The local gatherings of techies, which are often free and open to newcomers, have long been a fertile field for schmoozing and hunting for investment capital. But as the latest technology boom has gathered steam, meet-ups have proliferated and taken on more importance in the industry.

Many meet-ups have left behind their humbler origins as bull sessions around pitchers of beer. For an increasing number of entrepreneurs, they are places to recruit employees, prospect for clients and keep abreast of the latest tech trends and tools. Some of the groups now have thousands of members — and even corporate sponsors.

The number of monthly events on Meetup.com, a service used mostly by techies to plan the confabs, had grown to more than 250,000 in May 2011 from less than 50,000 three years earlier.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Many attorneys have doubts, but a 21-year-old law student named Robert Grant Niznik is putting his money–or more candidly, he says, his parents’ money–behind a Web site called Shpoonkle that will let lawyers bid for clients.

The New York Law School student and his start-up, whose motto is “Justice You Can Afford,” are creating a buzz in legal circles. Lawyers and bloggers have been debating the merits of the idea leading up to its launch.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Law-enforcement agencies said they are investigating the incidents, which McAfee said have been going on at least since late 2009 but may have started as early as 2007. The company said the attacks, which it dubbed “Night Dragon,” were still occurring.

McAfee said the hackers targeted five multinational firms, but wouldn’t identify the companies by name because some of them are clients. McAfee said it was sharing the findings “to protect those not yet impacted and to repair those who have been.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Its 2010 lobbying spend was about $1.6 million. (Microsoft’s was $6.9 million.) But while it might seem that any lobbying Apple might need to do in Washington could be easily accomplished by a phone call from one of its directors–one in particular–evidently that’s not the case. Because the company has hired a new lobbying firm to help deal with its D.C. concerns: Fierce, Isakowitz and Blalock.

It’s not clear why Apple hired the firm; lobbying disclosures say only that it will handle “innovation” issues for the company, and sources I’ve spoken with seem unaware of any big legislative pushes the company might be mulling. That said, Fierce, Isakowitz and Blalock is a formidable lobbying firm with a number of executives who did stints in the Bush administration and the Republican National Committee, and a client list that includes some very big names: Coca-Cola, CTIA, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Ford, Time Warner and Oracle.

Think Larry Ellison got a referral fee?

The news cycle about the deal spun out of Facebook’s control after leaks emerged around the new year, with the social networking company taking a beating for the tricky and elitist way it had raised funds in a seeming evasion of the public markets, and Goldman changing the rules of the deal after much interest and scrutiny.

Since then, the leaks have kept coming, with no official acknowledgement of the deal from Facebook, until now.

Facebook today shed light on some terms of the transaction: It had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs, and elected to choose $1 billion in an offering that was completed today.

The company distanced itself from the deal, effectively saying that it didn’t need the money and it expected to cross 500 shareholders this year anyway (something All Things D was first to report).

DST and Goldman Sachs approached Facebook to express their interest in making an investment, and Facebook decided it was an attractive opportunity to bolster its cash reserves and increase its financial flexibility with limited dilution to existing shareholders….

Even before the investment from Goldman Sachs, Facebook had expected to pass 500 shareholders at some point in 2011, and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Staying at 499 shareholders or fewer is something Facebook has worried about since at least 2007, and sidestepped by creating a special kind of restricted stock unit for new employees and making small talent acquisitions that avoided, when possible, awarding start-ups and their investors with Facebook stock.

Now that that’s over, Facebook’s acquisitions team may get the go-ahead this year to pursue larger and more complicated deals.

As is now widely known, SEC rules mandate that a company with more than 500 shareholders at the end of a fiscal year must report financial information, something Facebook didn’t want to do as a private company. But if you read the fine print, as BoomTown’s Kara Swisher first reported, Facebook has 120 days to disclose from the end of the fiscal year in which it crosses 500 shareholders.

That means the end of April of 2012, by which point Facebook has said in paperwork for its Goldman Sachs funding deal it expects to file to go public.

Basically, Facebook has exorcised a curse hanging over its head by outlasting it. Like a nightclub bouncer, the company had been letting one shareholder out of the room before allowing another in. And now that’s over, as long as Facebook goes public next year.

