American Advertising Federation Honors Samsung Mobile with the Innovation and Leadership in Advertising Award

San Francisco – Vizu Corporation, an online ad technology company that enables advertisers and publishers to measure and optimize Brand Lift in real-time, today announced the availability of a series of case studies developed to evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches to social media advertising. In recent weeks, the company has partnered with 33Across, BuzzFeed, BlogHer, and others to benchmark the effectiveness of brand advertising using social media tactics ranging from blogging to leveraging the social graph, from marketers such as Jones New York, GE, and Mary Kay Inc.

“In a recent study we conducted, 63 percent of brands told us they plan to increase their spending in social media this year,” says Dan Beltramo, CEO of Vizu.  “Faced with such a wide range of potential social media tactics and outlets, however, they don’t necessarily know where to place their bets. In response, we’ve instituted a new initiative to help ensure they know where to spend those dollars to maximize Brand Lift.”

Vizu’s partners used the company’s Ad Catalyst solution to measure and optimize  brand advertising in a variety of social channels. Examples include:

•    33Across built a custom Brand Graph™ that predicts large sets of new users for Jones New York by interpreting social habits and attributes across the retail category. 33Across and Jones New York used Vizu’s Ad Catalyst solution to get a real-time understanding of the brand-building effectiveness of their Brand Graph™ to drive purchase intent among women in or looking to enter the workforce. Ad Catalyst allowed both parties to access campaign performance data in real-time, facilitating communication and collaboration to identify the best-performing creative executions,  reallocate impressions to these executions (increasing purchase intent by 19 percentage points) and finally, to drive an overall 56.2% lift in purchase intent among 33Across’s Brand Graph™ consumers who had been exposed to the campaign.

•    GE partnered with BuzzFeed to create branded content through custom editorial posts and enlisted Vizu’s Ad Catalyst solution to analyze the impact on users’ perceptions. They found that branded content creates significant lifts in brand perception. Furthermore, these lifts are greatly amplified when the content is discovered through social media and sharing. Bottom line: branded content via trusted referrers leads to significant increases in brand affinity exceeding the bounds of a simple display ad.

•    Mary Kay Inc. teamed up with BlogHer, a network of the most influential women in social media, to create a branded blog outreach campaign to drive purchase intent. Mary Kay Inc. and BlogHer used Ad Catalyst to review the brand impact of the blog content, as well as the campaign’s frequency and lifetime performance in real-time. They found that the branded blog campaign drove an overall 259.6% lift in purchase intent, performing above average in comparison to branded ad campaigns and other beauty and purchase intent campaigns measured by Vizu.

“In light of the Facebook IPO and the demand from brands advertisers for more meaningful ad success metrics, social media is a hot topic these days,” adds Mr. Beltramo. “Determining what actually works, however, can be challenging. In addition to the various channels and tactics to choose from, the proliferation of performance metrics in the online medium further confuses the situation. In allowing our customers to measure and optimize their social media efforts using classic offline metrics such as Brand Lift, and in providing these benchmarks for the efficacy of different approaches to social media advertising, we’re helping marketers ensure they get the most from their social media investment.”

All of Vizu’s case studies can be found here: http://brandlift.vizu.com/knowledge-resources/case-studies/

Vizu Corporation (www.brandlift.com) brings the same metrics used to measure and optimize brand advertising effectiveness in the offline world to the online medium. By providing the first real-time, enterprise technology platform that allows brand advertisers and their partners in the digital media ecosystem – publishers, ad networks, exchanges, and demand side platforms – to collaborate around measuring and optimizing Brand Lift metrics, Vizu enables its customers to move their target audience through the purchase funnel, from building awareness to creating intent and preference. Vizu’s brand advertising effectiveness platform is used by over 60% of Advertising Age’s Top 100 Brand Advertisers and Comscore’s Top 50 Media properties to support all key aspects of the advertising lifecycle, including media buying, audience profiling, and Brand Lift optimization.

Teams Up with Top Hollywood Talent –Tom Hanks and Anthony Zuiker

Announces New Project from Creators of ‘Rock of Ages’ and Third Slate of Original Programming for Men

ABC’s Ben Sherwood Announces a New Katie Couric Program as Part of Yahoo! News/ABC News Premier Media Partnership

New Brand Spotlights Videos that are Relevant NOW Across 14 Content Channels

NEW YORK, NY – Operative, a global software company, today announced that Manu Warikoo will assume the role of Chief Product Officer, leading the company’s product strategy and R&D roadmap. Previously serving as senior vice president of solutions at Operative, Warikoo will leverage his engineering and business experience in his new role to bridge product, strategy and engineering for Operative’s products and services, which simplify the buying and selling of ad inventory for media companies.

