Scott Spencer, Group Product Manager, DoubleClick Ad Exchange and Jason Miller, Group Product Manager, Google Display Network discussed the display media space as well as DoubleClick Ad Exchange enhancements with AdExchanger.com today.

AdExchanger.com: What is Google announcing today?

SCOTT SPENCER: Basically, we’re going to be rolling out a few more tools to help DoubleClick Ad Exchange buyers buy quality inventory, and to check their campaigns.

Taking a quick step back; when we launched the exchange about a year ago, we engineered it with best-in-market buyer and publishers controls, as well as extensive crawl-and-verify inventory screening. Together with the real time bidder, these were the biggest upgrades we made.

As part of a long line of improvements in this area over the past year, we’re taking the wraps off a couple of additional features to give buyers even more control, quality and transparency.

The first is “Site Packs” – these are manually crafted collections of like sites based on DoubleClick Ad Planner and internal classifications, vetted for quality. These allow buyers to get a set of high quality sites for their particular campaigns, covering anonymous and branded inventory.

Second, we’re making some changes to our Real-time Bidder (in beta). The biggest change here is for Ad Exchange clients who work with DSPs. Historically, Ad Exchange buyers were hidden from publishers behind their DSP. By introducing a way to segment out each individual client’s ad calls, inventory can be sent exclusively to an Ad Exchange buyer even when that buyer uses a DSP. It increases transparency for publishers and potentially give buyers more access to the highest quality inventory, like “exclusive ad slots” – high quality inventory offered to only a few, select buyers as determined by the publisher.

Thirdly, we’re soon going to be rolling out a beta of what we call “Data Transfer” – this is a report of every transaction bought or sold by a client on the Ad Exchange. Effectively, it’s a daily log file of everything that happened. Clients can then review every branded URL that they purchased to ensure everything was what they expected.

Read More: AdExchanger

Seven Reasons Tech Start-Ups Are Setting Up Shop In New York

When Carter Cleveland, the CEO of the art-trading website Art.sy, moved his fledgling company from Palo Alto, Calif., to New York City he left behind arguably the best place to start a tech business in the U.S.

Home to giants like Facebook, Google, Apple, Intel and eBay, Silicon Valley is well known as the Mecca for high-tech companies – and entrepreneurs hoping to start one. One third of US-based venture capital investment happens in the Valley, according to PriceWaterhouse Coopers and the National Venture Capital Association. By Cleveland’s own admission, he “couldn’t go into a cafe without hearing pitches” in San Francisco.

So why go east? A recent Princeton grad, Cleveland said he left primarily because of his customers. Art.sy is an online trading post for fine art and, according to Cleveland, over half of his market is in New York City. But Cleveland added that location isn’t everything. New York’s tech scene is booming, and Cleveland wanted to join the party.

“Palo Alto is like Google,” he explained. “Big and established. New York City is like Foursquare. Not as big but tons of hype. It’s going through a growth period and very exciting.”

Read More: Blogs.WSJ.com

Appolicious Adds New Yahoo, Android Sites, Expands Search

After entering into a partnership with Yahoo in April, social-flavored app directory Appolicious is building on the alliance with a new property dedicated to Yahoo apps. And highlighting the rapid rise of Google Android’s platform, the startup has also revamped its site for Android apps and introduced its own Android app.

The new co-branded yap.appolicious.com and AndroidApps.com sites feature original text and videos, user-curated app lists, personalized recommendations, ratings and reviews. Links to original articles from the sites will be featured in relevant content across key Yahoo properties including news, sports and finance.

As with the main site, the words “in association with Yahoo” appear at the top of each page on the new Yahoo and Android app sites. The properties are linked to Appolicious.com via tabs that appear prominently on the home page alongside a third for iPad and iPhone apps. Yahoo users will be able to join the sites automatically using their Yahoo log-in information.

Appolicious has also taken steps to upgrade search. The search box is centered at the top of each page and functionality has been broadened to encompass the Yahoo and Android app sites. Besides returning relevant apps, the new results page now features related user app lists and staff articles as well as a list of apps generated by the site’s recommendation engine.

Read More: MediaPost

The following is an excerpted interview with Ramsey McGrory, Yahoo! VP and Head of Right Media Exchange.  McGrory discusses recently announced plans for Yahoo!’s display advertising exchange – Right Media Exchange.  Topics covered include:

The results of the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Pilot Program…
A new Search Engine Marketing pilot on Right Media Exchange…
Demand Media, a publisher for RTB participants on Right Media Exchange…
On Right Media Open, an event produced this week by Yahoo! for its Right Media partners…

On the results of the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Pilot Program…

RM: The specifics on DSPs are actually pretty good. We expected to see improvements in targeting. We expected to see, conversely, that would mean higher bidding, which is valuable to the publishers. And so I think we generally got what we bargained for. Which is the targeting efficiency, the control of frequency, the control of cost. The DSPs are, by and large, moving directionally on executing on that vision. That’s a good thing.

