30 posts and columns on online advertising
Voices
Web Display Ads Often Not Visible
The old adage in advertising — that half the money is wasted but no one knows which half — turns out to be as true for the digital world as it ever was for traditional media.Voices
When “Likes” Can Shed Light
Facebook users’ patterns of “Likes” on the social-networking site can unintentionally expose political and religious views, drug use, divorce and sexual orientation, researchers said Monday.News Byte
Online Ad Platform AppNexus Raises $75 Million to Grow
AppNexus, the ad tech startup that counts Microsoft among its clients, announced today it had raised $75 million in a Series D round led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation by Venrock and Tribeca Venture Partners. CEO Brian O’Kelley said the money will go into adding more people and expanding and improving the platform. With this round, the New York City company has raised $140.5 million.Voices
India Launches Antitrust Probe of Google
India has launched an antitrust probe of Google Inc.’s online advertising business to investigate potential anti-competitive practices, according to government officials familiar with the matter.Voices
Pulling Out Weeds Online
Seeking to milk the huge growth in online advertising, a rush of technology firms have emerged in recent years pitching an array of techniques for buying, targeting and measuring digital ads. But the raft of newcomers has created a complex landscape that has left marketers confused.Voices
Security Breach At ReachLocal, But Avoids Pulling A Blippy
A security breach this month at ReachLocal Inc. is bad timing for the online advertising agency. The venture-backed company is in IPO registration, so it was required to disclose in an amended S-1 filing Tuesday that a recent breach disrupted its customers’ advertising campaigns and resulted in its Australia platform going offline for 36 hours.Voices
Ad Industry Works on Ads About Ads
Madison Avenue has joined forces with Internet companies in a last-ditch attempt to stop privacy regulations over the $29 billion online-ad industry. The industry is finalizing an ad campaign to educate consumers about how digital advertising works, creating an icon that would appear on Web pages or ads alerting consumers if their activity is being tracked and deploying new technologies to police the Web for illegal activities.Voices
FTC to Hold Privacy Roundtables
The Federal Trade Commission is planning three public discussions, starting in December, devoted to technology and consumer privacy. According to the FTC, the roundtables will address topics such as social networking, cloud computing, online advertising and mobile marketing, the goal being “to determine how best to protect consumer privacy while supporting beneficial uses of the information and technological innovation.”A Mixed Bag From the New York Times: Q2 Costs Got Better, Ads Got Worse, and Web Dollars Disappeared
We saw a mini-rally in newspaper shares yesterday, based on the notion that the worst may be over for the industry. But the New York Times’s Q2 results are pretty inconclusive: The publisher was able to take a big chunk out of costs, but revenue kept plunging, and Web ads dropped by more than 15 percent. The paper did say, though, that things got less bad as the quarter progressed, and that they’ll get slightly less bad next quarter, too.Voices