MySpace Offers Viral Fund-Raising For ‘08 Pols - News Corporation continues its push to turn MySpace into a political force. The social network earlier this week launched a program that tracks online donations made to presidential candidates through its network. The move gives MySpace, which already hosts pages belonging to several candidates, a more prominent role in the political process, by more closely involving a generation weaned on “the Daily Show.”
24/7’s Moore Hopes To Manage Potential Conflicts By Balancing Integration And Separation - Bringing an interactive ad agency in-house is the best way for a traditional creative to gain insights into online marketing - at least, that’s the rationale from David Moore, chairman and CEO of 24/7 Real Media via a Q&A with the WSJ. The company, which was recently bought by ad holding company WPP Group for $649 million, is both representative of and different from the spate of M&A activity going on within the ad industry and online ad agencies lately. Key areas of conflict are described.
Online Ad Net ValueClick Elevates Vadnais To CEO - ValueClick has promoted Tom Vadnais, currently its president of U.S. operations, to CEO, succeeding James Zarley, who headed the digital ad shop since 1999. Zarley remains as executive chairman of the board of directors.
AP Will Use Fingerprinting Technology To Track Online Content Use - The Associated Press is stepping up efforts to monitor unauthorized use of its content. The company will announce a deal Thursday with Attributor Corp. to fingerprint AP copy that can then be traced across the internet. This phase covers text only but other formats will be tested. The process includes continuous monitoring of “billions of pages” and comparison analysis.