(Though at this point, many of the company’s financial details are already leaking out as part of the troubling Goldman Sachs deal.)

For now, Facebook is still being cautious about adding shareholders; the Goldman deal (which we’ve heard still hasn’t closed) was structured to combine Goldman’s wealthy clients into a single entity to avoid adding too many shareholders.

Facebook’s corporate development team has said publicly that part of why it likes doing “acqhire” deals of small, early-stage start-ups is because they are relatively uncomplicated, financially speaking. Wherever it can, Facebook tries to cash out an acquired start-up’s shareholders instead of giving them stock. In the past, if a start-up had too many shareholders, it might not have been an attractive acquisition candidate.

Facebook doesn’t always get its way on that preference; sometimes it pays in stock. For instance, Facebook bought two start-ups that had taken investments from RRE Ventures: Hot Potato (in August 2010) and Drop.io (in October). In the first case, Facebook paid RRE in cash, but the second time around, RRE was able to negotiate for stock.

But now that Facebook seems to basically be giving itself the go-ahead to surge past 500, who gets to be shareholder number 501 or even number 1,001? It’s possible they could be the employees and investors in larger, more complicated M&A deals. Facebook’s name has come up in acquisition discussions for companies like Twitter and Foursquare, but now it may actually start closing more of those deals.

To date, Facebook’s largest acquisition has been FriendFeed for $50 million in cash and stock in 2009. The first time many tech watchers heard of the 10 tiny start-ups Facebook acquired in 2010 was when the deals closed.

But now that big deals are on the table, the question is, who’s next?

Here’s Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” last night ranting about Facebook avoiding making financial disclosures:

Please see my own disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

The rich clients of Goldman Sachs, who are poised to grab a $1.5 billion piece of the company?

The venture investors, as well as Microsoft, who funded the social networking site when it was not the behemoth it has become?

Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who owns 25 percent of Facebook?

Of course they all do. But in the midst of this investor frenzy around Facebook, it is critical to keep in mind that the most important “owners” of Facebook are its 600 million users.

Not many of them have been invited to invest in the Goldman deal, but without their active support, uploading of all kinds of personal information and their friend networks, Facebook would be worthless.

Those users–whether or not they are being acknowledged by the company and the markets–are the real shareholders in Facebook.

And if they left, Facebook would become irrelevant. Such a thing has happened before (see: AOL). It’s Facebook’s contract with and service for those users that gives it that massive $50 billion valuation.

This particular deal might not be eyebrow-raising enough to get a ton of people up in arms, but it was specifically structured to consider Goldman investors a single entity, which some think is being done to circumvent shareholder limits that Facebook has historically avoided (although it does not have to any longer, as long as it goes public by the end of April of 2012).

But given the events of the last few years, the public and the government have developed an emphatic mistrust of tricky Wall Street accounting. It’s kind of a sore topic.

And potentially sorer still for Facebook and its consumer image. As the social network has no real competition in most regions and demographics, many users have developed a deep relationship with the service.

Facebook has tried to make its offerings be (and feel) egalitarian, but working hand in glove with Wall Street bankers to freeze out average investors is definitely not that.

Thus, it might be time for the company to think about who its most important constituents are.

Because the only thing that really matters in the long term is if users stick with Facebook or leave it behind.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

However, we’re starting to get more information about how the McDonald’s incident appears connected to hacking incidents at other sites. Chicago Business is reporting that the company responsible for McDonald’s email marketing is Silverpop Systems, and that it had been operating under a subcontract from Chicago-based Arc Worldwide.

So who else is a customer of Silverpop? Yesterday I received an email from someone who’s a customer of deviantArt, a social network where artists share their creations. DeviantArt has a base of 13 million users. Got an account there? You’d better change any passwords that overlap with other sites. The site advised customers that their accounts were compromised, and blamed Silverpop.

It could extend much further yet. Silverpop has more than 100 clients, and not all of them are publicly disclosed, though here are a few, found on its client quotes page and its case studies page: Stamps.com, Pitney Bowes/Mapinfo, Encyclopedia Britannica, Santander Consumer Finance and watchmaker Fossil. There’s no word how any of those other companies are affected, if at all.

Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey said in a blog message to customers that the FBI is investigating the incident, and that only a small percentage of Silverpop customers have been affected. He also said that Silverpop was “among several technology providers targeted as part of a broader cyber attack.” Stacy Kirk, a Silverpop spokeswoman, wouldn’t say anything beyond what’s in Nussey’s message.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some indirect connection between what happened to Silverpop and what happened to Gawker. I’m speculating here, but it’s no stretch of the imagination that numbering among deviantArt’s 13 million users are some of the 1.5 million people whose accounts were compromised in the Gawkergate affair. And the FBI is investigating both. Thomas Plunkett, Gawker’s technology chief, told me by email that there’s no evidence of a connection. Then again, as Business Insider tells it, he hasn’t yet had his meeting with the FBI.

Maybe I’m looking for connections that aren’t really there, but it’s really not hard to see how the breach at Gawker could turn out be the start of a domino effect that’s much larger than anyone has yet realized. There certainly is a lot of grumbling about changing passwords today.

If you know more more about any of this, get in touch!

Below is the email to deviantArt users.

From: deviantART.com (address deleted)
Date: Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 5:54 AM
Subject: RE: Email Notice

Silverpop Systems, Inc., a leading marketing company that sends email messages for its clients, told us that information was taken from its servers. This was probably part of a sweep by spammers. As a result, email addresses belonging to deviantART members were copied. Corresponding usernames and birth date may also have been removed.

We can assure you that nothing occurred on our systems with respect to this incident and no access was gained to private information on deviantART’s servers.

As a member of deviantART, you certainly have a right to know when an incident of this kind occurs. Unfortunately spammers are an unavoidable part of living on the Web.

The likely result of this event might be an increase in spam to your email. Experts have told us that there is an increase in email scams out there on the Internet and you should be cautious. Only click links or download attachments from people you know, particularly if they ask for personal information, and be sure that your email service provider has adequate spam filters.

Because we value the information that members give us, we have decided not to rely on the services of Silverpop in the future and their servers will no longer hold any data from us.

That’s because over the weekend, Google suspended the company’s access to the ad giant’s “real time” ad exchange. The move isn’t permanent, but it’s still likely to cut directly into AppNexus’s business, and it’s a very big deal for the ad tech industry.

“It’s a bombshell,” says a competitor.

AppNexus offers customers several different services, but its most important one is acting as a demand-side platform (or DSP) for clients who want to buy display advertising inventory. The bulk of that comes from Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and for now, that’s gone.

What happened? Google won’t address the incident directly, but a statement the company released today implies that it has problems with at least one AppNexus client and an ad they’ve placed:

To protect users and publishers, the Ad Exchange has extensive, widely-published policies for a range of issues including ad quality, ad content and malware. We have technologies to detect violations, and when a customer is in breach of our policies, we take action, including potential suspension from the Ad Exchange. AppNexus is a great partner, and we’re working with them through this issue to get them back on the Ad Exchange.

Via email, AppNexus President Michael Rubenstein, who left Google to join the start-up a year ago, stresses that the cutoff is “temporary,” and adds:

We’re modifying our process of working with Google to create a new arrangement whereby AppNexus clients wishing to access Google inventory will have their own individual seats on DoubleClick Ad Exchange, but will continue to serve impressions through AppNexus.

In practical terms, that means AppNexus’s ad buyers will need to set up a contract directly with Google before it lets them access its inventory again. (You can read an email Rubenstein sent to his clients on Monday, explaining the new terms, at the bottom of this post.)

That could take weeks for each ad buyer. Or they could simply take their business elsewhere and skip the process. Google itself has its own DSP, via its purchase of Invite Media earlier this year.

“I would expect a lot of these clients can’t really wait several weeks,” says Tony Katsur, general manager at MediaMath, an AppNexus competitor.

Ad industry executives tell me Google has cut off other DSPs from its ad exchange in the past. But AppNexus is a particularly high-profile player. In October, it raised $50 million in funding that included money from Microsoft, which has yet to fully embrace the “real time” display ad market itself.

Some industry insiders I’ve talked to are muttering darkly about Google sending some sort of message to Microsoft, or trying to steer business to Invite, or some other conspiratorial motives.

