Google Inc. (GOOG)’s $400 million acquisition of AdMeld Inc. has been recommended for antitrust approval by U.S. Justice Department staff attorneys, two people familiar with the matter said.

The staff urged approval after a detailed analysis found that AdMeld’s competitors in online display advertising were strong enough to offer companies alternative ways to advertise, one of the people said. The recommendation still must be approved by senior department officials, said both of the people, who didn’t want to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak about the matter publicly.

The recommendation contrasts with the department’s reservations about Google’s purchase of ITA Software Inc. In that case, the department required oversight of Google’s actions before giving approval because government attorneys determined online travel agencies that used ITA’s software, which aggregates flight information, didn’t have many alternatives.

AdMeld offers technology services to Internet publishers that help them boost revenue by managing display ads from hundreds of sources, including ad networks. Customers of the New York-based company, founded in 2007, include News Corp. (NWSA)’s Fox News and the Weather Channel.

Read More: Bloomberg

Collective Introduces Ensemble

Full Integration of Tumri and Oggifinogi Products and Operations Gives Way to Comprehensive Audience Platform for Brand Marketers

NEW YORK, Nov 30, 2011 — Collective, a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display and video advertising today released Ensemble(TM), its new technology platform designed to service brand advertisers seeking a complete buy-side audience platform and services solution. The full integration of recently acquired Tumri and Oggifinogi products and operations into a single business unit allows advertisers to leverage rich media and dynamic creative optimization, powered by Collective’s AMP(R) audience data and media platform.

“The integration of Tumri and Oggifinogi into the Ensemble platform coupled with key leadership appointments makes it possible for Collective to help advertisers deliver rich, video-enabled and optimized creative to audiences at scale,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective. “We’re enabling brands to intelligently connect with consumers across the entire spectrum of online display advertising with a truly integrated technology suite versus reliance on multiple third party vendors.”

Collective’s new solution eliminates the need for multiple service providers, presenting advertisers with the opportunity to leverage dynamic creative, engaging ad formats and Collective’s industry leading audience data all from one place. Ensemble works across their entire media buy, including real-time bidding (RTB) on leading ad exchanges. Collective is also offering comprehensive creative and production services with Ensemble, ranging from full to self-serve options.

Read More: Collective

Martini Media, which serves a network of 1,000 publisher sites in lifestyle and business, is launching a series of multimedia advertising programs including bringing rich media to niche sites.

The program kicks off with the threefold Portrait (a 300 x 1050 unit that permits advertisers use high quality ads) introduced by Internet Advertising Bureau and Pictela. “Now elite, niche publishers can attract premier advertisers that have been the province of portals,” says Bill Rowley, SVP/business development and marketing at Martini Media. “And premier advertisers can make specialty environments a mainstay in brand campaigns.”

Martini Media claims it offers advertisers a chance of more than 100 million page views. Charter advertisers include MINI, Victoria’s Secret and VISA.

Read More: Folio

comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for October 2011

Big Prizes Lure Players to Lotto and Sweepstakes Sites
Sweetest Day and Halloween Drive Traffic to Flowers and E-Card Sites

RESTON, VA, November 16, 2011 – 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 October 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The annual McDonald’s Monopoly game and a large Powerball jackpot drove millions of prize-hungry visitors to the Lotto/Sweepstakes category in October. Sweetest Day and Halloween prompted a seasonal spike in traffic at Flowers/Gifts/Greetings sites and E-Card sites.

“Lotto and Sweepstakes sites saw big gains in October, with the popular McDonald’s Monopoly game generating widespread interest,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. “Of course October is also the month of Halloween, which generated a predictable surge in retail gifts and greetings, as well as sending of e-cards.”

Read More: comScore

Display advertising is changing rapidly and getting more and more confusing. And many people are looking to understand its landscape.

Here are five things you need to know that you may not have thought of when it comes to display:

1. There will be fewer ads per page. One of the problems with online advertising today is that there is no barrier to creating new inventory. Constructing a billboard alongside a highway costs capital. There are a limited number of :30 spots you can run during a top-rated TV show. But if you’re a publisher that wants to create new revenue, it is much easier to add more ads to a page than it is to get more users to the site, or to get the ads to perform better. I estimate that there is about five times more supply than there is CPM/CPC demand. The rest of the inventory is spent on CPA offers or site promotions. Smart publishers should be focused on their audience and properly pricing those ads, to make for a more efficient marketplace – rather than flooding the exchanges and networks with new inventory. As the market gets more mature, the market will get closer to a balance between supply and demand.