Read More: AdExchanger

The Career-Relevant Timeframe

I’m attending the Right Media Open in Chicago and, no surprise, change is in the air. Although there is a general consensus on where the industry is headed, I am seeing a healthy debate around the timeline for that change.  While discussing the importance of indirect, bid-based sales to publishers, Dave Zinnman from Yahoo pumped on the brakes, saying that if you believe exchange-based inventory will become dominant in a “career-relevant timeframe”, you need to “step back from the punch bowl.” For me, “career-relevant timeframe” is the most important phrase I’ve heard today.  No matter what your business, its important to have a realistic understanding of how fast your market is changing. Just today, VMM founder Darren Herman retweeted his 2008 post comparing the rate of innovation with the rate of adoption, and reminding entrepreneurs to build for today’s market. That’s the relevant timeframe for a venture backed startup between rounds.  Here in Chicago, the question of the day is: what is the relevant timeframe for advertising-related companies evaluating the momentous shift toward automation?  Up until now, I think media decisionmakers have been very confident in their ability to influence the rate and direction of change. At the 2009 24/7 Real Media Summit, I was struck by GroupM CEO Irwin Gotlieb’s remark that he felt it was, in some part, his responsibility to manage change in this new media landscape on behalf of various stakeholders. Consolidated media buying firms exist for the sake of exerting this type of influence and the comment made me think a lot about how and when the industry would change.

 Read More: GregHills.com

RockYou Strikes Virtual Currency Deal With Facebook

RockYou has entered into a five-year agreement to make Facebook Credits the exclusive payment option in its social games and applications on the social network. The deal, unveiled Thursday, is a boon for Facebook, as RockYou is one of the largest developers on the site, with about 34.6 million monthly active users and 2.7 million daily active users, according to Inside Network’s AppData.  The move helps ensure that Facebook’s virtual currency will gain wider distribution across the site. Until recently, Facebook Credits, which cost 10 cents each and allow users to buy virtual goods in games and apps, had only been available in a limited number of apps for testing.  But Facebook has lately been trying to build the user base for Credits through deals with significant developers, who get a 70% cut of revenue from sales suing the virtual currency. Some developers, principally game maker Zynga, have resisted offering Credits because of the 30% cut Facebook takes.  In a five-year deal announced in May, however, Zynga broadly pledged to expand the use of Credits in its games, which include wildly popular titles like “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars.” Separately, smaller developers including CrowdStar and Lolapps have also signed exclusive five-year deals to use Facebook Credits exclusively.

Read More: MediaPost

iPad As A Business Tool? Probably Not Yet

AT&T’s activation of 3.2 million iPhones in the second quarter got the attention of the tech media Thursday, highlighting the Apple device’s continued importance to the company’s wireless business.  But during its earnings conference call, AT&T also shed some light on that hot-selling Apple product, the iPad. The carrier said it activated 400,000 to 500,000 iPad 3Gs in the quarter, with usage about as expected — higher than a typical iPhone user, but less than someone using a laptop. Apple said last week that 3 million of the Apple tablets had been sold since its April 3 launch.  Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said during the company’s conference call this week that it is selling iPads and iPhone 4s as fast as it can make them. And apparently the iPad doesn’t appeal only to consumers. AT&T’s Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said Thursday the company has been surprised by the level of interest among business users.  When the iPhone was first launched, he noted that businesses, and especially chief information officers, were reluctant to adopt the phone as a business tool. “Over time that’s changed dramatically,” he said. But “right from the beginning with the iPad, we’ve had a number of business customers express interest.” Lindner also suggested some companies might even use iPads to replace laptops.

Read More: MediaPost

Talking turkey for a moment, if you don’t have a profile up on LinkedIn, you’re a dinosaur.  If you’re not on Facebook, maybe not quite so bad, but not great either.

Last year, Jump Start Social Media conducted a survey that found 75% of recruiters use LinkedIn to conduct candidate searches.  48% use Facebook and 26% turn to the Twit-monster.  My guess?  These percentages are much higher now.

That said, I can’t tell you how many times a client comes to me for help with a resume but doesn’t think about their social media branding efforts.  Most have a LinkedIn page but with nothing significant on it.  Many are not involved with Facebook or Twitter.  Having a page on LinkedIn that just lists the places you’ve worked is like joining Match.com and not posting a picture of yourself. Who the hell is going to call you?

