Andy Miller (pictured here), the high-profile VP of mobile advertising at Apple, is planning on leaving the company, according to sources close to the situation.

Sources said Miller — who sold Quattro Wireless, the mobile advertising company he co-founded in 2006, to Apple in early 2010 for $275 million — will become a general partner at Highland Capital, the Boston-based venture firm that had funded Quattro.

Apple will search for a replacement for Miller, whose staff was told of the impending departure today.

Since Miller got to Apple, he has reported directly to its CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs, who noted after the acquisition:

“We tried to buy a company named AdMob, but Google came in and snatched them from us. So we bought Quattro, and they are teaching us. We are making ads that are different than anything I’ve ever seen.”

But Apple’s ad aspirations have been a bit of a bumpy road, as the company has tried to fine-tune the offering, even as competition — from Google, Facebook and a range of start-ups — has increased in the fast-growing space.

Not surprisingly, Apple shut down Quattro in favor of its much ballyhooed iAd platform a year ago. Via iAd, Apple has promised to serve up interactive rich-media ads on iPhone and iPod touch apps.

Some marketers balked at Apple’s tight control over iAds and their high prices, but recently the company has tried to give Madison Avenue more flexibility.

That’s because, while still small, mobile advertising will be a huge market. As The Wall Street Journal recently reported: “Marketers spent just $743.1 million on mobile ads in the U.S. in 2010, up 79% from $416 million in 2009, according to research firm eMarketer.”

At Highland, Miller will be working on a range of digital investments from its Silicon Valley office, sources said, and not just in the mobile space.

He has a varied background: Miller worked for mobile content company m-Qube and also WatchPoint Media, an interactive television start-up.

I have contacted Apple PR for a comment, but have not yet heard back.

In an important deal for social reading app Flipboard, it has partnered with magazine giant Condé Nast to offer a slew of titles with branded advertising from major marketers American Express and Lexus.

The pair will share in the specially designed program, which will include the New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appetit. Additional magazines will be added, the companies said.

Flipboard, which is a popular and elegant app for the Apple iPad, has been trying to create strong ties with big publishers as it seeks to dominate distribution in the fast-growing social reading arena. It recently struck a deal with OWN, for example, the new cable network Oprah Winfrey has launched with Discovery.

Here is the official press release:

Condé Nast and Flipboard Launch
Brand Advertising On Flipboard for iPad with The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit

American Express to launch today, Lexus in October

July 25, 2011 — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Today, Flipboard and Condé Nast bring brand advertising to the popular social magazine for iPad with web content from The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit, with additional titles coming to Flipboard throughout 2011. American Express will be first to launch its campaign starting today in The New Yorker with Lexus following suit in October in Bon Appétit, The New Yorker and Wired.

Flipboard’s new program gives publishers and content creators a fresh way to offer magazine-like experiences of their web content with full-page ads to showcase advertiser brands. With a limited number of ad pages available within select content, advertisers benefit from an unprecedented share of voice within an immersive iPad reading experience. A simple tap on the magazine-style ad takes a reader to a brand’s website or Facebook page for additional information.

“Condé Nast is always looking for ways to take advantage of new channels that provide an environment in keeping with our editorial excellence, while offering unique opportunities for readers and advertisers,” said Lou Cona, CMO at Condé Nast. “Flipboard’s social magazine is a great example of that winning combination, while also giving us another way to market our own portfolio of tablet apps.”

Flipboard developed its brand advertising on the popular and groundbreaking iPad in collaboration with Condé Nast including the design and placement of the advertising inside the social magazine. Using a revenue share model, Flipboard will manage inventory and the publisher maintains its direct relationships with advertisers.

“Condé Nast continues to create new experiences for their content that also brings new reach to their advertisers. We are excited to be a part of this overarching strategy and bring their amazing stories, images, publications and advertisers to readers on Flipboard,: said Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard.

“At American Express, we actively seek innovative partners that connect our Cardmembers with compelling and creative content through platforms that fit into their evolving digital lifestyle,” said Louis Paskalis, Vice President Global Media, Content Development & Mobile Marketing of American Express. “As such, we are proud to be an inaugural advertising partner for the groundbreaking New Yorker Flipboard edition, which will provide our Cardmembers and consumers everywhere a seamless, next-generation way to experience an iconic magazine in a tablet friendly adaptation.”

Closing another chapter on one of the Internet’s most iconic properties, Myspace has been sold to to Specific Media, an advertising network, for $35 million.

Sources close to the situation said the deal is being completed today, although it has not been officially signed. Myspace’s owner, News Corp., will hold on to a very small stake of less than five percent.

