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Audience Science Raises $20 million for Their Online Advertising Platform

Steven Finch — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:02:32 +0000

Audience Science, an online advertising firm formerly known as Revenue Science, announced on Tuesday that it has closed $20 million in new venture capital funding.

Investors included Mohr, Davidow Ventures; Mayfield Fund; Meritech Capital Partners; and Integral Capital Partners.

Founded in 2003, New York-based Audience Science offers both an audience technology platform and a targeting marketplace.

The company says it has powered over 50,000 campaigns worldwide, and is the eleventh-largest online ad network in the U.S.

Clients include the Financial Times, Gannett, Reuters.com and New York Times Digital.

The company will use the new funds expand its audience targeting marketplace, and bolster its offering to brand advertisers, premium website publishers and online ad networks.

Top Mobile Ad Networks

Steven Finch — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:12:59 +0000

Admob – AdMob is the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace, offering solutions for discovery, branding and monetization on the mobile web. Mobile devices are a critical media platform and we are building the tools to let every business on earth leverage mobile.

Jumptap – Jumptap leverages its mobile search technology and operator relationships to deliver advanced targeting intelligence for advertisers seeking the highest return on their ad spend. Our network of premium mobile sites combines high quality content with targeted advertising to create an experience that appeals to the mobile consumer.

Google Adsense – Google Adsense has to be the world most well known and popular advertising networks for publishers. Google offers their Adsense solution now for mobile devices. The ads are majority CPC but have also some limited CPM campaigns.

Third Screen Media – Third Screen Media is Platform-A’s mobile ad-serving platform and network that enables advertising on mobile devices. Its mobile solutions link advertisers, publishers and carriers on a common platform to buy and sell mobile advertising. Offering one of the world’s most-respected mobile advertising networks, Third Screen Media offers best-in-class content, including AOL’s popular consumer brands and mobile applications; the largest availability of carrier on-deck mobile inventory; and a mobile network of more than 70 premium publishers representing 100+ sites.

The Rubicon Project and Collective Media Both Secure Funding

Steven Finch — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:41:56 +0000

It has been announced that online ad optimization firm, The Rubicon Project has raised another $13 million in venture capital. The amount is made up of an additional $5 million in venture funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and IDG Ventures Asia and Silicon Valley Bank added $8 million in venture debt. The company notes that the funds will be used to, “fuel business growth initiatives including strategic acquisitions, research and development, infrastructure and international expansion.”

The company has raised $33 million to-date and is based in Los Angeles. The company opened a NYC office last November. Check out our interview with founder and CEO Frank Addante.

While at the same time Techcrunch has reported that Collective Media has secured another $20 million in Series B funding. The series was led by Accel Partners and iNovia Capital. Collective Media offers publishers an ad network management platform to create their own branded, vertical ad networks. The company raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding, led by Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital, in October 2007.

This has made me think a lot about both companies and how IDG Ventures Asia was an investor in The Rubicon Project and the IDG Tech Network is currently using the Collective Media platform to run their advertising network. I find it funny at times how certain section of major still don’t have an overall growth strategy, because investing in one company but at the same time they are wasting money on using another ad platform when it might be in their best interests to think about building their own ad platform and then integrating The Rubicon Project.

Top 10 Video Advertising Networks To Help Your Monetize Your Video Content Online

Steven Finch — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:18:13 +0000

There are so many place out there these day that want to help you make money from your online videos. Here is a list of top video ad networks in the marketplace at the moment.

Auditude is a new video and advertising platform that has just received more funding. Auditude is an end-to-end solution for premium video. For websites we’ve built an ad platform for managing complex video monetization rights, for content owners we empower widely syndicated video while maintaining control over your assets and advertising, and for advertisers or networks we provide scale in premium video.

Brightroll is the first premium video ad network, and the most comprehensive. With this widely distributed platform we’re able to maximize the value of your available inventory. We have aggregated the largest portfolio of highly branded and large volume video advertising on the Internet. With this widely distributed platform we’re enabled to leverage content, demo, context, behavior, and traffic volume for the benefit of our advertiser and publisher partners.

Videoegg serves ads, you get paid every time a user engages with one of our rich media ad units on your site. Everyday Videoegg delivers millions of impressions to users across leading social networking environments, video sites and gaming applications. We develop rich user profiles that enable advertisers to start with the right audience. Our unique video advertising formats and targeting approach deliver higher engagement rates for brands and more relevant ad experiences for consumers.

Roo Media is now KIT Digital. KIT Digital is a pioneer provider of video distribution solutions in online, mobile and set top box environments. We provide strategic, technology and content services that connect our clients brands with their target markets, in an ROI positive manner.

