Josh-Shatkin Margolis, Magnetic founder and former CEO, seems to have a successful habit of mixing things up. On Thursday, the company, which launched in 2008, will announce James Green’s appointment as head. Green is an ad industry veteran with experience in the movie industry. He worked at various media/tech companies in CEO posts, including Giant Real,  PVI and  24/7 Real Media. In the late 1990s, he worked as a vice president, marketing at Pixar Animation Studios, reporting to Steve Jobs.

After starting four companies, Green is ready to take on the CEO spot at Magnetic. The company supports display ad retargeting with search data. He will focus on driving overall company expansion and build out Magnetic’s search retargeting infrastructure.

During his year-long sailing excursion, from October 2010 until now, Green had time to think. Two trends in the ad industry stood out during the journey: data and technology. “I’ve been hired before to turn around companies having difficulties, and I didn’t want to do that this time,” he said. “I wanted to join a team in a company poised for growth. Magnetic is driven by technology and data.”

Read More:  MediaPost

AdSafe Media Launches New Real Time URL Analyzer Tool

Network Monitor+ Allows Brands To Instantly Check The Brand Safety of Specific URLs
More Than Half of the Top 50 Global Ad Networks Now Use AdSafe Media’s Network Monitor Solution

NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Today, AdSafe announced the growth of its business with Networks and Publishers, as well as the release of a new feature to expand its Network Monitor product offerings. 

With the new Network Monitor+ feature, clients can manually input a series of URLs and instantly receive the brand safety ratings for those specific web pages.

AdSafe Media now monitors and protects over 1.5 billion impressions every day across their network and exchange partners. The company ranks individual web pages on a 1-1,000 numerical scale, — the most granular system industry-wide — measuring how brand-safe a page is across multiple content categories.  AdSafe Media’s proprietary and massively scaled system examines each page on a wide spectrum of data points to determine a page’s brand safety rating. With AdSafe Media’s continued growth and close partnerships across ad networks and publishers, the company now has visibility across 98% of the commercial web.

“Publishers and ad networks find our ratings invaluable. They proactively use these ratings to improve their Media Risk Index (MRI) — the overall content quality of their network,” said Scott Knoll, CEO, AdSafe Media. “On average, networks and publishers using the AdSafe Network Monitor record a 32% lift vs. the industry benchmarked MRIs. And now, with Network Monitor+, publishers and advertisers can instantly check on the brand safety of specific pages.”

Read More: PR Newswire

Leading Real-Time Ad Targeting Company Names Peter Bardwick as CFO and Hits $50M Run Rate Milestone

REDWOOD SHORES, CA, Sep 30, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Rocket Fuel Inc., the leading real-time ad targeting company, today announced that it has named media and technology industry veteran Peter Bardwick as CFO. The company also announced that Dinny Devitre, former CFO of Altria and current member of the Board of Directors of Altria, SABMiller, and Western Union, has become a strategic investor in the company. For the first half of 2011, Rocket Fuel tripled six-month revenues, quadrupled gross profit compared to a year earlier, launched a UK operation, and is on a $50M annual run rate based on August revenue.

News Facts:

• Rocket Fuel is announcing these key additions at a time of rapid growth and expansion. The company grew its headcount by 2.5 times in the last six months, adding nearly 40 employees. According to LinkedIn, Rocket Fuel is the fastest-growing digital advertising
  technology company in the U.S. — and the company continues to sign new leading brands and agencies each month.
• Bardwick is an IPO-ready CFO with a proven track record directing the financial strategies of high-growth technology and media companies. He was instrumental in taking CBS Marketwatch public and has supported over $10B in transactions. He joins Rocket Fuel from online brokerage Zecco, where he served as CFO. A former investment banker, he also has a wealth of hands-on operational experience, having served as CEO, CFO, COO and board member of a number of leading Internet, media, and data companies.