[UPDATE: It's official; see the press release and memo to Myspace employees from outgoing CEO Mike Jones below.]

AllThingsD broke news of Specific’s interest in Myspace yesterday.

The price is well below the $100 million that News Corp. had been hoping for, and a chasm away from Myspace’s one-time billion valuation.

The deal includes a halving of Myspace’s staff of 400, as well as other cost cuts. It’s likely Jones and other top staff will remain only for an interim period.

News Corp. bought Myspace for $580 million in 2005, and made that back via a lucrative advertising deal with Google when the social networking site was flying high.

But that was another time — the media giant has been trying to sell the site before the end of its fiscal year, which falls on Thursday, in order to get it off the books.

There were several other bidders in the process, including separate efforts by the two co-founders of Myspace, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson.

More recently, the preferred acquirer was a group that included Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, but it fell apart over a number of issues.

This week, it came down to Specific and also a private equity firm, Golden Gate Capital.

According to a report yesterday in The Wall Street Journal:

Founded in 1999 by Tim Vanderhook and his brothers Chris and Russell, Specific Media helps marketers buy digital ads across the Web, online video, mobile and even the TV. The Irvine, Calif., company got its start brokering ad space for websites and quickly moved into the fast-growing business of collecting and using Web browsing, demographic, geographic and other profile information about consumers to target ads. The company now ranks among the largest online advertising networks in the country, reaching 170.9 million unique U.S. visitors in May, or about 79% of the U.S. Internet users, according to comScore Inc.

A Myspace deal would give the company access to data about Myspace users to be used for ad targeting. It also would transform the firm into a media company with its own ad space to sell instead of simply an online ad technology firm that brokers ad space on behalf of other websites.

Specific Media’s executive team includes knowledge of the inner-workings at Myspace, with two executives who previously worked at Fox Audience Network, News Corp.’s online advertising unit that sold ads for Myspace.

Specific Media has raised more than $110 million in funding, closing a $100 million round of financing from private-equity firm Francisco Partners in 2007. Since then, the company has acquired a couple of digital advertising companies, including online video company Broadband Enterprises and an Amsterdam ad technology company.

Here is the official press release and the memo to Myspace staff from Jones:

From: Mike Jones
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 11:26 AM
To: Myspace All
Subject: IMPORTANT COMPANY NEWS
Importance: High

Myspacers,

Today, we are announcing that Myspace will be acquired by Specific Media, one of the world’s leading online media and advertising platforms. Over the next few days you will be hearing from the team at Specific, including their CEO, Tim Vanderhook, regarding their exciting plans for Myspace and how it fits in with the overall vision of their company.

In conjunction with the deal, we are conducting a series of restructuring initiatives, including a significant reduction in our workforce. I will assist Specific with the transition over the next two months before departing my role as Myspace CEO.

I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for the incredible experience it has been to lead this company and to work closely with all of you over the past several years. While I regret we won’t be working together at Myspace any longer, I am very proud of the work we have done here and believe we have performed with excellence — even under extremely difficult circumstances.

My time here at Myspace represents the most engaging and challenging time of my professional career. I have found our team to be comprised of the best people I have come across in our industry.

You can read the press release below. Once again, thank you for all of your hard work and dedication.

Thanks,

-M

SPECIFIC MEDIA ACQUIRES MYSPACE FROM NEWS CORPORATION

Los Angeles, Calif. — June 29, 2011 — Specific Media, a digital media company, today announced it has acquired Myspace from News Corporation. As part of the agreement, News Corporation will take a minority equity stake in Specific Media. Additional terms of the agreement are confidential and will not be disclosed.

“Myspace is a recognized leader that has pioneered the social media space. The company has transformed the ways in which audiences discover, consume and engage with content online,” said Tim Vanderhook, Specific Media CEO. “There are many synergies between our companies as we are both focused on enhancing digital media experiences by fueling connections with relevance and interest. We look forward to combining our platforms to drive the next generation of digital innovation.”

Specific Media is an innovative global interactive media company that enables advertisers to connect with consumers in meaningful, impactful and relevant ways. Founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook, Specific Media is currently headquartered in Irvine, CA and operates offices around the world.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Mike Murphy–Facebook’s first head of advertising sales, who left the social networking giant in October to take some personal time off–seems done with relaxing.

He is now taking a part-time, but significant, role at online gaming phenom Zynga to help formulate its advertising strategy.

In addition, Murphy is also close to formalizing a consulting relationship with Facebook.

