GLAM MEDIA TO ACQUIRE NING, THE LEADING PLATFORM FOR CREATING SOCIAL NETWORKS AND OWNED BRAND FAN WEBSITES
Silicon Valley Pioneer Marc Andreessen to Join Glam Media’s Board of Directors
Acquisition Will Create One of the Largest Social Media Content Companies with over 240 Million Users & 100,000 Publishers —Creating the First Paid, Owned & Earned Media Platforms for Brands
Silicon Valley, CA— Sept 20, 2011—Glam Media, Inc. (www.GlamMedia.com), the number one vertical social content platform company with the largest online global reach for women, today announced that it is acquiring Ning (www.ning.com), the leading online platform for building social websites, including more than 100,000 custom branded fan sites.
“Ning is the clear leader for creating custom social websites and communities. Acquiring Ning adds a natural extension to our social media platform, new distribution channels and a talented Silicon Valley team, all of which support our aim to connect brands with engaged, passionate audiences,” said Samir Arora, Chairman and CEO of Glam Media. “With the addition of Ning, Glam Media will truly become the first next generation media company in the post-social world.”
Since launching the first social blog community in 2005, Glam Media has experienced tremendous success, growing from just seven publishers and 12 authors to more than 2,500 publishers and 4,000 authors globally today. The company has trusted relationships with more than 1,000 leading brand advertisers and is a Top 10 web property with more than 85 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S. and more than 200 million globally.
Read More: Glam Media
Havas Digital, MediaMind Partner On Analytics
Pooling their resources, Havas Digital on Tuesday announced a partnership with online ad firm MediaMind — formerly Eyeblaster.
Per the deal, MediaMind will help power Artemis, Havas Digital’s own analytics platform. Marketers can expect the two partners to pitch them on the combination of MediaMind’s multichannel ad-serving technology with the attribution and analytics capabilities of Artemis.
Pitched one way, Katrin Ribant, executive vice president of data platforms for Havas Digital, says: “The integration of MediaMind with our Artemis analytics platform allows marketers to have increased depth of insights into digital marketing efficiency.”
Artemis is core to Havas Digital’s Adnetik platform, which is widely believed to be the first major demand-side display advertising platform to come out of an agency holding company.
Digital media and ad technology provider DG recently acquired MediaMind for $414 million in cash. Gal Trifon, former MediaMind CEO, stayed on as chief digital officer at DG.
Read More: MediaPost
Rocket Fuel Goes Real-Time, Integrates Ad Targeting Data
Ads aren’t as effective as they could be. It takes data — lots of it — and many different kinds. Integrating survey data to improve real-time ad targeting, Rocket Fuel on Monday will unveil an update to Brand Booster that integrates survey results in any digital channel across all campaigns. The tool — built on the company’s Real-Time Targeting Platform — optimizes multichannel campaigns in real-time, tying metrics from display, video, mobile, and social advertising campaigns.
Brand Booster 2.0 aims to improve media buys based on awareness, preference and purchase intent, rather than proxy metrics like clicks that do not represent actual consumers going into a store to buy a product. The platform relies on brand data to make media-buying decisions in real-time.
George John, CEO of Rocket Fuel, said marketers typically don’t have access to brand survey results until after campaigns run or through manual reports that don’t easily integrate into media-planning tools as quickly as they should. It requires a quick response to make a difference.
The evolution of real-time ad serving and predictions based on the method creates new challenges for marketers. For Rocket Fuel clients, learning how to spend money wisely on campaigns means optimizing campaigns in real-time through answers to survey questions. The platform adjusts ads that serve up as questions are answered. A consumer products goods (CPG) company launching a new shampoo might need to know if consumers in Los Angeles would prefer a rose scent rather than carnation.
Read More: MediaPost
Standing Up for Audience Targeting
Last week, John Mracek, the CEO of NetSeer, commented that audience targeting is overrated and touted the benefits of contextual targeting. While I can appreciate that early-generation audience targeting lacked scale and performance causing industry-wide frustration, that was three years ago. At that point, audience targeting amounted to contextual-consumption data and the data markets of today were non-existent.
Fast forward to today. Much has changed although many solutions are still incomplete. Successful audience targeting requires an entirely new solution, as well as a fundamental shift in the way we think about audience and data. Opposed to contextual platforms, which have existed for nearly twelve years, true audience targeting is still in its infancy. Right now successful execution requires access to diverse sets of data that haven’t been widely available until recently, so it’s easy to understand why most people still believe that scalable audience targeting beyond context is unachievable.
However, to say that data is the new black is to say that having the opportunity to make informed decisions is in style and will come to pass. Utilizing data effectively helps contribute to better business decisions overall. That’s unlikely to change as time goes by and data becomes more integral to our businesses. While the term “data” is used quite loosely, user data can be used for much more than just targeting.
Read More: DigiDay
CLiP On: DBG Debuts Ad Platform
Getting into the distribution game, Digital Broadcasting Group just opened up its platform to allow third-party publishers to syndicate and monetize its online video.
The DBG Content Library Platform — or CLiP for short — debuted on Thursday with several launch partners, including Technorati and entertainment destination Ology.
Publisher partners will have access to roughly 20,000 original and licensed videos, including “The Confession,” starring Kiefer Sutherland, and “ControlTV,” produced by Seth Green.
“With more than 80% of Web users viewing video regularly, the cost to develop and program premium content on a regular basis is often the biggest deterrent for publishers of every size,” said DBG Chief Product Officer Matthew Corbin. “CLiP answers [these] increased demands.”
Read more: MediaPost
SocialVibe Adapts Brand Ad Model For Politicians
Politicians running ads through SocialVibe’s network will have an opportunity to reach young voters through casual game maker Zynga, as well as on Pandora, Huffington Post, and eight of the top 10 Facebook apps, the ad network confirmed Thursday.
SocialVibe launched a political advertising platform aimed at supporting political campaigns and committees. Today, advertisers use the ads to offer consumers credits for online games or access to premium content in exchange for interacting with the content. Politicians applying the same model can present persuasive messaging in campaigns encouraging voters to take action, as well as share the experience with friends.
SocialVibe is a Zynga exclusive ad partner.
Political ads running across a network serving up ads in popular video games such as FarmVille, as well as an Internet radio station, will surely create buzz. Social networks and video games change the way people interact with brands, so it seems likely the positive effect would roll out to politicians reaching out with a message. Performics, a performance marketing agency owned by Publicis Groupe, released a report Thursday detaining findings from “S-Net, The Impact of Social Media,” a social network study from ROI Research.
Read More: MediaPost