Read More: Marketwire

DoubleVerify Report Shows That Media Verification Improves Compliance for Online Advertising Industry

Trust Index Recognizes Best Performing Ad Companies — Ad Networks Are Proving to Be Brand Safe, and Advertisers Are Finding Value in Top Platforms

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – Sep 30, 2011) – DoubleVerify, the pioneer and worldwide leader in online media verification and compliance, today published its 1H 2011 Trust Index. The report found a significant reduction of non-compliance among the industry’s best-performing ad networks and platforms. The findings illustrate that advertisers and networks are continuing to standardize their brand protection and compliance practices, ensuring their online media spend brings the highest return on investment. The worst-performing online advertising companies continued to demonstrate inconsistency in their ability to comply with advertisers’ preferences. According to the report, the most compliant ad networks from January to June 2011 were (alphabetically): AudienceScience, Casale Media, Dedicated Media, Epic Marketplace, interclick, Microsoft Media Network, Specific Media, Spectrum, a Centro product, Undertone, and Yahoo! Network Plus. Advertising platforms that were most compliant include (alphabetically): DataXu, Invite Media, The MIG’s Zeus Advertising Platform.

As advertisers have increasingly demanded verification to be included with third-party buys from ad networks, exchanges, DSPs and agency trading desks, the Trust Index has provided advertisers with in-depth data about partner compliance and brand safety trends in online advertising. Other key findings from the report showed:

• In the first half of 2011, the non-compliance rates for ad networks were at their lowest ever, since 18 months ago. The best-performing networks had an average non-compliance rate of 0.6 percent, but the bottom tier’s rate was 26 percent (compared to 2 percent and 35 percent respectively in 2H 2010).
• The most compliant ad platforms (DSPs and agency trading desks) maintained an average non-compliance incident rate of 4 percent, and the lower tier platforms decreased their average non-compliance rate to 20 percent — showing that ad exchanges can provide great value when verification is applied.

Read More: Marketwire

Ad Execs: More Than Half Our Display Ads Now Bought Via Nets, DSPs, Exchanges

More than half of all online display advertising is now bought via an ad network, exchange or DSP (demand-side platform), according to findings of an Econsultancy survey of advertisers, agencies, publishers and their reps released Friday by Rubicon Project.

By platform, the study found that ad networks still account for the majority of online display advertising buys, representing 55% of the inventory, according to the respondents, followed by DSPs (32%) and exchanges (30%). Those numbers add up to more than 100, because the purchasing platforms are not mutually exclusive and are frequently used together.

The study found that the role of DSPs is much greater in North America than in Europe. Half of all online display ad buys placed by American companies are now made through a DSP vs. only 27% in Europe.

The study also found that almost half (46%) of online display advertising media plans now include ad networks, up from 32% in 2009.

Read More: MediaPost

Americans Gear Up For Back-to-School at Education Information and Book Sites

Seasonal Allergies and Weather Drive Traffic to Pharmacy and Weather Sites

RESTON, Va., Sept. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. web activity at the top online properties for August 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Millions of Americans prepared for the 2011-2012 school year by browsing Education Information and Career Training sites, and making purchases on Book sites. Between summer travel, seasonal weather and Hurricane Irene, visitors had plenty of reason to browse Weather sites, while information on allergies and flu shots drove traffic to Pharmacy sites.

“Online activity was largely driven by back-to-school in August as Americans made final preparations on all fronts for the upcoming academic year,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. “Weather was also top of mind for many Americans, especially on the east coast with the onset of Hurricane Irene, and Pharmacy sites saw pickup in time with allergy and flu shot season.”

Web Receives A’s in Back-to-School Planning

Education Information represented the fastest growing category in August, growing 19 percent to 73.7 million visitors in July. Pearson Education ranked first in the category with 15.6 million visitors (up 35 percent), followed by HotChalk with 13.6 million (up 31 percent), ClassesUSA.com with 6.6 million (up 8 percent), About.com Education with 6.4 million (up 29 percent) and CoolMath.com Inc with 3.7 million visitors. College students checked out the reviews on their professors for the semester at RateMyProfessors.com, which jumped 45 percent to 3.2 million visitors, while Blackboard.com attracted 3 million visitors (up 64 percent). 

Read More: PR Newswire

AdSafe Media Debuts New Engagement Quality Ratings

New Data Solutions Inform Advertisers of The Probability of Their Ad Being Viewed

NEW YORK, Sept. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — AdSafe Media, the industry leader in online brand protection, ad verification and campaign performance data, announced today the debut of the AdSafe Engagement Quality Ratings. These new ratings work within AdSafe’s existing protection and verification products but are also designed to enhance the RTB process, pre-bid.  They inform advertisers and DSPs in real-time of the probability of their ad being in view to a user, as well as the level of user engagement and the amount of time in view. 