Given there has been strong interest from more obvious Facebook competitors in retaining Murphy–including Google and Twitter–his move to Zynga is probably the best outcome for it.

Although the relationship has been tense at times, Zynga remains one of Facebook’s major strategic partners.

Facebook has reportedly been close to filling Murphy’s job, talking to several major online ad execs recently, but has not yet replaced him.

While it is not clear what Murphy will be doing for Facebook, where former Google exec David Fischer runs the ad business, Murphy’s role at Zynga will be quite deep and could expand over time even more.

It will include overseeing the development of Zynga’s advertising strategy, team growth and advertising products, and creating new relationships with top brands.

After being contacted by BoomTown about the new job, Murphy confirmed it and said in a statement:

“Social games are becoming a core way for marketers to engage with their customers. Zynga’s network of games have created an incredible opportunity for advertisers to create passionate relationships and emotional connections with their customers.”

Indeed, as it moves toward an inevitable IPO later this year, Zynga is upping its focus on building its advertising business, aiming at selling its fast-growing audience and the frequency and engagement they use its casual gaming products.

At Zynga, Murphy will lead and build the team, scaling its relationships with big-name partners.

The company has already dipped its toe in this arena, integrating some major brands into its games in recent campaigns.

Such online-offline customer efforts, although early, have had strong adoption, such as a recent one to plant branded blueberry crops–organic!–in its flagship FarmVille game for General Mills cereals.

There has also been a McDonald’s-branded farm in FarmVille. (McReally.)

Interestingly, in an inside-Silicon-Valley-baseball way, the move to Zynga will reunite Murphy, the former Yahoo exec who ran global advertising strategy for Facebook for five years, with Owen Van Natta.

Van Natta was once COO of Facebook and hired Murphy there. He is now EVP of Business at Zynga.

Along with Murphy, Van Natta has also brought in Dani Dudeck as communications head from Myspace, where he had a rocky tenure as CEO of the News Corp. unit.

And Katie Geminder, who was a design and user interface exec at both Facebook and Myspace, is also now at Zynga in a similar full-time role.

At the time he announced his departure from Facebook in the fall, Murphy said he had decided to step down in order to take some personal time off, noting that hundreds of nights on the road over the years had been enough.

“For the last five years of hyper-growth here, I have been focused on Facebook,” said Murphy. “Now, I felt it was time to shift that focus to my family.”

And now, apparently, to Zynga.

In fact, a lot of the real workers have been toiling away, and one new big result is that Microsoft’s adCenter is now officially powering 100 percent of paid search on the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s owned-and-operated properties and its publisher network in the U.S. and Canada.

According to the companies, that means marketers can now use one account for their search advertising campaigns across both the Microsoft Bing service and Yahoo.

Yahoo and Microsoft–which are attempting to combine their share of the search marketplace to better compete with behemoth Google via a partnership–have already completed algorithmic search integration.

In the U.S., that’s 163 million searchers on Yahoo and Microsoft, as well as 15 million searchers in Canada.

Thus, the pair are as tight as ticks–kind of like the JWoww and Snooki of search!

Time for a fist pump, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer!

“We’re very proud of this latest achievement with the search alliance which signifies a seminal step in Yahoo!’s search history,” said Chi-Chao Chang, Yahoo’s VP and GM for the global search business, in a statement. “Now that the back end work is done, Yahoo! will be able to focus on achieving the long-term goals of the alliance that will benefit consumers, advertisers and publishers alike.”

Mike Murphy, Facebook’s VP of Global Sales, is leaving the company.

Facebook said the well-known advertising exec decided to step down in order to take some personal time off, which Murphy reiterated was the case in an interview with BoomTown, noting that hundreds of nights on the road over the years have been enough.

“For the last five years of hyper-growth here, I have been focused on Facebook,” said Murphy. “Now, I felt it was time to shift that focus to my family.”

Murphy will stay on at the Silicon Valley social networking powerhouse until December, helping with the transition. His staff was told this morning in an email from him.

Both he and his boss David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations, have discounted any notion of tension between them, since Fischer came on board at Facebook in March.

Murphy said he had been planning his departure for a while, and wanted to get through the most recent quarter to finally pull the trigger.

“It is something I have been thinking about for quite some time and I discussed it with David early on,” said Murphy, who noted Facebook execs tried to come up with other options at the company for him. “I wanted [my departure] to come at a time when I knew the team was in good hands.”

Fischer said that there are no precise plans to replace Murphy yet, but that Facebook would “evaluate a lot of options.”