2. RTB will be the primary way to retarget and your DSP technology will be the difference between success and failure. For some, this goes without saying. Only a demand-side platform (DSP) accessing all of the major ad exchanges can provide enough reach to power retargeting at scale, particularly when there are any kinds of restraints, like targeting by geo. A good DSP is like a racecar or precision surgical tools – it allows the buyer using the DSP to distinguish between good inventory and bad, cheap and expensive, and premium and remnant.

Read More: ClickZ

Limelight Networks Announces Its Dynamic Site Platform for Mobile to Enable Publishers to More Effectively Create and Manage Mobile Web Presence

Service Allows for Tailoring of Content-Rich Web Sites — Ensuring Content is Displayed as it Should be, Regardless of Device

TEMPE, Ariz., Nov 8, 2011 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) — Limelight Networks, Inc. /quotes/zigman/105873/quotes/nls/llnw LLNW +0.63% today introduced its Dynamic Site Platform for Mobile, an innovative new service that enables publishers to create and manage their mobile web presence. By providing the ability to create mobile-specific sites and repurpose content for multiple devices, the solution ensures that content-rich sites are optimized for every device — regardless of screen size, processing power or bandwidth.

Limelight Dynamic Site Platform for Mobile is built on the company’s cloud-based Dynamic Site Platform to integrate all web content management tasks — saving time and money while ensuring that publishers’ brands are expressed consistently across all online platforms. Using industry-standard languages (XML, HTML, CSS and Javascript), it allows web designers to create mobile sites that leverage the content and features already built into corporate sites. The solution eliminates the need for a separate mobile CMS, further speeding time to market.

Read More: MarketWatch

Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL Share Display Inventory

Still no merger news, but Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL have agreed to share unsold “premium” display inventory among their respective ad networks.

The partnership, announced Tuesday, appeals directly to Madison Avenue’s desire for scalable reach — something that has been increasingly hard to come by via TV, but not yet achievable online.

“This agreement should begin to change the industry’s perception of premium” inventory, Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo EVP of the Americas, said on a conference call late Tuesday.

More to the point, “this is about differentiation,” Levinsohn added, in response to a direct question about increasing competition from Google and Facebook, and whether their rise brought Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft together.   

A clear and present threat, Facebook and Google are expected to increase their share of domestic display advertising this year by 9.3% and 16.3%, respectively, according to eMarketer.

Yet by adding greater scale into the equation, the partners hope the deal will increase demand for their premium display ad offerings.

Read More: MediaPost

Nearly three-quarters of online publishers now sell 20% or more of their video ad space through ad networks, according to new research from BrightRoll. Per the video ad network, that represents an increase of two-thirds year-over-year.

Also of significance, publishers are not limiting themselves to one ad network. Rather, among the roughly 100 digital publishing partners surveyed by BrightRoll, more than 75% said they have partnered with three or more video ad networks in the past year.

Why the multiple partners? A full 55% of respondents said this stemmed from a simple desire to increase revenue; 21% wanted to increase fill rates, and 16% said they wanted to sell off remnant inventory.

Although publishers are becoming more accustomed to networks, exchanges remain under-utilized, BrightRoll found.

Half of survey respondents said 5% or less of their inventory is available on video exchanges, while one-quarter of respondents said 5 to 25% of their inventory is placed on exchanges  — indicating that exchange networks are growing but have not yet caught up to networks.

What factors impacted respondents’ decision to work with one ad network over another? Topping off the list, 44% of publishers cited ad fill percentage, followed by 32% who cited CPM rates. That indicates that publishers are most concerned with having their ad space filled at an efficient cost.

Read More: MediaPost

Rich Media Boosts Mobile Ads

Rich media ad units provide a big boost to mobile advertising click-through rates, according to Jumptap’s MobileStat Report, covering mobile ad network data for September. The survey covered over 300 million impressions for campaigns run by several major advertisers, including both rich media and standard media units, with similar ad creative and messaging (aside from the deployment of rich media). Rich media units included video or audio components.

Among the results attributed to rich versus standard media by Jumptap, CTR increased 337% for a campaign run by a major retailer; 357% for a luxury auto manufacturer; 340% for a new theatrical release; 455% for a quick-service restaurant; 214% for a major athletic equipment manufacturer; and 362% for a consumer electronics company.