The ability to verify whether a user engages with an ad directly increases the accuracy of determining overall campaign effectiveness. With the addition of Engagement Quality Ratings to its existing capabilities, AdSafe provides the most comprehensive suite of protection, verification and performance data solutions available, while now further enabling advertisers to easily direct their ads to more relevant online environments, driving greater ROI.

Information around whether ads are viewed is quickly becoming even more valuable than metrics on the specifics of ad location.  Ads served in what are considered premium, above the fold placements, may not necessarily be viewed by a user depending on device type or browser settings. Alternatively, ads considered below the fold may in fact be viewed in a more contextually relevant environment – given a specific page’s content and layout and how far down a page a user scrolls.  With this engagement model in mind, AdSafe’s new ratings metrics take into consideration web browsers, monitor sizes, screen resolutions, ad size, the placement on the page the ad is being served to, the amount of time a user spends on a page and the likelihood a user will scroll until the ad is view.

Read More: PR Newswire

Datran Media And ContextWeb Assume Merger
 
Datran Media and ContextWeb are in the midst of a quiet merger, according to several sources. Datran Chairman and CEO Patrick Vogt will lead the combined companies. Technology from the combined companies will give advertisers the ability to more accurately target ads, MediaPost learned late Wednesday. A Datran company spokesperson declined to confirm.

ContextWeb’s business model varies from Rubicon and Pubmatic. The company buys and offers ad inventory, guaranteeing CPMs to publishers by not promising to serve impressions unless the chances of conversion remain high.

One of Datran’s products, Aperture, provides real-time audience measurement and audience targeting. Combining audience targeting with contextual content would allow advertisers to target contextual content. Advertisers would have an option to reach consumers who are reading about sports and generating an income of more than $100,000 with children at home.

ContextWeb first reviews the inventory, and if there’s a contextual buyer for the segment, they buy it and guarantee a CPM to the publisher. The company can pay higher CPMs because they guarantee 100% sell through, according to one source that calls it “the holy grail.” They hold the right to take the ad unit at a certain CPM, but also have the right to kick it back to a publisher.

Read More: MediaPost

Brand Safety is a top priority for our brand advertisers and their agencies, and at Rocket Fuel we treat it as a matter of the utmost importance.  So we’re proud to announce the details on how our Real-Time Brand Safety Shield provides the highest levels of brand assurance to our clients.

At Rocket Fuel we take a proactive approach, with three layers of defense that block bad sites and pages before we ever serve a single ad on them. By building additional levels of safety and security right into our platform and processes, we ensure our technology delivers both ROI and peace of mind for brands.  We’ll have even more news in the coming weeks about the upcoming ad verification guidelines that we are helping to drive as part of a working group established to create brand safety verification guidelines. The working group is a joint effort between the IAB and the MRC (Media Rating Council).

Read More: Rocket Fuel

Casale Media Offers Advertisers Real-Time Bidding on Premium Online Media Inventory

casaleX Offers Premium Exchange for Publishers to Control and Choose Ad Campaigns; Grants Select DSPs and Agency Trading Desks Exclusive Access to Brand-Safe Inventory

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – Aug 10, 2011) – Casale Media Inc., a leading premium online media company, today announced casaleX, an offering that gives select demand side platforms (DSPs) and agency trading desks exclusive access to premium inventory from leading online publishers. casaleX, the industry’s first true premium exchange with real-time bidding (RTB), expands quality advertiser demand available to its publisher partners by integrating real-time bids from select agency trading desks and demand side platforms (DSPs) while still leaving its publishers with maximum control over ad campaigns.

Casale Media is the first premium online media technology company to transform the ad exchange model into a high quality, brand-safe media marketplace. Demand partners are carefully vetted and hand-selected before integration with casaleX to ensure advertisers most appropriate for its publishers. In turn, marketers access the highest quality above-the-fold inventory from Casale Media’s premium publisher roster. Casale Media’s publishing customers utilize RTB for a head-to-head comparison between agency trading desks, DSPs and Casale Media-sourced advertisers to see who can best monetize inventory. Publishers have unprecedented control of campaigns, choosing which advertisers and campaigns can bid for inventory.