Interestingly, while he said he had no plans for now, Murphy is perhaps the dream candidate for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to run its ad sales business, which has been drifting of late due to a series of exec departures.

In fact, Murphy is an ex-Yahoo exec, having come to Facebook in 2006 directly from a stint as VP of Media Sales for the Western region at the Internet giant.

At Facebook, Murphy has led media strategy, advertising sales and account management. He came to the company five years ago, when it was not the social networking powerhouse it is today.

He is one of a handful of experienced online ad sales leaders in the business, and the affable exec is very well-liked in the industry.

Murphy also worked at Ziff-Davis Publishing and CMP Media.

Reflecting on all the changes that have gone on in online advertising, especially with the advent of social media, Murphy noted how quickly the landscape has changed.

“It’s been an amazing progression for marketers from how you launch a campaign to having a presence on Facebook to how you make an emotional connection with your customer,” said Murphy. “The momentum has been huge.”

That’s why Murphy said he expects to eventually return to the fray, once he has spent some quality time at home and has a “clear head.”

For a look back, here is a video interview I did with Murphy in 2007, back in the days when Owen Van Natta, also in the video, was COO at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101026/exclusive-facebooks-longtime-ad-sales-head-mike-murphy-to-depart-company/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100525/forbes-buys-trueslant/ http://allthingsd.com/20100525/forbes-buys-trueslant/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 15:42:17 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=19929 That was fast. And not that surprising: Forbes Media, which invested in digital news start-up True/Slant two years ago and brought on founder Lewis Dvorkin as a “consultant” this spring, has now bought the entire company. Dvorkin’s new title is chief product officer.

Dvorkin’s old company tried to build a platform for free-lance bloggers, paying each contributor a small per-piece payment based on traffic and other goals (here’s Walt Mossberg’s review of the site, from 2009). Forbes COO Tim Forbes, whose company owned a 20 percent stake in True/Slant, tells me the publisher will use True/Slant in some way. But what he’s really buying here is Dvorkin, who had previously worked for the magazine in the late 1990s before heading to AOL (AOL).

“I’m tremendously excited to have Lewis come aboard as chief product officer. That’s the core message,” Forbes says. He adds that he hadn’t thought he would buy True/Slant when he brought Dvorkin on to overhaul his Web site and magazine this spring, though it seems as if the idea didn’t come completely from out of the blue. “It wasn’t planned because we didn’t know how things will play out.”

All right. So how’s Forbes Media doing, anyway (disclosure: I worked for Forbes for 10 years)?

Okay-ish, Forbes ventures. He says his family company is still looking for a “very senior executive” to fill the place of Jim Berrien, Forbes magazine’s former publisher, and Jim Spanfeller, who ran the Forbes Web site. That job search, which has been running since last summer, is for a single position.

And the business itself? “Business improves,” Forbes says. “The world heals, and we’re seeing real improvements in order flow. Things are getting better.”

Here’s the release:

Lewis Dvorkin to Lead All Forbes Editorial Areas as Chief Product Officer

The Company to Acquire True/Slant

New York, New York (May 25, 2010) – Forbes announced today that it had agreed in principle to acquire True/Slant, a unique, web-based, news platform company. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Lewis Dvorkin of True/Slant will be joining Forbes to lead all editorial areas at Forbes as Chief Product Officer effective June 1.

Mr. Dvorkin started consulting with Forbes in April of this year. He had been Executive Editor of the Forbes magazine from December 1996 to April 2000. In his new capacity Mr. Dvorkin will be creating and implementing many new initiatives in the editorial product and the engagement of Forbes’s audiences. He will be charged with re-architecting the Forbes.com website; redesigning the magazine; and will assume responsibility for all editorial product across Forbes.

In making the announcement Tim Forbes, President and COO said: “These times demand new models for delivering information and engaging audiences and for the ways we run our business.

“Lewis Dvorkin, a seasoned journalist (including a previous stint with Forbes), a business entrepreneur and founder of True/Slant, and a social media pioneer is the ideal leader for Forbes editorial vision and products at this stage.

“Forbes mission and message will not change. There will be new opportunities for people inside Forbes; new opportunities for audiences to have a deeper relationship with Forbes; and new opportunities for marketers to engage with our important audiences.”

“To participate and lead Forbes into its next stage of media life is truly exciting,” said Mr. Dvorkin. ”Forbes is a trusted brand with deep and specific meaning to those interested in information that inspires and enables them to succeed and to create wealth.”  He continued, “With all of Forbes’s great experts, the wealth of Forbes data, and its real-time web features, we have a unique ability to stimulate the social media conversation. Our journalists, producers, audiences, marketers and all variety of entrepreneurs will be engaged as they never have been before with one another. Forbes is stepping ahead of everyone on this one.”