Brightcove is an on-demand online video platform. Designed for use with professional websites, Brightcove provides everything you need to publish and distribute online video. Working with professional video has never been easier. Harness the full potential of your content through innovative and flexible online video advertising options. By integrating with leading ad servers and custom 3rd-party ad solutions, you can stay focused on your ad strategy while we handle the technology.

Adap.tv empowers online publishers to efficiently monetize and grow their online video business. The Adap.tv OneSource video ad management platform provides a simple, transparent way to manage and serve ads from multiple sources, in many formats, to capture the full revenue potential of online video content. Fine-grained control and detailed reporting help publishers maximize their online video performance. All through a single, highly efficient platform.

YuMe is a large video advertising network, representing over 400 premium video sites with over 500 million monthly streams. We are unique in that we are both an ad management platform for publishers plus a video advertising network that provides advertisers with the audience scale and premium reach they desire.

Tremor Media is a leading global online video advertising network, providing Fortune 1000 brand advertisers with the reach and scale of more than 1,400 top-tier publishers. Tremor Media can work with you to monetize your site’s traffic with higher CPMs than any other ad network. In addition to our revenue solutions, Tremor Media provides cutting-edge technology for Web publishers that are ready to grow their business through online video advertising. Our Acudeo video monetization platform enables publishers to leverage their video assets and effectively manage their in-stream ad delivery, creating new, high value inventory.

Husky Media allows publishers to generate revenues by placing videos into its own new overlap window and then sells the backgrounds as advertising. Husky works with any video player and doesnt require the videos to be your own, you can make money from any video played on your website.

Adotube is a publisher-centric online video advertising platform that enables you to generate revenue by showing brand-name ads in your video content. Monetize your video content with unobtrusive targeted advertizing. You are in control of the presentation styles and video advertizing types.

Trafficspaces: Self-service Ad Management Platform

Guest — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:26:44 +0000

“Oil is to the global economy what advertising is to the web ecosystem. Cut it off and the whole thing shuts down”

That quote came from a renowned scholar at my former university in England.

My name is Niyi and I’m the Founder of Trafficspaces (I’ll get to what Trafficspaces does in a second).

Focus on that quote. It is quite seems particularly poignant in the current economic environment. It seems like no matter what we do, our dependence on oil just seems unassailable, even to our own detriment. It seems to me like we have a love-hate relationship with the “black gold”. Without it, we can’t seem to power anything. In fact, without it, we’ll all probably lose our jobs!

Advertising is pretty similar. Many people dislike ads on websites (especially the annoying banner ads) but unfortunately, the truth is that without ads, most websites, blogs, will go out of business and mass-appeal tools like the Google search engine, Gmail, Facebook, and possibly even Twitter will be unsustainable. I shudder at every “Catch the Monkey” ad like everyone else so I’ve been particularly intrigued to discover if there is a middle ground somewhere – something that gives publishers more control over what appears on their site and doesn’t leave them short-changed by some dodgy, fly-by-night ad network.

My team and I have just created a new ad management platform called Trafficspaces. We’ve solved three common problems:

1. Losing potential advertisers

“If you build it, they’ll come”. So true, but if they come and they are ready to pay, and you are not ready, they’ll leave (and may not come back). Way too many potential advertisers are lost because publishers expect them to fill a form in order to advertise. Where is the automation?

Imagine if you had to call an airline over the phone in order to book a flight, and there was no Expedia, Orbitz, Ebookers etc. It will be a pain and the airlines will make less money.

The solution – provide your own self-service system to process payments, and help them get started at their convenience. Facebook and Myspace have spent millions doing exactly this. Most publishers can’t afford to do and that’s were Trafficspaces steps in. You can get your own white-labelled self-service ad platform from $4.99 a month.

2. Earning way below potential

I once spoke to a very large newspaper firm who relied mostly on Google for ads on their website. They received a $5,000 check every month from Google and they weren’t impressed. It turns out that their site generates about 10 million impressions per month and understandably they felt short-changed. “I wonder how much Google got paid by the advertiser” ranted their Online Editor.

Recently, Michael Arrington of Techcrunch mused about dumping his long term partner Federated Media because his advertisers (who had to go to Federated Media’s site to place ads with Techcrunch) were spending a disproportionate proportion of their budget with other sites on FM’s network. Basically, if Techcrunch had its own self-service system, they’ll keep more of the advertiser’s budget.

The point there is that publishers need more control. The traffic that cannot be filled by your direct sales, or through your self-service system can be sent to Google or any other ad network. This is particularly important for those who get a lot of site-targeted ads. That is the best way to maximize your revenue.