Read More: marketwire

Revenue Increases 67% Year-Over-Year

EBITDA Grows 158% on Higher Gross Margins and Operating Income

NEW YORK, May 10, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — interclick, inc. (Nasdaq:ICLK) announced today its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2011.

Q1 financial highlights include the following:

Results exceeded the Company’s most recent guidance.
Revenue was $23.8 million, an increase of 67% year-over-year.
Growth was driven by an increase in the number of clients seeking interclick’s solution and higher average revenue per advertising campaign.
Gross profit margin was 46.7%, versus 44.9% in Q1 2010, due to effective supply chain management and favorable market conditions.
EBITDA was $1.8 million, up 158% year-over-year.
EBITDA margin was 7.5%, versus 4.8% in Q1 2010.
Operating income was $0.4 million, versus a loss of ($0.3 million) in Q1 2010.

“We’re very encouraged by what we were able to accomplish in Q1,” said Michael Katz, CEO of interclick, “From a sales, operating, and tech perspective, we are confident in our ability to deliver on the promise of an exceptional 2011.”

The Company capitalized approximately $0.5 million of Technology Support costs attributable to the development of internal-use software in Q1 2011, as compared to $0 in the prior year period. Operating expenses included $0.7 million in legal litigation costs in Q1 2011. Such legal costs were not incurred in the year-ago period and are not part of the Company’s normal cost structure.

Read More: GlobeNewswire

AudienceScience Partners with DoubleVerify to Ensure Brand-Safe, Privacy Compliant Ads

New York (May 11, 2011) – DoubleVerify, the pioneer and worldwide leader in online media verification and compliance, and AudienceScience, the largest audience aggregator in the world and early innovator of online advertising technology, today announced a partnership to offer verified and compliant online ads to AudienceScience advertisers. AudienceScience’s Audience Delivery System, a comprehensive global media solution, comprises the AudienceScience Gateway, the premier audience targeting and data management platform, delivering efficient and effective online advertising, and AudienceScience Connect, the industry’s first media transaction platform enabling streamlined and transparent premium media buying and selling, including state-of-the-industry Real Time Bidding support, will integrate with DoubleVerify’s BrandAssure solution for online media verification. DoubleVerify ad tags used for verification seamlessly integrates the company’s Advertising Option Icon for self-regulation, which has been approved by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA).

Looking to further its vigilant efforts to ensure trust, compliance and accountability to the industry, and provide superior performance for clients, AudienceScience conducted a rigorous vetting process to select DoubleVerify as a preferred partner. DoubleVerify was chosen for its solution that seamlessly integrates media verification and Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) compliance with the DAA’s Self-Regulatory Program. This is in keeping with AudienceScience’s Quality Data Guarantee and its insistence on the strictest privacy compliance measures in the industry. DoubleVerify, with the 2-in-1 solution, was a clear choice for AudienceScience and its clients.

Read More: DoubleVerify

Today, ad verification company AdSafe Media announced the hiring of Scott Knoll as CEO replacing founder Helene Monat. Previously, Knoll was founder and president of Datran Media’s Aperture as well as CEO of BlackFoot, a digital advertising solutions company, and “spent 6 years at DoubleClick, directing the launch and development of the DoubleClick ad network.” Read the release.

Knoll discussed his new chief executive role and its implications.

AdExchanger.com: Why is the CEO role at AdSafe Media right for you at this point in your career?

SK: I really enjoyed founding, building and scaling Aperture from scratch, but ultimately I was interested in finding an opportunity with a well-financed independent startup.  I had a lot of exposure to various companies in the online advertising space and I was particularly impressed with AdSafe’s strong reputation, innovative thinking and superior technology.

When I got my first glimpse at AdSafe’s machine-learning platform and data science models that can differentiate the subtle nuances in highly subjective content across billions of impressions, it struck me that I was staring at the future.  It’s clear that someday advertisers will leverage AdSafe’s technology to make complex targeting, purchasing and attribution decisions based on their own custom-fit scores.

Read More: AdExchanger

Jumptap: Older, Wealthier Mobile Users More Ad Receptive

New data from mobile ad network Jumptap shows that older, more affluent consumers are more apt to interact with ads than younger mobile users who are less well-off. Those 40 and over were almost five times more likely to engage with an ad than people below that age, and those making more than $50,000 were twice as likely to do so than people making less.