Mr. Dvorkin brings to this new position thirty-five years experience in both old and new media platforms. Besides his years at Forbes, Mr. Dvorkin was Page One Editor of The Wall Street Journal, a Senior Editor at Newsweek, and an editor at The New York Times. After leaving Forbes, Mr. Dvorkin was Senior Vice President, Programming at AOL, where he was responsible for News, Sports and Network Programming and played a significant role in the launch of TMZ.com.

Forbes Media encompasses Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, the #1 business site on the Web that reaches on average more than 18 million people monthly. The company publishes Forbes and Forbes Asia, which together reach a worldwide audience of more than 6 million readers. It also publishes ForbesLife and ForbesWoman magazines, in addition to licensee editions in China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia and Turkey.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100525/forbes-buys-trueslant/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100507/toyota-cracks-the-viral-video-code-heres-your-swagger-wagon/ http://allthingsd.com/20100507/toyota-cracks-the-viral-video-code-heres-your-swagger-wagon/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 11:00:41 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=19177 All marketers say they want viral videos. But few have any idea how to create one. Toyota has figured this one out, though, with a clip released this week promoting its Sienna Minivan. Remember when the idea of selling minivans on YouTube sounded nuts?

A few notes:

• Toyota has been doing variations on this theme all year, including a Super Bowl spot. You can see them all on the “Channel” page Toyota has set up on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. But none of them have caught on like this clip.
• If director Jody Hill’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s one of the guys behind the excellent Eastbound & Down. If you haven’t seen it, you should. (Saatchi & Saatchi gets credit for the whole thing).
• So here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure I’m at the bull’s-eye center of the target demo for this one. And it makes me feel warm about Toyota (TM), unintended acceleration or no. But I’m still not buying a minivan. Yet.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100507/toyota-cracks-the-viral-video-code-heres-your-swagger-wagon/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100405/some-web-publishers-take-a-pass-on-the-ipad-launch/ http://allthingsd.com/20100405/some-web-publishers-take-a-pass-on-the-ipad-launch/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:49:57 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=18174 Lots of publishers scrambled to prep their Web sites for the Apple iPad debut. But not all of them.

Magazine trade pub Minonline has a gallery of sites that didn’t work for iPad users this weekend, presumably because they use Adobe’s Flash, which doesn’t work on the Web browser Apple uses on its gadget. One was Condé Nast’s GQ, whose front page has an item promoting…its iPad app:

Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, a proud iPad owner, tells me that the GQ front page now looks okay from the browser of his new machine. Except if you try to play the video promoting the GQ iPad app, in which case you’ll get this message:

So that’s a little embarrassing. But not a big deal, really, since the effect of Apple (AAPL) and Adobe’s (ADBE) spat won’t be visible to most Web surfers. The iPad’s installed base, after all, is around 300,000.

In fact there, were only a few of reasons to have your site ready for the iPad on Saturday:

• The chance to earn corporate bragging rights.
• The chance to get on Apple’s good side and perhaps earn a spot on Apple’s “iPad ready” list. Though I know of at least one publisher that worked overtime to overhaul its site, at Apple’s prodding, and that still isn’t on the list.
• The chance to earn a big pile of advertising dollars from marketers who wanted to be associated with the iPad’s launch.

That last one is the most compelling, of course. But my understanding is that this was a pretty binary proposition. Either your site got some of money big brands were spending to be part of the launch or it got nothing.

And if you’re in the latter group, it doesn’t matter if your site becomes iPad-ready in two weeks or two months–you’re not getting in on that bonanza.

Meanwhile, some publishers are making a point of not converting their sites into iPad-friendly formats. But that’s a different story…

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100405/some-web-publishers-take-a-pass-on-the-ipad-launch/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091118/center-for-digital-democracys-jeff-chester-talks-about-microhoo-and-more/ http://allthingsd.com/20091118/center-for-digital-democracys-jeff-chester-talks-about-microhoo-and-more/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:55:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=20741 While in Washington, D.C., BoomTown can’t just visit the policy wonks from Internet companies (such as my Facebook how-do-you-do here), so I hightailed it several hundred feet and directly across Connecticut Avenue NW to visit with Jeff Chester.

For those who don’t know him, Chester is the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that works to promote privacy and protection online.

In other words, a professional–and much needed–thorn in the side of Facebook, Google (GOOG) and these days, MicroHoo.