Since launching Operative.One, the company has been dedicated to building the media industry’s leading sell-side operating system, enabling an integrated, open system that allows publishers to generate new revenue and run their businesses more efficiently. In his new role, Warikoo will spearhead R&D and manage product conception, operations and delivery that will drive Operative’s mission of integrating the ecosystem.

“The promise that Operative fulfills is “one”—one system that brings it all together. That requires not only building a great operating system, but also integrating it into our clients’ ecosystems. We needed someone that views product as more than just a bunch of code, and as a larger solution that brings it all together,” said Mike Leo, CEO of Operative. “Manu’s extensive experience in SaaS development and platform integration, combined with his previous contributions and successes at Operative, make him the obvious choice for the job.”

In his previous position, Warikoo was responsible for the management of Operative’s product offerings including the strategy, roadmap, and features. In addition, he oversaw the team responsible for the adoption of Operative’s products and services, which helps clients develop best practices and integrate various advertising and business technologies into an end-to-end platform solution.

“Operative has one of the most exciting product visions for the media industry. Having spent the last four years at the company, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to our customers and understand their needs,” said Warikoo. “In my new role as CPO, I aim to build off our successes and drive an innovative product road map that makes it easier for media companies to make money.”

Before joining Operative, Warikoo co-founded FirstRain, the leading provider of search-driven research. Here, he led product strategy and engineering in building a SaaS platform. He also collaborated with partners on solutions that provided programmatic access to the platform, resulting in development of new value added products and revenue stream.

Previously, Warikoo held senior product development roles at MicroStrategy Inc., where he helped lead strategy and development for MicroStrategy Analytical Applications (foundation for current product MicroStrategy CPM Starter Kit). In addition, he also managed the development of next generation platform for the MicroStrategy business intelligence product used by hundreds of OEMs to build analytical applications.

In both roles, Warikoo gained significant experience building platforms and working with clients and partners to use the platforms to bring new solutions to market.

About Operative

Operative is a global software company that increases revenue and operational efficiencies for more than 200 of the top digital and print media companies, including MSN, The Wall Street Journal, Guardian News & Media, Omnicom Media Group, NBC Universal, Pandora and National Public Media.

Everything Operative is driven by a passion to empower our clients to manage their increasingly complex businesses efficiently and profitably.

Managing more than $6 billion in global ad revenue, Operative offers the only true operating system for media companies that bring our clients’ business processes and systems together—all the way from packaging and selling campaigns to trafficking, optimizing and collecting revenue on ads.  The result: endless innovation and long-term scale.

For more information, visit www.operative.com.

Appsnack provides advanced HTML5 rich-media advertising that delivers sophisticated and engaging brand experiences that behave like bite-sized apps, hence the name Appsnack. The ads enable users to engage with video, product info, and, for example, locations of nearby retail stores.  Appsnack will use Exponential’s e-X Advertising Intelligence platform to bring advanced audience targeting to mobile ads, so brands can reach their prospective customers and engage them with relevant, high-impact campaigns.

Mr. Shanman was most recently senior VP, mobile solution sales, strategy and business development at cloud-based applications provider Limelight Networks. Prior to Limelight he held VP sales roles at Quattro Wireless, now Apple’s iAds, and AOL-owned advertising network Advertising.com.

Mr. Shanman and team will oversee relationships with agencies such as MediaCom, Pereira & O’Dell, Starcom, Universal McCann and Zenith Optimedia.  Appsnack will also capitalize on Exponential’s global footprint to deliver its offering to agencies across the globe.

Appsnack (www.appsnack.com) is a mobile advertising solution that provides in-app, rich-media brand engagement campaigns for brand advertisers. It is a division of Exponential Interactive, the global digital advertising company that also owns global online advertising provider Tribal Fusion, engagement video platform Firefly Video and in-stream video advertising specialist AdoTube. Exponential is headquartered in Emeryville, California and offers its solution to brand advertisers in 25 countries.

“Rob is an accomplished and well-respected expert in digital media. He brings over 11 years of digital advertising sales and management to GumGum,” says Ophir Tanz, CEO and founder of GumGum. “Under Rob’s leadership, we expect our already strong sales growth to accelerate.”

Since 2008, Mr. Elder has held the position of Vice President Digital Sales at Independent Television Networks (ITN) where he built and managed the digital sales organization for its local online video and display network, consisting of over 5,000 local newspaper, television and radio websites. Before that, Mr. Elder was with Internet Broadcasting where oversaw Strategic and East Coast sales initiatives across IB’s 80+ TV station partner sites. Earlier in his career, Mr. Elder held sales positions at NBCOlympics.com, Maxim Online and Sony Digital Entertainment. He volunteers with The Tom Deierlein Foundation, an organization that works to improve the lives of Iraqi and Afghani children.