But none of that makes much sense to me. Google is under intense scrutiny that’s only going to get more severe. And crippling a partner–even temporarily–is the kind of thing that’s going to raise plenty of eyebrows.

Hard to imagine Google making this move lightly, and without a very good reason.
—–
Here’s the text of the email that Rubenstein sent to AppNexus clients yesterday:

From: Michael Rubenstein
Date: Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 4:41 PM
Subject: RE: Access to Google AdX Inventory
To: Michael Rubenstein

Important Update:

Further to the notification below regarding the disruption of access to DoubleClick Ad Exchange supply, AppNexus has been in continuous contact with Google to resolve this issue. At present, Google’s position is to require all AppNexus buyers accessing Ad Exchange inventory to have a direct contract with Google in order to restore access. To be clear, this will not impact your ability to use AppNexus as your RTB platform for buying Google inventory, but simply means that you will in the future remit payment for media purchased on DoubleClick Ad Exchange to Google directly, rather than to AppNexus.

Your account manager will contact you tomorrow with details on how to proceed with restoring access to DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

We thank you for your continued patience and support as we work through this.

Regards,

Michael Rubenstein

—— Forwarded Message
From: Steven Giacomelli
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2010 18:35:20 -0800
Subject: Access to Google AdX Inventory

Dear Client,

Beginning at 7:00 PM ET / 12:00 AM UTC, our monitoring alerted us to the fact that our real time bid requests from Google’s AdX had dropped to zero. We are investigating on our side and are also working with our contacts at Google. Currently we have no ETA for a resolution. We will update you as more details become available.

Thank you for your patience,

Steve

[Image credit: Nesher Guy]

According to his supply chain checks, Apple plans to produce 45-48 million iPads in 2011, essentially double the most optimistic forecast to date. But even more stunning is Blair’s assessment of Apple’s iPhone forecast.

“We believe that Apple’s production forecasts for 2011 suggest iPhone units in the 100 million unit range for the full 2011 year,” Blair writes. “While a staggering number any way you look at it, our checks reflect full calendar 2010 builds in the 48-50 million unit range. While this number can change and adjust downward or upward based on demand, we believe it is incredibly bullish that Apple feels it is possible that they could see nearly 100 percent year over year growth for iPhone in 2011 as this would mean that exiting 2011, Apple would have approximately 10 percent share in the global handset market.”

The chart below (click to enlarge) shows what kind of quarterly numbers Apple would have to post to reach those totals.

So, 48 million iPads and 100 million iPhones in 2011. Seems a bit optimistic, though the company did sell 39.9 million iPhones in fiscal 2010, a 93 percent increase year-over-year. Given that, the “nearly 100 percent year-over-year growth” that Blair is talking about doesn’t seem as fantastical as it would otherwise. We’ll see, I guess.

Twitter has started showing ads to its users. But Twitter is not the only one doing this–there’s a host of start-ups trying to insert ads into the Twitter stream, and more on the way.

So here’s a question: Will Twitter force publishers and app developers to use its ad platform exclusively?

No, says COO Dick Costolo.

In theory, he says, it would be possible for someone like TweetDeck or Seesmic to use Twitter’s “sponsored tweets” offering along with something like 140 Proof, which also places ads, in the form of tweets, into users’ streams.

After all, conventional Web publishers can use Google’s (GOOG) AdSense products and competing ad networks. Why shouldn’t the same thing work for Twitter?

But Costolo also has a warning for anyone who does sell ads in the streams: Tread very, very carefully. Here’s an excerpt from an interview I conducted with him this afternoon.

Clients can use our system and other ad systems at the same time. The distinction I would make, or the caveat I would add to that, [is that] we are going to probably prohibit pieces, insertions into the timeline that cause user confusion.

So for example, if someone creates an ad that looks like a tweet in the timeline, but isn’t a tweet–such that if you click on the retweet button, you go to a landing page, instead of retweeting the tweet–that’s something [that] causes user confusion, it harms the overall value of the platform, and we’re going to prohibit that.

That “user confusion” theme is a favorite at Twitter. It’s the same argument CEO Ev Williams used to explain the company’s thinking behind its purchase of Tweetie last week.