The findings were drawn from an analysis of the 10 billion ad requests made to the Jumptap network by its audience of 83 million unique users in April. The research also found that 58% of mobile Internet users are getting content through their browser, compared to 42% via ad-supported apps.

Smartphone owners skew older and wealthier than feature phone users, and are typically heavier mobile data users. That may explain, in part, why older, more affluent users had higher ad interaction rates on Jumptap’s network.

Read More: MediaPost

There appears to be good momentum in digital advertising for ad verification solutions, but where does it all end up?   Can a “point solution” evolve into a sustainable, long-term business within the ad technology stack?

I’d argue more “points” will need to be added – especially if these companies want to “exit.” But first, let us review…

A Brief History

When pure-play ad verification companies arrived on the scene nearly two years ago, ad networks and publishers rejoiced.

[Record scratch sound here!]

Hardly.  Agencies have been the happy ones.

As you may know, ideally with third-party ad verification solutions, agencies get to verify what they’re buying from ad networks and publishers as it’s stated on their insertion order (I.O.) agreements. For example, ad verification might confirm that a particular geographic requirement has been met (“target U.S. users only”) or that the context of the content in which an ad runs is deemed in or out of context.

Another benefit for agencies is that it allows them to say to their marketer client that they are insuring brand safety for the marketer’s campaign. With marketer’s hesitant to put their ad spend into digital, ad verification helps overcome the traditional mindset.

To date, it appears challenges still remain around ad verification being reactive rather than proactive. Rather than preventing an ad from being served before it hits a page, the technology may find out after the ad is served that it was an inappropriate placement. No doubt agencies want to prevent the phone call from the marketer: “I just saw my cell phone ad in a Gawker story about Brett Favre’s latest misstep.”

Read More: AdExchanger

AdMeld On Data

Close the blinds, publishers, as the AV club nerd sets up the film projector (wheezing the whole time): today’s educational film comes from revenue optimizer AdMeld and is called, “Data Is the New Black.” There’s a lot of confused and fearful chatter in the hallways these days about data, but do you actually know the many things that comprise user data? Or what collectors do once they get data? The video talks about real dilemmas such as data leakage, but also offers smart ways to make data selling work for you, including conversing with data buyers to learn more about your audience – all to a hip soundtrack made on space-age synthesizers. We hope everyone is mature enough to watch this video because, no, you don’t need a permission slip from your parents to view it on YouTube.

Read More: AdExchanger

Do You Have What — and Whom — It Takes to Compete in a Digital World?

We live in a world that’s increasingly connected, digital and mobile, and influenced by social networks. The shopping and media-consumption patterns of consumers are evolving at a dizzying clip. Entire industries such as travel and music have been largely reshaped almost overnight. Multibillion-dollar, digitally enabled companies evolve in a few short years.

All of this has the management teams of all sorts of companies asking a key question: “Are we prepared to operate in an increasingly technology-driven world?”

Companies that have the right leaders in place will be able to answer with a confident “Yes.” Spencer Stuart recently completed a global and multisector study to provide insights into this very issue. Through 50 interviews with top-level executives in nine industry sectors across North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region, we honed in on a series of best practices for companies building their organization’s digital capabilities. Here are the top four pillars for solving the digital-leadership challenge:

Senior-level buy-in. Investments in digital require the appropriate buy-in and support of the board, CEO and top leadership because of the breadth of digital’s impact on the company. Digital is about more than simply a new approach to marketing campaigns; success ultimately will be measured by the seamless integration of technologies across advertising, direct response marketing, sales, supply chain, public relations, employee communications, and supplier and vendor relationships.

Read More: AdAge

Imagine you are a major (or minor) brand advertiser. You wake up in the morning, brew some coffee and, still in your PJ’s, break out your laptop to see what is happening in the digital world.

You are a happy person this morning. It’s 7am, the sun is out, no phone calls or meetings for another few hours, the coffee is starting to kick in and you know that out there in the internet world your ads are reaching millions of people while you sleep, while you’re in the shower and, in a few hours, while you’re in your car on your way to work.