The MobileStat Report also addressed the popularity of various smartphones and operating systems. Android led the way at 47% of the smartphone market, compared to 23% for Apple and 21% for RIM. The Jumptap data also indicated that mobile Web and mobile apps are roughly equal in popularity, both garnering 50% of total mobile traffic.

Read More: MediaPost

The ad kicks off with an innocent 300 x 250 banner. But click it, and the entire page gets ripped apart by a zooming sports car, which disappears to display a video of the car. It sounds exciting, and rich media ads get better results than traditional display. And yet, there are still critics who doubt the effectiveness of rich media. Ari Paparo, svp at AppNexus, claimed in a Digiday article that rich media is an unproven channel with questionable ROI.  He also adds that In-Stream Video is a safer bet. 

Although I think Ari’s views on in-stream are right on the money, I wouldn’t write off rich media so quickly; If not for rich media, we would have to use only standard banners for display, and rely on clicks as our sole method of measurement. And we know that research from has shown repeatedly that only a small part of the population is responsible for the vast majority of ever-dwindling clicks. 
 
On the other hand, another recent research study by ComScore has shown that campaigns with high dwell-rates increase brand related keyword search threefold, boosting site visits and brand engagement. Dwell metrics measure the rate of meaningful engagement with rich media banners and engagement length.

Read More: DIGIDAY

Global Ad Spend on Real-Time Bidding (RTB) will Rise to $6.5 Billion by 2015

Research Unveiled at PubMatic’s Ad Revenue 4 Conference Today From IDC Forecasts Inevitable Transition of Premium Inventory to be Sold via RTB

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–PubMatic (www.PubMatic.com), a media technology company that provides a holistic inventory, data and advertising revenue optimization platform for digital publishers, today released a study conducted with research firm IDC showing that Real-Time Bidding (RTB) will amount to $6.47 billion in ad spend by 2015 in the U.S. and major markets in Western Europe. The IDC findings, led by Karsten Weide, Program Vice President, Digital Media and Entertainment, have been published in PubMatic’s Ad Revenue Report, which published in conjunction with the Ad Revenue 4 conference taking place today in New York City.

PubMatic’s Ad Revenue Report is available here: www.pubmatic.com/adrevenuereport

The IDC research analyzes the state of RTB across the United States and in Western European nations France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The report estimates the current and past spending on RTB-based display ad sales and forecasts yearly growth until 2015. Highlights from the research include:

RTB-Based Spending: By 2015, RTB-based spending will stand for 27% in the United States (up from 10% in 2011), 25% in the UK (up from 6%), 21% in France (up from 4%) and 20% in Germany (up from 4%). Total spending on RTB in the US will reach $5.1 billion; $680 MM for the UK; $219 MM for France; and $495 MM for Germany.

Read More: Businesswire

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

NEW YORK, Sep 07, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — PointRoll, a Gannett Company and leading provider of digital marketing technology, today announced a strategic alliance with Tremor Video, the largest independent online video technology company. The partnership enables brands to buy video advertising on a national level through Tremor Video’s network while targeting and dynamically serving locally relevant in-stream video advertising through PointRoll– bringing part of the $17 billion local TV advertising market online.

The joint venture will now provide major brand advertisers with a fully integrated dynamic video solution that will allow them to maximize their video marketing spend. Ford is just one of the advertisers who has leveraged this alliance and is currently running a dynamic in-stream video campaign. The 15-second video ad’s final frame presents an offer dynamically delivered at run-time based on each viewer’s geography that gives them the option to visit their local dealer’s website.

“As video has become a more prominent element in online advertising, we wanted to apply the same dynamic nature to it, as we have with display advertising,” said Keith Morris, SVP, Group Account Director, Tier 2 Digital at Team Detroit’s Retail First division. “Being able to bring localization of offers and messaging to online video ads is the next natural step in the progression of our dynamic online strategy and coordinating the efforts of Tier 1 and Tier 2.”

Read More: MarketWatch

Context & Behavior Both Matter

Pretarget™ unveils Intentsity™ targeting, the convergence of contextual and behavioral targeting powered by keywords
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — The pendulum swings: yes, behavioral audience advertising is great. But not always. Context matters – in some cases, even more.  But what works best is when you combine them both and see performance gains of 50 to 200 percent. Using keywords as the underlying element, Pretarget™ creates Intentsity™ targeting, the optimal blend of contextual and behavioral digital advertising for precise audience targeting and efficient performance.