Still, the Twitter ad platforms I’m familiar with–Ad.ly, 140 Proof, TweetUp, etc.–seem to comply with Costolo’s restrictions: All of them turn tweets into ads, but the tweet still functions as a tweet. The Twitter COO seems to have something or someone on his mind here, though.

And when he goes on to explain what he doesn’t have a problem with–ad platforms that don’t sell in the stream at all–he seems to be sending a message: If you don’t want to worry about platform conflict, the best way to do that is to avoid doing what we do.

There are pieces of the puzzle that we’re going to prohibit if we feel they harm the overall value of the platform. And that’s one example.

What I’m absolutely fine with…is a client that’s got a banner ad at the top, that’s segregated from the timeline. And that banner ad is sold by a third party, and those people decide not to participate in the promoted tweets platform. I don’t have a problem with that and we encourage that.

So make of this what you will. You can see our entire conversation below. Costolo also makes a brief version of the pitch he’s going to deliver to developers tomorrow at Twitter’s Chirp conference, and he and I go back and forth about Twitter’s intention to show ads outside of search results.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100413/twitter-to-rival-ad-players-tread-carefully/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100122/comscores-gift-to-web-publishers-free-traffic/ http://allthingsd.com/20100122/comscores-gift-to-web-publishers-free-traffic/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:00:10 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=15413 Hey Web publishers! Want to boost your traffic overnight? Talk to comScore, which is handing out millions of unique visitors.

The Web’s dominant traffic counter is in the midst of overhauling its traffic-counting system in response to years of complaints from publishers who insist that their traffic has been undercounted.

Turns out, the publishers were often right.

ComScore’s old data, for instance, say the Huffington Post attracted 9.95 million unique visitors in December. But its new numbers peg HuffPo’s December traffic at 20 million uniques.

The difference is that comScore’s (SCOR) old system tracked small panels of users and extrapolated their traffic patterns across the Web. But its new “hybrid” system uses panel data along with records generated by actual visits to the site, counted via tracking cookies. Publishers that cooperate with comScore (SCOR) agree to let the company “tag” every Web page on their sites.

“This is a much much better, much more methodologically rigorous way of doing this,” says Linda Abraham, comScore’s chief marketing officer.

ComScore has been rolling out the new system for months and says it can now use it to report on 25 percent of the 50 biggest sites on the Web. Another 50 percent of the top sites have agreed to work with the system, Abraham says.

ComScore lets publishers who are already clients participate in the program for free. But it will charge everyone else $10,000 a year, which the company says helps cover the cost of new servers and other equipment it needs to process the new deluge of data.

UPDATE: Some more detail on comScore’s fees, which generated a Web flare-up after this piece ran. Abraham notes that comScore’s set-up fee is $5,000, which she says covers implementation costs and gives publishers access to its data for six months; comScore charges publishers who want to keep receiving reports an additional $5,000 for each subsequent six-month period. However, Abraham notes, “If you choose not to purchase report access, you are free to do that, and we’ll continue to report you as hybrid, free of charge, as long as you continue to beacon correctly.” For more from Abraham, see her response to Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis’s criticism; here’s the company’s blog post on the subject.

The new system doesn’t necessarily generate a traffic boost. AOL’s (AOL) Living channel saw its numbers decline by two percent in the new system, for instance, and its radio site saw traffic drop by 20 percent. AOL’s overall traffic, though, is up nine percent by comScore’s count.

Hybrid measurement is particularly kind to small Web sites and those that generate a lot of traffic from users who visit while at work. Both categories have always been difficult for comScore to measure using panels.

TheStreet.com (TSCM), for instance, has watched its traffic shoot up 86 percent under the new system, to 3.3 million uniques. That’s still much less than the site itself reports–in its last quarterly filing, the financial network reported an audience of 8.1 million uniques.

The fact that comScore is tracking some Web sites using the new system and the rest of them with the old one will make things a bit sticky for some time. The company has stopped releasing its monthly Top 50 list until May, when it says it will have moved almost all participating sites into the hybrid system.

But some sites won’t end up working with comScore at all, which means that comScore will measure them with its old panel methodology. At some point, the company will be presenting apples-to-oranges numbers when it compares different sites.

Does any of this really matter? Yes and no.