3. Managing ad operations easily

This part is actually quite important because a lot of publishers I know don’t want to get bogged down with the intricacies of monitoring ad campaigns, optimizing the ads, and preparing reports. They don’t want the complexity that comes with OpenX. They just want to approve the ads with one-click and forget about it. “Keep it Short and Simple” as a close friend said to me. If you are one of those publishers, then Trafficspaces is for you.

Conclusion

Our goal was to give publishers more control. More control over what appears on their sites, and more control of their revenue. But most importantly, it had to be done through a system that was easy to use. The response so far has been great.

If you want to try Trafficspaces out, visit www.trafficspaces.com

IDG Tech Network Leave Adify and Move To DoubleClick

Steven Finch — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:37:24 +0000

IDG Tech Network is moving away from Adify and Doubleclick will be their new ad serving and technology partner. IDG confirm that everything will be moved to Doubleclick between the 12-19th of February and that the transition will be a smooth one.

Adify have not really been making too much improvements since they were acquired back in April of 2008 for $300 million by Cox Enterprises. It is interesting that IDG have moved from Adify to Doubleclick. I know Doubleclick are quite an expensive ad serving solution compared to most on the market today, but this move has happened because Adify are even more expensive. Adify have been charging around 20% or net revenues from networks who have been using their platform. This is extremely high and no wonder they are losing business. IDG has to be one of Adify’s main customers so this is a heavy blow.

NewsGator Launches AdBurner. Ad Optimisation Tool for Premium Publishers

Steven Finch — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:18:16 +0000

NewsGator has announced today that they have launched a new product called AdBurner. AdBurner is a program that provides a turnkey advertising based solution for premium publishers, which helps them to optimise ad revenues around key web 2.0 technologies with no incremental effort.

AdBurner is aimed at optimizing the CPM for, and process of, inserting and managing advertising into NewsGator’s publisher products suite, including services as diverse as widgets, related content, and iPhone applications. The initiative is built around best of breed advertising partners Technorati, Admeld, Gigya, Medialets, and Tremor Media.

This is a very interesting moving from NewsGator and Im very keen to test the product for them. Currently, the new product doesnt seem available via their website, so would be great to hear from the NewsGator team.

Has Gigaom Been Affect From Moving Away From Federated Media and to IDG?

Steven Finch — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:33:47 +0000

I have been reading Gigaom a lot lately, which is one of the worlds best technology news companies. Gigaom announced back in November that they will be leaving Federated Media for advertising revenues and move over to IDG. Since this time I have noticed a few key changes at Gigaom and was wondering if the site was being affected by the lack of quality advertising on the part of IDG?

Below is a screenshot of the Gigaom site as seem by a UK ip address.

As you can see from the screenshot Gigaom has been showing a huge amount of advertising from Chitika. These ads seem to just make Gigaom look a lot cheaper and more amateurish. Do you think the look of these ads has been affecting visitors to Gigaom?

I think it must have some affect. I have noticed these ads and from being on Gigaom several times in the last few days they have no put me off from visiting the site and actually just reading the full RSS feed instead.

ZunaVision : Stanfords New In-Movie Placement Software

Steven Finch — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:17:48 +0000

Over at Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed an amazing piece of software that im sure Google will purchase very soon. The software makes it easy to place and manipulate an image into a piece of video. Thus, could allow advertising to be simply placed in any video.

It works for videos as well – you can play a video on a wall inside your video. The technology can cheaply do some of the tricks normally performed by expensive commercial editing systems.

More information at ZunaVision but first watch the demo video:

This software would be perfect for video makers who place their videos onto Youtube, because they will be able to sell advertising very simply within the videos. This would also mean that they could place their videos and promote on Bittorrent related sites, cause the content owner is drawing an income. Just a thought!

RubiconProject Launches in Public Beta

Steven Finch — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:50:14 +0000

Rubicon Project is now in public beta and has even named their product, Automatic. Automatic is their ad network optimiser and for this service they will be charging 10% of your ad revenue, but say they can increase your CPM and fill rates. We will see if this works! For a while now I have been in their private beta, and im very curious to see if their service actually works and by how much.

Crenk – Advertising Network Free!

Steven Finch — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:15:08 +0000

I have long been playing around with the idea of monetizing Crenk but for all the trouble it just doesnt seem worth it at the moment. Ad networks tend to take the majority of the money and dont really give too much back in return. Hence, i thought i would try an experiment, and go Advertising Network Free!

The aim is to provide Advertising on Crenk from an in-house solution and do it cheap. This way i hope that i can provide real value for money and not just give it all to the middleman (ad network). Hence from now until the end of the year the following prices will stand, no matter what my traffic ranking is (and hopefully that should really increase).

125 x 125 Banner Site Wide = $20 per month
Text Ad Link Site Wide = $10 per month

I really want to try to show people that they dont have to use Ad Networks to make a decent amount of money, but we will just have to wait and see if this is viable!