That’s because, while advertisers and publishers are supportive of the massive search and online advertising deal between Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO)–which now looks close to being launched–Chester has a more whoa-nelly attitude.

“There are questions that must be answered regarding the collection and sharing of consumer data by the two companies,” said Chester right after the deal was announced. “While the rationale for the deal is to provide some much needed competition to Google (and income for Yahoo), the further consolidation of the global digital advertising system should be a concern to Internet users, privacy advocates, online marketers, and competition regulators.”

Violations of consumer privacy by such unions or by Facebook’s efforts to use data to better deliver online ads or by any of the myriad ways such companies are honing their behavioral targeting skills worries Chester.

Thus, in patented D.C.-style, he hectors government agencies, politicians and the media to look more closely at such practices.

Here is my video interview with him about all this, which is well worth listening to, especially in an era when online powerhouses like Google are learning more and more about you, and not in a good way:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091118/center-for-digital-democracys-jeff-chester-talks-about-microhoo-and-more/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20091008/twitter-talking-separately-to-microsoft-and-also-google-about-big-data-mining-deals/ http://allthingsd.com/20091008/twitter-talking-separately-to-microsoft-and-also-google-about-big-data-mining-deals/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:48:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19229

Is there gold in them thar tweets?

Maybe so, because–according to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.

Sources said a number of scenarios are being discussed to compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets from its 54 million monthly users.

These include a number of structures, including a payment of several million dollars to Twitter, along with various revenue-sharing proposals that would give Twitter a piece of the revenue made from search results.

The deals, stressed sources close to the situation, are nonexclusive, especially because Twitter’s management is keen to remain independent and also nonpartisan in the growing search battle between Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT).

This means Yahoo (YHOO)–which recently struck a search-technology and online-advertising partnership with Microsoft–could also license Twitter’s feed to make its search results even more robust, although Boomtown could not determine if the company is in talks with the San Francisco start-up.

Sources said it is also possible that no agreement would be reached with either company.

And execs at Twitter, Microsoft and Google had no comment when asked about talks.

But doing these kinds of data deals with big search players does make a lot of sense, since it would be hard for Twitter to turbocharge its own search engine without running into the big cash-laden guns at both Google and Microsoft, which recently launched its new Bing search service.

Twitter is, instead, seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.

Twitter has also been considering offering premium services to these groups and is contemplating some form of advertising offering.

But, most of all, Silicon Valley’s hot start-up is focusing now on spurring growth and engagement, along with fine-tuning its product offering.

Being deeply integrated into big search services would give Twitter a huge footprint.

Microsoft had already done a small experiment this past summer integrating Twitter data into search results, starting with tweets of bloggers like me.

How much indexing of its data Twitter will allow is unclear, but the company has certainly bought itself time to think carefully about all its options, given that it now has a lot of money in the bank.

Late last month, Twitter raised another $100 million in new funding, after already having raised $55 million.

This has given it a $1 billion valuation, despite negligible revenue.

The valuation also effectively stated that the innovative company was pretty much putting itself out of play to be acquired and is very interested in forging its own destiny.

Both Google and Microsoft execs have contemplated the idea of buying Twitter in the past, although no serious talks ever moved forward.

If they both strike data deals with Twitter, they will get the next best thing–an ability to offer all the information disseminated on Twitter in search results.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091008/twitter-talking-separately-to-microsoft-and-also-google-about-big-data-mining-deals/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20090901/myspace-facebook-move-lots-of-display-ads-not-so-much-money/ http://allthingsd.com/20090901/myspace-facebook-move-lots-of-display-ads-not-so-much-money/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:19:36 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=10601 Just how big are MySpace and Facebook? Big enough to account for nearly one in five of the display ads Web marketers buy in the U.S.

That factoid comes via Web-tracking service comScore (SCOR), which says the two sites accounted for 17.4 percent of the display ads in the U.S. market in July.

News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace, in the midst of a turnaround effort, has a slight lead over Facebook–9.2 percent of the market versus 8.2 percent. That makes sense since MySpace has always been aggressive about loading up with ads, while Facebook has been fairly reticent, much to the dismay of the “when are you going to monetize?” crowd. (Click table to enlarge.)

That’s something you knew intuitively, of course. But interesting to see it in graphic form.

Another data point you already knew, but may still find worthwhile to see in black and white: Just how small the scraps are for the rest of much of the social network ad world. By comScore’s count, the next eight-biggest social networks command a collective 1.4 percent of the market. (By the way, ever heard of MocoSpace.com before? Do you know anyone who claims to be a user?)

