Collective Media and YuMe Enhance Networks

A pair of major online ad networks have announced enhancements aimed at making Web video advertising more ubiquitous and sophisticated. First off, Collective Media—which operates the ninth-largest ad network in the U.S., according to comScore–has enhanced its Collective Video offering by allowing buyers to utilize the company’s rich collection of audience data, just as they do with display ads. Collective claims that its proprietary AMP Audience Cloud product now houses behavioral and psychographic data on 185 million Web users (90 percent of the U.S. Audience).

Read More: MediaWeek

It’s Not The Impression That Counts. It’s What You Do With It

Video advertising sales are strong. A number of sellers in the space showed impressive gains in 2009 and our business is up substantially. Rumor has it that the large home-page display units on YouTube are sold out through 2010. The industry’s growth is not just about pre-roll, though maturation of the streaming video market is a strong driver growth.  What the YouTube inventory, pre-roll and the broader growth in rich media demonstrate is a return to basic brand advertising fundamentals. Brand advertising is about telling a story, not just redirecting traffic. Advertising experiences that deliver reach while finding ways of immersing the consumer in an experience, be it passive or active, will find a healthy market. Interactivity has given us new options to tell a story, social has given us tools to make it spread and digital more broadly has forced advertisers to consider utility to the user. But the basics persist — find paths to the consumers where you can get scale, buy attention and repeat.

Read More: AdAge

How Are Your Social Media Causes “Actually” Helping Anyone?

Today, Americans are celebrating a very somber but inspiring national holiday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. As Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote in a blog post a few days ago, “People all over the United States are urged to honor Dr. King’s legacy by making this holiday a national day of service.” Stone reminded us of this wonderful quotation by King: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”  But often in my sojourn through the social Web, I find myself with no decent answer for that question as I watch hordes of well-meaning people throw their supposed social capital at hashtags and fan pages without doing anything more meaningful than that.

Read More: ReadWriteWeb

E-Tailers Selling Ad Space

Unless you’ve been living in a cave these past eight weeks, it should be no surprise that it’s been the worst shopping season on record for decades. Brick-and-mortar suffered — the International Council of Shopping Centers reports retail sales in the United States fell 2.2 percent overall in November and December (though large retailer chains and department stores claim declines ranging from 7 to 25 percent). Online retailers didn’t fare much better, with comScore reporting overall holiday shopping sales down by 3 percent.

Read More: ClickZ

Google, Apple Battle for Mobile Dominance

Apple recently acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile Web advertising firm — a space in which Google is the dominant player. Google, meanwhile, is selling its new smartphone, the Nexus One, on its Web site. This competes with Apple’s e-commerce dominance. Its online store ranked fifth in sales volume according to Internet Retailer’s 2009 Top 500 Guide.

Read More: DMNews

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong to Address Layoffs at 11:30

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong will host a global video conference today at 11:30 announcing the company is done with his first (and hopefully last) layoffs. He’s got a lot of cheerleading to do. The cuts, which reduced headcount from ~7,500 to ~5,000, took almost two months to complete. Voluntary buyouts were announced in November and involuntary layoffs began Monday and dragged through yesterday. We expect Tim to focus the call on AOL’s emerging media business. Maybe he’ll mention how well consumers reacted to the company’s re-branding.

Read More: Silicon Alley Insider

Does Online Advertising Really Work?

I look at hundreds, if not thousands, of online ads each day, but the chance that any one of them will seduce me into making a purchase — let alone clicking on an ad — is pretty to close to zero. And I have to think I’m not alone in this. But new research suggests that the mere presence of online ads has an influence on the products and services we buy, and that businesses that advertise online are probably getting a better bang for their advertising buck on the Web than in other media, like television, radio or print.

Read More: Sphere

Yahoo! VP Bill Wise Discusses Future For Right Media Exchange

AdExchanger.com: When will Right Media have DSP capabilities?

Right Media already has DSP capabilities by leveraging exchange inventory and linking and numerous decisioning, optimization, and analytics technology within the company, and has further invested in servicing. We will continue to invest in advancing these capabilities and growing our services team as we scale. This will help head marketers, ad agencies, and enabling leading DSP players, which we believe is an important part of the ever-changing marketplace.

Read More: AdExchanger