“In general we know that context and behavior both matter and can both work – it’s finding the right mix that’s difficult,” Carat Digital Media Director Sankar Patel said. “Pretarget has created a unique keyword based targeting opportunity that lets us deliver messages based on precise contextual and behavioral insight that we can strategically use for brand or performance efforts.”

Pretarget™ launched in 2010 with search retargeting and has learned that keywords are the common thread that binds contextual and behavioral data. Testing across tens of millions of impressions using contextual (page title, content, copy paste sharing), behavioral (search retargeting, third party behavioral segments, ad engagement), client site retargeting and run-of-network resulted in the creation of the Intentsity™ algorithm, which on average exceeds any single tested data type in click and conversion metrics, sometimes by as much as 2000 percent. In addition, because Intentsity™ targeting isn’t constrained to any single data set, it is infinitely scalable.

Read More: PRNewswire

Companies can provide their clients with access to 200 million daily impressions from more than 11,000 direct publisher relationships

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CONTEXTWEB Inc., www.contextweb.com, the integrated digital services company, today announced that Adnetik®, Criteo, IgnitionOne and Netmining have joined the company’s RTB Platform Partnership Program.

The new RTB partners are now trading live on the CONTEXTWEB RTB Platform. There are more than 25 companies in the partnership program.

Integration with the CONTEXTWEB RTB Platform means partner firms can provide their clients with instant access to 200 million daily impressions from more than 11,000 direct publisher relationships. CONTEXTWEB has the highest level of transparency on exchanges, with 95% of the bid calls containing the full URL, and 50% of the available inventory accepting expandable rich media ads.

The company also provides 31 impression-level data attributes including referrer URL and fold count position.

“CONTEXTWEB has spent years cultivating quality inventory and now it is available to buyers via CONTEXTWEB RTB,” said Nathan Woodman, Chief Operating Officer of Adnetik. “It enhances our ability to deliver smart, relevant ad buying opportunities across valuable inventory with all the targeting benefits of a real-time platform.”

Read More: Businesswire

Limelight Networks Sells EyeWonder Unit to DG

PRESS RELEASE

Limelight Networks Sells EyeWonder Unit to DG, Announces Share Repurchase Program, Updates Guidance for Third Quarter 2011 as a Result of Sale

TEMPE, AZ–(Marketwire – Aug 30, 2011) – Limelight Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: LLNW) (“Limelight”) today announced the sale of its EyeWonder rich media advertising unit to DG (NASDAQ: DGIT) for approximately $66 million in cash after adjustments. The company also announced a share repurchase program as well as updated its third quarter 2011 financial guidance as a result of the EyeWonder transaction.

Sales of EyeWonder
In a transaction expected to close on September 1, DG will acquire the EyeWonder rich media advertising unit from Limelight. DG plans to combine the resources of EyeWonder and MediaMind to create a global, at-scale provider of interactive advertising services. This transaction will enable Limelight to focus on continuing to grow and invest in its globally distributed computing platform and its rapidly expanding software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. These solutions include mobility, web and video content management, web application acceleration, cloud storage, and consulting.

“Limelight sees a bright future for our SaaS solutions, as they deepen our relationships with customers by streamlining their publishing workflows while providing the performance and operational benefits inherent in cloud applications. These open solutions also enable customers to monetize their online businesses using many different sources. Through this transaction, we are gaining more resources to strengthen the innovation pipeline and go-to market activities for these high-value, rapidly growing SaaS solutions and for continuing to scale our core CDN platform upon which these solutions run,” said Jeff Lunsford, chairman and chief executive officer, Limelight Networks, Inc.

Read More: AdExchanger

When it comes to metrics, it’s not about interaction rate, brand time and other ad unit data in a vacuum. Instead, it’s about the relationship between creative and media and how they unite to drive the campaign strategy overall. New media models, RTB and targeting capabilities have enabled us to more efficiently and effectively  reach the right audience, but once found, creative and interactive, richer formats inspire that audience to action – and conversion.

As Ari Paparo of Appnexus pointed out in his blogpost Making Rich Media Scale and alluded to in a recent DigiDay article Rich Media’s Uncertain Value “very little research has been done to prove that these expensive, highly customized [rich media] ads are actually more effective than simpler Flash creatives” and rich media standards are sorely needed to scale in the RTB marketplace. One could see the position as a reflection of RTB technology limitations manifesting as a condemnation of rich media, but it’s no secret that new media models have created technical challenges.  As pointed out in this ClickZ article from PointRoll’s CEO Rob Gatto, the technology is getting resolved to meet the brand and consumer need for high quality, high impact and more effective rich formats in the RTB ecosystem.