Remember that we’re just talking about overall impressions, not dollars. And ad impressions on social networks are famously cheap, so this stat only tells part of the story. But it’s an important part. It illustrates the potential that the services have, even if they haven’t capitalized on it (not that they haven’t tried).

Meanwhile, here’s a bonus table from comScore laying out the top advertisers on social networks. No surprise to see the likes of AT&T (T) and Sprint (S) here. But perhaps it’s noteworthy that Verizon (VZ), the strongest U.S. telco, spends the least on social media impressions. Meanwhile, social network app makers/services like Zynga are spending heavily.

(News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090901/myspace-facebook-move-lots-of-display-ads-not-so-much-money/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090629/is-bigger-better-here-come-the-supersized-web-ads/ http://allthingsd.com/20090629/is-bigger-better-here-come-the-supersized-web-ads/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:01:16 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8767 Earlier this year an online publishing trade group promised to get its members to start running new, bigger, harder-to-ignore ads by July. So here they are: The Online Publishers Association says 37 sites, including the New York Times (NYT), News Corp.’s (NWS) Wall Street Journal and Time Warner’s (TWX) CNN.com, will start selling the plus-sized ads this week.

Some sites, like Discovery’s Planet Green, have already been playing around with the new OPA ads, but if you haven’t seen them yet, you can do it with a little bit of imagination. Think of a traditional Web ad as the equivalent of a yard sign. The new ones are billboards.

Like your descriptions more literal? Here’s the technical description of the new formats. By way of comparison, the column of text you’re reading now is 350 pixels wide.

The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page.
The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency.
The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds, rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.

And um, here’s what a really big ad might look like on your desktop (click to enlarge).

If you’re knee-deep in the online advertising business, you’ll be interested in why these ad formats are being pushed by the Online Publishers Association instead of the better-known Interactive Advertising Bureau. I have heard some baroque/petty descriptions of squabbling between the two groups, whose membership overlaps but isn’t identical. But maybe we’ll come back to that some other time.

For now, let’s see if these deliver as advertised–that is, whether they get marketers to spend more money on the Web, without just plowing the money into Google (GOOG).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090629/is-bigger-better-here-come-the-supersized-web-ads/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090616/why-advertising-still-doesnt-work-sprint-tries-its-hardest-to-sell-me-an-iphone/ http://allthingsd.com/20090616/why-advertising-still-doesnt-work-sprint-tries-its-hardest-to-sell-me-an-iphone/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:17:29 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8194 There are a lot of big brains out there trying to use technology to make ads smarter and more efficient. Example: Google’s (GOOG) plan to roll out its own ad exchange this summer.

And there are lots of marketers trying their best to ignore technology and keep their ads as dumb as possible. Example: Sprint’s email to me this morning trying to convince me to sign a new contract so I can snag a free “Katana Eclipse X” from Sanyo. Here’s the pitch (click to enlarge):

Nothing against the Katana Eclipse X, by the way. I’m sure it’s a fine phone. But here’s the thing: Sprint (S) has my email address because I am a customer. I’ve been one for a decade. And so Sprint knows that:

• I own a BlackBerry 8830, and that…
• I spend $100 a month for an all-you-can eat plan (plus another $60 a month for a broadband wireless card!), and that…
• My contract expires in a couple of weeks.

So if I were Sprint, I’d be trying very hard to convince me not to ditch the company for AT&T (T) and Apple’s (AAPL) new iPhone 3G S, which looks awesome.

And again, nothing against the Katana, which is apparently available in “Nightlife Black and Hypnotic Pink.” But it’s no BlackBerry, and it’s no iPhone. And it’s not a Pre, the phone that Sprint and Palm (PALM) are positioning  to compete against those two.

But I’ve yet to get an email from Sprint telling me that the Pre exists–perhaps the company hopes that I’ll be wowed by its new woman-friendly TV ads. Or what about Research in Motion’s (RIMM) new “Tour,” which is coming out this summer and looks great? Nope. Had to learn about that one by reading a blog.

So while I worry that I’ll regret typing this, here goes: Dear Sprint: You know where I live, what I own and how much I spend. You know I’m a free agent at the end of the month. Want to keep me? Start pitching.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090616/why-advertising-still-doesnt-work-sprint-tries-its-hardest-to-sell-me-an-iphone/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090609/what-internet-ad-slump-pg-pours-money-into-the-web/ http://allthingsd.com/20090609/what-internet-ad-slump-pg-pours-money-into-the-web/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:00:49 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8028

Last week, I noted that Internet ad spending had dropped five percent in the first three months of the year, and wondered when Web ads might rebound.