Ad buyers do pay attention to comScore rankings when figuring out where to place their money, even as Web publishers have presented their own, higher numbers from their own server logs. For some sites, the new data will make their pitches more compelling.

On the other hand, this does nothing to solve the real problem facing most publishers: They can’t sell ads against all of their inventory, no matter who’s counting it. And a measurement system won’t ever be able to help with that one.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100122/comscores-gift-to-web-publishers-free-traffic/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091228/facebooks-holiday-gift-sends-a-message-this-is-a-grownup-company/ http://allthingsd.com/20091228/facebooks-holiday-gift-sends-a-message-this-is-a-grownup-company/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:53:50 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=14504 How can you tell when a buzzy start-up has reached grown-up stage?

Numbers help to tell the story, obviously. And the fact that Facebook now claims a staggering 350 million users–more than double a year ago–makes a pretty good claim for adult status. So are investments at $10 billion valuations.

But there are other markers, too. Like the kinds of gifts a company doles out to prized clients. Check out the time, money and effort Facebook put into these limited-edition posters it handed out to top advertising partners this year.

The network produced just 4,000 of these embossed foil babies, each of which contained a wooden token allowing recipients to make contributions to DonorsChoose. (Note that Facebook’s communications team sent digital versions of the same token to hacks like me–mine was worth $25.)

Thanks to All Facebook for spotting.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091228/facebooks-holiday-gift-sends-a-message-this-is-a-grownup-company/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091028/whoops-are-reports-of-the-ad-recovery-greatly-exaggerated/ http://allthingsd.com/20091028/whoops-are-reports-of-the-ad-recovery-greatly-exaggerated/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:55:19 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=12496 Here’s the counterpoint to Publicis’s mildly optimistic take on the ad market yesterday: Rival ad holding company Interpublic Group’s (IPG) report, which is mildly pessimistic.

The company’s organic growth–sales after netting out acquisitions and currency fluctuations–dropped 14.2 percent, just barely better than the 14.5 percent it posted the previous quarter.

That is “less sequential progress in the quarter than we hope to see,” CEO Michael Roth deadpanned. On the plus side, his agencies are having nice chats:

However, it’s fair to say that the tone of our conversations with clients concerning the economy is improving. However, we’ve not seen this yet converted to consistent commitments to new or existing projects. Therefore, it looks as if the pace of the recovery will be gradual and that significantly improving organic revenue performance for the whole of 2009 compared to the first nine months performance will be challenging.

In the end, Roth gave more or less the same report that we’ve seen most other places that aren’t in the search ad business dominated by Google (GOOG): He argued that “the worst is over,” but he thinks any significant improvement won’t show up until 2010.

Alas, that kind of muted hopefulness isn’t nearly enough to save any jobs during this fall’s media layoff season, which kicked off this week as my former employers at Forbes took an ax–yet again–to that company’s payroll. On the schedule: Cuts at the New York Times (NYT), Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc. and at Bloomberg’s newly acquired BusinessWeek.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091028/whoops-are-reports-of-the-ad-recovery-greatly-exaggerated/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090915/here-comes-the-google-ad-exchange/ http://allthingsd.com/20090915/here-comes-the-google-ad-exchange/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:00:56 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=10914 Google is about to flip the switch on its long-awaited Ad Exchange.

The search giant will reportedly open up its AdX service, which is supposed to bring together ad buyers and sellers the same way a stock market does, within the next two weeks. ClickZ says the exchange is supposed to open in conjunction with next week’s AdWeek festivities in New York.

That timeline sounds right to me. Google (GOOG) has already been inviting selected clients to try out the system, which is based on the one DoubleClick ran before Google acquired the firm last year. Google told potential buyers via email that it will begin integrating their ads into the exchange this week.

None of this will have any impact on Google’s search users, but it’s potentially important for online advertisers and publishers.

Until now, the online exchange market has been dominated by Yahoo’s (YHOO) Right Media, but Google will become an instant rival as soon as it opens its doors. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s (MSFT) offering, AdECN, seems stuck in the starting gate.