Read More: Let’s Talk Turkey

Ever wonder why a separate class of so-called video ad networks emerged over the last decade? Or, why more display ad networks don’t serve pre-roll video ads? The reason is simple: a lack of standards for video ad serving required specialized technology to translate between a network’s ad server and the growing hodgepodge of different publisher video player implementations. This was not an insignificant undertaking, so networks choosing to focus limited technical and operational resources on it became, de facto, video ad networks. But all that’s about to change, due to the IAB’s ground-breaking standard for online pre-roll video advertising (or “VAST”, if you like acronyms).

Read More: AdAge

Ad Servers Rigged To Be DSP’s

Previously I wrote about adservers touching on Full Service options and open source options on the publisher side. One trend I would like to highlight is manipulating Adserver arrangements to put together a Demand Side Optimization Platform (DSP).  This seems to be a trend with smaller networks setting up “private networks”.

Read More: Mobtown Labs

On a Scale From 1 to 10, How Weird Are You?

This interview with Tony Hsieh, the chief executive of Zappos.com, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What are some of the most important leadership lessons you’ve learned?

A. After college, a roommate and I started a company called LinkExchange in 1996, and it grew to about 100 or so people, and then we ended up selling the company to Microsoft in 1998. From the outside, it looked like it was a great acquisition, $265 million, but most people don’t know the real reason why we ended up selling the company.

Read More: NY Times

AOL’s board has officially approved the restructuring started by CEO Tim Armstrong last month, as part of its first official board meeting as an independent and public company last week, according to an SEC filing. The company has said before it will be slashing a third of its staff of about 7,000. through voluntary buyouts and layoffs. In the filing, it said that the $200 million or so in charges related to this reorg, about $150 million would be in severance and benefit costs, and up to $50 million of charges related to facility closures and other costs.

Read More: PaidContent.org

Are spam, hackers, privacy concerns and commercialization killing social media?

Social media comes in many forms and flavors with new types coming in and some older ones slowly dying out. It has become so ubiquitous that we rarely think about it when we use it. I primarily use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and LinkedIn, in addition to my blogging, but I have become less and less enamored with social media over time. Although I was never a rabid user of Twitter, I did initially use it on a regular basis but now will frequently go days between tweets or without even looking at it.

Read More: Forbes

The Coming of Age of Local Online Advertising

The future of local online advertising is bright. As we stand on the brink of 2010, there are many reasons to be hopeful. We are seeing new innovations on search engines, the proliferation of hyper-local content developed and managed by micro bloggers and business owners directly, and a resurgence in online coupons with sites like Groupon. All of these trends are driving an increasing number of consumers to go online more often to find local products and services. More than 80 percent of consumers are searching online for local products every day. They are searching from their homes, but increasingly they are searching on mobile devices — and the new Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Nexus phone will likely offer souped-up search capabilities.

Read More: E-Commerce News

Gumbinner goes on to say that the jobs you take should be a direct reflection of what you want to accomplish with your career.  ”You need to determine what experiences you wish to have in order to achieve your personal goals…The worst decision you can make is to leave a job for title or money.”

Read More: LetsTalkTurkey

1) YOU WON’T GET IT – IF YOU DON’T ASK FOR IT! Consider who you have worked with and worked for at your current, and each past employer. Any colleague who respects you, and likes you, is usually willing to offer kind words on your behalf. Ask, and when you do, include a personal note on why their recommendation is important to you. Don’t utilize the bland, generic request that LinkedIn generates for you. Use some creativity. The best time to do this is when you have a job. If you’re looking for a job, or neglected your contacts when you had a job, this task gets tougher. Do it now.

2) Target your audience so you get a mix of types and timing. If you get 15 recommendations in a three day period, it looks contrived. If all your recommendations are employees who worked for you, it looks like a bribe. Spread out the time-frames and mix up the group. Put a plan in place as to what referrals you want and stage them. This will offer a more balanced snapshot of your references and you can ensure that you have representation from each of the companies for which you have worked.

 Read More: eXaminer.com

But here’s a data set that seems to belie that: New statistics from Nielsen that seem to show that people are spending less time on their browsers than they did a year ago.

If you believe Nielsen’s stats, Web users are heading to their PCs a little less often (sessions per person–down 11 percent)  and doing less once they get there (domains visited per person–down 20 percent). Except when it comes to clicking, which they’re happy to do (Web pages per person–up 11 percent).

Read More:  D|All Things Digital. MediaMemo by Peter Kafka

By Spencer E. Ante

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?

When Mr. McGuire famously whispered the word plastics to a young and confused child of the suburbs played by Dustin Hoffman in the classic movie The Graduate, the idea was that plastic was the future and young Benjamin should get with the program.

Read More:  BusinessWeek