You sliced and diced your target audience with the newest tools from behavioral, semantic or contextual online advertising networks or platforms, you produced the most engaging online ad creative with the most expensive digital advertising agency that has racked up more AAAA, ANA, IAB, ARF awards than the competition, you went on a digital media buying spree that ensures that your slick interactive ads will be seen by tens of millions of people in the right demographic across hundreds of relevant online publications.

And then, if you’re a marketer at ExxonMobil or Sprint, you see your motor oil and cell phone ads wrapped around an article about a kid who was killed in a motorcycle accident, like two giant book ends that scream out, “look at me, I have no tact.”

Read More: ScribeMedia.com

Fantasy Football Opinions and Online Marketing

This post is going to be crazy because I am going to deep dive on fantasy football draft strategy and, in tribute to my loyal fan base, which is no doubt sick of this new football thread, include a reference or two to online marketing. It is going to be sick!

Let’s get started.  Most people doing fantasy drafts simply make a list of who they think the best players in the league are and bang, bang, bang, draft.

Let’s call that “Old school media planning strategy”.  Or let’s call it “People who evaluate campaigns based on CTR“. Or “people who don’t love math”.  Or “people who suck!”  Or “me”, most years.

Anyway, here is what I think you are supposed to do.  First, recognize that there is data and there are algorithms.  Algorithms take data and tell you what you should do, hopefully.  If you feel as though what the algorithm is telling you to do is wrong, the problem could be that the algorithm is bad or the problem could be that the data is bad.  Figuring this out is absolutely critical.

There are three algorithms in fantasy football draft strategy, one of which is simple and perfect, one being the most interesting algorithmic challenge, and one being shear poker madness.  Here is the model I use when I think about optimizing the fantasy football draft process:

Read More: Cogmap.com

Microsoft and AOL are both rumored to be looking at AppNexus, a New York City real-time bid (RTB) advertising startup, for a possible acquisition.

RTB — in which advertisers pay for ad impressions to particular consumers based on tracking data at the moment a new web page is loaded — is growing incredibly quickly right now.

As RTB appears set to take over a large portion of the display market over the next few years, major advertising players are building, acquiring, or partnering their way into the market. Most recently, Google paid a reported $70 million for Invite Media, a demand-side platform that helps advertisers trade in the RTB market.

AppNexus is run by a couple guys who sold Right Media to Yahoo, Brian O’Kelley and Mike Nolet, as well as ex-Googler Michael Rubenstein. Souces from the company dimiss all this gossip as just that – “rumors.”

Read More: BusinessInsider

Is Ad Blocking the Right Approach?

A couple of months ago I read an article by Tom Hespos called “Is our ad delivery infrastructure overtaxed?“ Besides doing a good job highlighting the growing issue of complexity and latency issues in our ad delivery infrastructure, it reminded me of a debate that we’ve had here at Adometry: is ad blocking the right approach?

A number of companies have sprung up to block ads that would appear next to objectionable content. From a brand protection point of view, we understand the appeal of ad blockers. If you could ensure that you could stop your brand appearing next to inappropriate content 100% of the time, why wouldn’t you adopt one of these services? But when you look more deeply at the reality of what these services deliver and the potential unwanted side effects, the value proposition becomes less clear.

Additional Latency

Ad blockers work by inserting themselves in the ad delivery chain.  Ad blockers need to make a decision whether to allow or reject an ad on a particular page without delaying unduly the delivery of the page.  Most of the time, they do this by matching a URL in their cache. For a new URL, they schedule the page for examination in an “offline” queue.

How much extra latency is acceptable? While opinion varies, 100-150 milliseconds would be an upper limit, and most publishers would prefer to see something in the 40-50 milliseconds range or less.

How much latency do ad blocking vendors introduce into the ad delivery path using today’s technology? Our measurement of one of the leading ad blocking vendors indicates that they add an average of almost 500 milliseconds to the ad call.  Perhaps we measured them during a bad month; I’m not claiming we have enough data to be accurate about someone else’s technology. I am saying that if you’re thinking of adopting ad-blocking technology, you should measure for yourself the delay to the ad call.

Read More: iMediaConnection

ShareThis Puts Value on Shared Content

ShareThis plans to release two analytics tools that allow advertisers and marketers to determine the value of content being shared across Web sites. Through both, Social Reach and Audience Index, brands have an opportunity to understand the value of social traffic.