Google’s exchange will open shortly after the departure of its manager, Michael Rubenstein, who is now president of ad tech start-up AppNexus.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090915/here-comes-the-google-ad-exchange/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090902/is-google-getting-a-hollywood-tour-guide-former-william-morris-boss-jim-wiatt-may-take-youtube-consulting-gig/ http://allthingsd.com/20090902/is-google-getting-a-hollywood-tour-guide-former-william-morris-boss-jim-wiatt-may-take-youtube-consulting-gig/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:00:50 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=10619

Does Google need a Hollywood guide?

It may be getting one: Jim Wiatt, the former head of the fabled William Morris talent agency, has been talking to the company about a consulting gig for its YouTube video site.

Wiatt, who is leaving his old job in the aftermath of his agency’s highly contentious merger with the Endeavor agency, discussed the idea with Google and YouTube executives in Mountain View last week, multiple sources said.

Wiatt hasn’t signed a deal and may end up pursuing something else instead, I’m told.

But the role would make sense, given that Wiatt has already served as a de facto guide for Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has been trying to ingratiate his company with studio and network executives for some time.

(Schmidt has spent enough time in Hollywood to justify plunking down a reported $20 million for an estate in Montecito, a wealthy resort town an hour or so outside of Beverly Hills.)

Google (GOOG) has tried to convince Hollywood to bring more of its content over to the world’s largest video site, but its biggest players have so far resisted, offering the site promotional trailers but little else. Meanwhile Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC and Disney’s (DIS) ABC has staked out a reputation as the go-to site for free “premium” movies and TV shows.

Earlier this year, reports surfaced that William Morris and Google had reached a pact that would steer the agency’s high-profile clients to make and star in YouTube videos.

Neither company ever formally acknowledged the so-called “YouTube Gold” program, and it’s not clear if it ever got off the ground. But, in any case, William Morris has more or less been absorbed by onetime rival Endeavor, headed by Ari Emanuel, leaving Wiatt looking for other work.

Wiatt, via a spokesman, declined to comment. YouTube offered up this statement via email: “We are constantly exploring opportunities to reward the talented members of the YouTube community, including helping to distribute their content around the Web and beyond.”

[News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.]

[Image credit: Sorn]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090902/is-google-getting-a-hollywood-tour-guide-former-william-morris-boss-jim-wiatt-may-take-youtube-consulting-gig/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090617/microsoft-outlook-team-still-cracking-google-apps-stink-for-outlook-jokes/ http://allthingsd.com/20090617/microsoft-outlook-team-still-cracking-google-apps-stink-for-outlook-jokes/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:37:31 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=19760 A week after launching Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook with great swagger and pomp, Google is taking heat for unwittingly disabling one of the mail client’s key functions. Seems the service, which allows enterprise to use Outlook without shouldering the costs of running an Exchange server, doesn’t play well with Windows Desktop Search.

“The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook’s ability to search any and all of your Outlook data,” Microsoft explained in a post to the Outlook Team blog. “When a Google Apps user installs the sync plugin for Outlook, the plugin modifies a registry key which disables Windows Desktop Search from indexing and providing search functionality for all Outlook data, not just the Outlook data being synchronized from GMail. Because Outlook search relies upon the indexing performed by Windows Desktop Search, Outlook search functions are broken as a result. It is also important to note that uninstalling the plugin may not fix the issue.”

Uh-oh. Good luck finding that budget-request email you sent to your CFO a few months ago….

Google (GOOG) is working with Microsoft (MSFT) to resolve the issue, but the damage may have already been done. Enterprise is notoriously reluctant to embrace change specifically because of cock-ups like this. Enterprise likes familiarity. It likes seamless change. With Apps Sync for Outlook, Google provided the former, but it fell short on the latter. And that may inspire some companies that had been considering Apps Sync for Outlook to stick with Exchange for a while longer.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090617/microsoft-outlook-team-still-cracking-google-apps-stink-for-outlook-jokes/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090617/microsoft-outlook-team-still-cracking-google-apps-stink-for-outlook-jokes-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20090617/microsoft-outlook-team-still-cracking-google-apps-stink-for-outlook-jokes-2/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:37:31 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=19760 A week after launching Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook with great swagger and pomp, Google is taking heat for unwittingly disabling one of the mail client’s key functions. Seems the service, which allows enterprise to use Outlook without shouldering the costs of running an Exchange server, doesn’t play well with Windows Desktop Search.