And now, here’s a data point for optimists in the “soon, real soon” camp: Procter & Gamble (PG), the world’s biggest marketer, is pouring more into Web ads than ever. Last quarter, it increased its spending on Internet display ads by nearly 150 percent.

Those numbers, from ad tracking service TNS, via Ad Age, are similar to outlays from rival Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). Both companies are now spending about four percent of their ad bugets on online display–the boring banner ads on Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner online unit AOL (TWX) that everyone loves to complain about.

The numbers don’t include other Web categories like video and search. But as much as some of us (ok, me) like to chatter about video sites like YouTube and Hulu, Web video is still a tiny ad market. And  consumer packaged goods companies like P&G and J&J,  who bring you everything from toothpaste to diapers, have traditionally had less use for Google (GOOG) than other marketers.

These still aren’t huge numbers in the grand scheme of things: For P&G, that amounts to about $26.9 million in the first three months of the year; for J&J, $15.5 million.

But if this keeps up, it will be a big deal. Internet boosters have been waiting a very long time for the consumer packaged goods guys, who are responsible for a huge swath of offline advertising spending, to move onto the Web. Astonishing that it’s taken until 2009 to get them there, but you’re not going to hear many complaints right now.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090609/what-internet-ad-slump-pg-pours-money-into-the-web/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080605/social-ads-not-cutting-the-mustard/ http://allthingsd.com/20080605/social-ads-not-cutting-the-mustard/#comments Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:00:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080605/social-ads-not-cutting-the-mustard/ Here is the single favorite quote I read from EconAds in New York yesterday, from NeoAtOgilvy COO Greg Smith.

“No one wants a relationship with their mustard.”

Well, exactly. (Unless, it is Col. Mustard, of course, who is endlessly fascinating!)

This odd but spot-on observation was about why big packaged-goods advertisers–who are the really big spenders of the ad business–might be less than interested in leveraging social-media advertising and its promise of deep engagement with consumers.

No one wants to interact over mustard or mayo or ketchup or most products that pay the rent up and down Madison Avenue.

That has not stopped all sorts of social-media companies, from the big ones like Facebook to smaller apps makers, from touting a new and seemingly miraculous kind of advertising attached to their various widgets and interactive products.

To be fair, I do get it on a macro level and also can see the possibilities of the medium, as the idea of truly engaging with consumers has been the holy grail of many marketers.

The problem is, to my mind, that most of the solutions I have seen so far are much more gimmicky and lightweight than innovative and deep.

Whether it be giving out virtual products as gifts or letting users throw them at each other or getting folks to participate in some poll or silly game, none of it feels new and a whole lot of it feels faddish and eventually tiresome.

What is required–because ad agencies and marketers don’t seem to be doing it or, more precisely, doing it well–is for these social-networking companies to come up with either a dead-effective ad solution (as Google (GOOG) has done with its essentially direct-marketing nuclear weapon) or one that leads to an actual purchase or, most of all, one that truly is groundbreaking.

Now, I am not smart enough to think these things up, but it is clear someone has to, as the impact of social ads is still minimal.

Consider the stats from an article (also see the graph below) in The Wall Street Journal today: “In 2007, U.S. marketers spent $600 million advertising on social media, a sliver of the $18 billion spent on interactive advertising that year, according to Forrester Research. The number is forecast to spike to $6.9 billion by 2012.”

This small market is simply not as impressive as the super-sized valuations many of these social-media companies enjoy.

Looking back at a post I did almost a year ago, it feels as if little has changed in a significant enough way.

As I wrote, mocking the notion raised by one widgetmaker that consumers wanted to become “brand ambassadors”:

It seems, though, that the old canard about getting audiences to carry water for brands and loving it has found new life, as social networks and the widgets that live off them search for business models…

But to insist that audiences like to do this, for example, since they seem to enjoy wearing and showing off brands in their clothing and consumer lives, is a story that only a marketer could spin to big-product companies in need of a little love.”

I was debating this very notion of how social-media ads become successful with one social-media entrepreneur by email late last night–yes, this is what passes for fun in my life–who noted correctly that his hugely popular apps “might have enough cultural footprint now to have some staying power, assuming I manage to add depth to it fast enough.”

Now, it seems, we’re on the right track.

Speaking of how to get consumers to have a relationship with their mustard, here is a video of the classic Grey Poupon commercial that could teach Web 2.0 a thing or two or three about marketing:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080605/social-ads-not-cutting-the-mustard/feed/ 7