Read More: PointRoll Blog

comScore Releases July 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings

comScore Announces Availability of New YouTube Partner Reporting

RESTON, VA, August 22, 2011 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 180 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in July for an average of 18.5 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions.

YouTube Partner Reporting Now Available in Video Metrix

comScore is now able to provide YouTube Partner Reporting within the Video Metrix offering, for a never-before-seen look at viewership across hundreds of YouTube partners and their channels. This new feature provides a comprehensive and granular view of the unique audiences within different YouTube partner channels, enabling advertisers to more-easily create and optimize campaigns across specific channels to reach desired target audiences. The July data release for YouTube Partner Reporting includes dozens of beta partners, while comScore and Google plan to initiate reporting of more partners with the release of August data.

A first look at select YouTube partners from the current list of beta partners revealed that Machinima reached 16.9 million viewers with the highest engagement at 1.2 hours per viewer over the course of the month. Maker Studios drew 11.4 million viewers, who viewed an average of 8.9 videos, while Demand Media attracted 15.2 million viewers.

Read More: comScore

Display Advertising Leaders Combine to Create a Branding and Performance Powerhouse

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– ValueClick (Nasdaq: VCLK) and Dotomi announced today that they have signed a definitive merger agreement whereby Dotomi will become a wholly owned subsidiary of ValueClick. Privately held Dotomi is the leading provider of data-driven, intelligent display media for major retailers.

Dotomi creates and delivers display advertising where the ad creatives and media placements are dynamically adapted in real time at the user and impression level. The Company works directly with clients to integrate anonymous data and then surrounds each client with technology enabled marketing services. Dotomi manages everything from brand strategy and dynamic creative development to message delivery and decisioning. This data-driven, end-to-end approach results in display advertising that improves consumer brand engagement and generates measurable sales lift both online and offline for its clients.

Through its unique set of capabilities, Dotomi has developed strategic, direct relationships with over 100 retail brands, including over forty brands from the Internet Retailer Top 100. Led by Chief Executive Officer John Giuliani, Dotomi is based in Chicago and has 160 employees.

“Dotomi’s end-to-end offering attracts large brands because of its ‘simple sophistication.’ John and his team have built a great business integrating the technical and consultative points in the display value chain,” said Jim Zarley, chief executive officer of ValueClick. “Together with ValueClick’s portfolio of products, we will be in a position to meet the needs of marketers with a single relationship that will create marketing and analytic consistency. Our combined scale and expertise should accelerate their adoption of digital media. Together we believe we will create a new powerhouse in branding and performance-based advertising.”

Read More: AdExchanger

Making Rich Media Scale

In my recent Ad Age piece on the disruptive nature of RTB technologies I took some shots at the rich media business. Specifically, I called it a “tech hairball”. Of all the points in the article, the rich media comments got the most feedback so I want a chance to explain exactly my criticism.

First, some brief background. The term “rich media” refers to display advertising creatives that utilize an ever-expanding collection of features like video, larger file size, social interactions, expansion beyond the banner slot, etc. Within the industry the term generally is associated with a set of vendors including PointRoll, MediaMind and DoubleClick (where I built and managed the rich media products). The fact that the whole business cannot be easily defined except in relation to the vendor offerings should raise eyebrows. Imagine if you couldn’t fully describe what a database was without reference to Oracle or Microsoft — that situation doesn’t exist in mature tech sectors, yet it is the case for the technology behind the most valuable digital ads running in display today.

At heart, the key issue that holds the rich media sector back is that the technical foundation of these ads remains immature and fragmented causing inefficiencies and complexities throughout the value chain. Rich media was invented by EyeBlaster and Unicast over ten years ago, yet virtually no standards have emerged to govern the delivery, reporting, or effectiveness of these creatives. In contrast, the in-stream video world has gone from inception to widespread adoption of the VAST and VPAID standards in less than five years. Mobile rich media is rapidly developing the ORMMA standard, potentially leaving us in a situation where it’s easier to develop cutting-edge mobile ads than browser display ads. Let’s examine the current state of rich media technology along the path of planning->creation->delivery->reporting->effectiveness and see how fragmentation continually limits the growth of the entire display business.

Read More: The AppNexus Impressionist