“The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook’s ability to search any and all of your Outlook data,” Microsoft explained in a post to the Outlook Team blog. “When a Google Apps user installs the sync plugin for Outlook, the plugin modifies a registry key which disables Windows Desktop Search from indexing and providing search functionality for all Outlook data, not just the Outlook data being synchronized from GMail. Because Outlook search relies upon the indexing performed by Windows Desktop Search, Outlook search functions are broken as a result. It is also important to note that uninstalling the plugin may not fix the issue.”

Uh-oh. Good luck finding that budget-request email you sent to your CFO a few months ago….

Google (GOOG) is working with Microsoft (MSFT) to resolve the issue, but the damage may have already been done. Enterprise is notoriously reluctant to embrace change specifically because of cock-ups like this. Enterprise likes familiarity. It likes seamless change. With Apps Sync for Outlook, Google provided the former, but it fell short on the latter. And that may inspire some companies that had been considering Apps Sync for Outlook to stick with Exchange for a while longer.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090617/microsoft-outlook-team-still-cracking-google-apps-stink-for-outlook-jokes-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090521/jimmy-kimmels-shocking-upront-rant-exposed-spoiler-not-so-shocking/ http://allthingsd.com/20090521/jimmy-kimmels-shocking-upront-rant-exposed-spoiler-not-so-shocking/#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 18:47:28 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=7605 Did you hear about Jimmy Kimmel’s shocking rant at ABC’s “upfront” sales presentation this week? The New York Times said the comedian’s routine, presented to an auditorium full of potential ad buyers, generated a “mixture of uneasy laughs and the occasional gasp.” That’s because he said things along the lines of this:

Every year we lie to you and every year you come back for more. You don’t need an upfront. You need therapy. We completely lie to you, and then you pass those lies onto your clients.

Predictably, this generated lots of gasping in cyberspace, but it shouldn’t have. The networks always bring comedians onstage during upfronts to poke fun at themselves and their competitors.

That’s because they need to. The upfronts, where the TV broadcasters show off next year’s shows to advertisers, are a week-long hard-sell. Without some “hey, we’re in on the joke” levity, these things would collapse of their own weight.

And as far as “the occasional gasp”? I was at the 2004 upfront where GE’s (GE) NBC rolled out its animated show based on Siegfried & Roy–a year after Roy had been attacked by one of his own tigers–and attempted to assure advertisers that this was OK by rolling an interview with the mangled entertainer. Now that generated some gasping.

Anyway, no need to trust either me or Deadline Hollywood’s Nikki Finke, who patiently walks through all of this as well. Here, via the miracle of Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, is Kimmel’s routine in its entirety. Enjoy it now, in case the Disney-owned (DIS) network sends a take-down notice. Warning: Contains a couple curse words that people in the advertising business have heard before.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090521/jimmy-kimmels-shocking-upront-rant-exposed-spoiler-not-so-shocking/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090127/so-much-for-ibms-lifetime-employment-concept/ http://allthingsd.com/20090127/so-much-for-ibms-lifetime-employment-concept/#comments Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:00:02 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=11936 If no mention of layoffs was made during IBM’s reporting of its fourth-quarter results it’s not because the company hadn’t been planning them. IBM sent layoff notices to a number of employees last week–just one day after reporting a 12 percent gain in fourth-quarter earnings and issuing an encouraging financial outlook for 2009. And according to reports, the company is eliminating about 2,800 jobs in North America–mostly in its sales and software units.

While confirming that these “resource actions” are indeed taking place, IBM (IBM) refused to discuss details. Instead, it offered up the standard staff reduction obfuscations as comment. “We are not going to discuss specific numbers or locations,” spokesperson Doug Shelton told The Poughkeepsie Journal. What I can tell you is that managing resources and skills is an ongoing component of our business model. IBM continuously evaluates its mix of skills and resources, and makes changes as needed. The nature of our business is that we must constantly assess employee skills and resources and at any given time, give IBM the flexibility to match the current and future needs of our clients (skills that the client needs). Managing talent in this way promotes the continued competitiveness of our operations and matches our skills and capabilities with the evolving needs of our clients.”

So much for IBM’s lifetime employment concept.

[Image credit: Someecards]

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