Social Reach measures the true value of shared media across the Web by looking at inbound social traffic and outbound sharing, valuing the responder of a share as much as the sharer. The analysis aims to provide more data than buttons on Facebook, Twitter and Tweetmeme buttons that measure outbound sharing.

Audience Index measures and segments a publisher’s audience by influence, so it identifies who has shared, responded and viewed content from their site. It indexes the information by category and matches it against other sites across the Web.

Some early data shows that social traffic engages consumers more than search traffic, according to ShareThis CEO Tim Schigel. “It measures the social reach and allows publishers to measure it by article,” he says. “They also can index their reach from the articles on their site against the rest of the network.”

Read More: MediaPost

Today, during ClickZ’s Connected Marketing Week in San Francisco which brought together name-your-digital-pleasure marketers to discuss their respective marketing channel, ClickZ and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) also co-sponsored an Ad Networks & Exchanges event.

Editor’s note: It would seem the name of this type of IAB event may need to evolve. Demand-side platforms don’t want to be called ad networks. And, ad networks – to a certain degree – want to be known as demand-side platforms. Looking forward to the new name!

Just prior to the day-long event, the IAB released news (see it) that 16 IAB member ad network and exchange companies had become “the first to commit to comprehensive self-certification against the IAB ‘Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines,’ [which aims to] increase buyer control over the placement and context of advertising on ad networks and exchanges.”

In the third panel of the day, San Francisco-area media agencies provided their take on the fast-moving ad ecosystem and ad verification technologies, in particular.

Moderated by ValueClick Media’s Matthew Boyd, panelists included associate media director Kim Small of Universal McCann, senior media manager Pablito Padua of Signal to Noise (formerly Agency.com), associate media director Lindsay Wong of Razorfish and vp, digital strategy director Chris Unno of PHD.

Noting the new guidelines and their adoption by 16 member companies, panel members agreed they were heartened to see the step forward in adopting the brand safety measures. But Signal to Noise’s Padua added that he was disappointed that there weren’t additional networks on the initial list.

Read More: AdExchanger

Excess Ad Inventory Pushing Value-Added Services

The movement into value-added services by companies throughout the online advertising space continues to get more interesting. First we saw Google provide free tools and services to support online ad sales. Now search engine marketing companies have begun to provide free tools and platforms to small-and-medium size businesses in hopes of eventually locking them in to subscription services for life. Take that one step further, to find demand side platforms (DSP) building networks of tech offerings on top of real-time bidding platforms.

Xa.net built its platform as an integration hub to bring in data from BlueKai, eXelate and TargusInfo, as well as the media from ad exchanges and publishers. Add to that creative services and it gives advertisers a way to pull in targeting data, purchase ads, and design creative pieces.

The xa.net built technology that allows companies to access inventory from ad networks and exchanges through a real-time bidding system will also offer value-added services that assist companies with copywriting and creating ads. The company’s CEO, Rob Leathern, tells me xa.net began to build the platform earlier this year and will sign on five companies to augments its services. Think of it this way, Leathern wants xa.net to provide the underlying technology that connects complementary services to make everything work together. That includes ad creation for social media platforms, too.

One of those companies will become BoostCTR, a network of copywriters for text ads that will help xa.net clients improve the quality of copy written for Facebook ads. Others include 4Delit, a self-service system that lets small advertisers create Flash and rich media ads; Interpolls, which creates rich-media formats and widgets; OneScreen; and OggiFinogi.

Read More: MediaPost

Google TV plan is causing jitters in Hollywood

Google revolutionized the way people access information. Now it wants to transform how people get entertainment.

The search giant is touting an ambitious new technology, called Google TV, that would marry the Internet with traditional television, enabling viewers to watch TV shows and movies unshackled from the broadcast networks or cable channels on which they air. Users would need to buy a TV or set-top box with Google software that could connect to the Internet, along with a keyboard to type commands. Users could also use their iPhone or Android phone to operate Google TV.

The prospect of Google getting into television frightens many in Hollywood, who worry that Silicon Valley will upend the entertainment industry just like the Internet ravaged the music and newspaper industries.

Read More: LATimes.com