“Look no farther than Pinterest or Instagram and you will see that images have become a central part of the digital, social and mobile experience. GumGum is the global leader in helping publishers monetize those images,” says Mr. Elder. “The opportunity to be part of the premiere in-image display platform is one I couldn’t pass up.”

GumGum (www.gumgum.com) is the world’s largest in-image ad platform and a Quantcast Top 10 Property, reaching 150 million unique visitors and serving billions of in-image ads per month.

GumGum’s proprietary image recognition and targeting technology helps garner user engagement through highly targeted campaigns that yield 20 times the click-through rate of traditional advertising units. In addition to helping brands reach audiences predisposed to the marketer’s message, the GumGum model gives publishers a completely new monetization stream and provides brands the opportunity to reach highly targeted mass audiences.

Hundreds of the Internet’s premier websites, including Time Warner Inc., Tribune, Scripps, Gannett, Hearst Corporation, Internet Brands Inc. and Glam Network rely on GumGum to turn photographs into lucrative interactive experiences by overlaying text, banner or Flash ad units on top of the images.
Founded in 2007, GumGum is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA. Investors include: GRP Partners, First Round Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Crosscut Ventures.

San Francisco, CA - Snapguide, the hit free iOS app and web service for those that want to create and share step-by-step “how to guides,” today announced a major update that will allow users to search the guides by topic. The new functionality will make it easier than ever to find the guides of interest across a wide range of categories including Arts & Crafts, Food, Sports & Fitness, Gardening, Automotive, Games & Tricks, Music and many more.

Snapguide is available for free in the App Store at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snapguide/id421477397?ls=1&mt=8

Top user-created guides on Snapguide have received over 50,000 views within days of being published, showcasing the power and reach of the app. Popular guides include How to Remove Candle Wax from Candle Jars, How to Set up Your iPhone to Take Great Photos and Videos, How to Make Potato Latkes and How to Make an iPod Dock.

Snapguide, which features thousands of user created guides, provides easy to understand instructions for a wide array of topics. Users are invited to submit their own guides, so that they can share their passions and expertise with the Snapguide community. Snapguide users with the Pinterest mobile app installed can also easily “pin” their favorite guides to Pinterest with just the tap of a button.

“Since Snapguide’s launch, the feature that our users have most requested has been to add an easy way to find the guides that match their interests,” said Daniel Raffel, creator of Snapguide.  “The Snapguide community is extremely active, with nearly a thousand guides being added every week. As users share their expertise and passions we want to ensure that it’s simple to explore guides by topic.”

The new functionality adds a new header within the app called “Topics.”  At the top of the page are editorially selected sets of guides chosen by the team at Snapguide.  Users can scroll through the guides and select those of interest.  In addition, users will see featured, recent and popular guides for each topic, and will now also be able to search for guides within specific topics.  Those creating guides to share with the Snapguide community will now be able to choose the category in which their guide appears.

Features of Snapguide include:

•           Discover new things. Explore step-by-step guides on topics from cooking to crafts. Guides are viewable on the web, mobile phones, and tablets.

•           Create your own guide. Use your iPhone to snap pictures and videos of your project. Add captions using voice-to-text or type them in by hand.

•           Learn together. Connect with people who share your interests. Comment on a Snapguide and privately message other users.

•           Share with others. Post guides to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and send via email.

Creating and sharing a Snapguide is easy and fast and can be completed in realtime by taking pictures and videos on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and then adding captions to describe each step. Documenting a project and sharing your knowledge has never been this easy.  Snapguide features voice dictation powered by Nuance to ensure that spoken text is accurate and reliable.

About Snapguide

Snapguide was created by a small, passionate team in San Francisco, California and was founded by Daniel Raffel and Steve Krulewitz. Daniel was previously the product lead on Yahoo! Pipes. Prior to Yahoo! he worked as a chef at Per Se in NYC. Steve is an accomplished software engineer who previously worked on Google Chrome.

The company is funded by a group of successful entrepreneurs including Michael Arrington (Crunchfund), Gary Clayton, Jeff Fagnan (Atlas Venture), David Lee (SV Angel), Dave Morin (Slow Ventures), and Mike Volpi (Index Ventures).

The Centro Brand Exchange integrates Krux’s data platform into the fabric of its exchange software, giving publishers an unprecedented level of audience data and security protection.  The Centro Brand Exchange also gives publishers greater control over the quality and type of brands that appear on their sites.  Together, Centro and Krux are closing the data security loophole associated with today’s ad exchange, ad network and SSP offerings, while driving higher value and CPMs for premium publishers on their unsold inventory.

“Everyone in the exchange industry is talking about creating greater value for publishers’ inventories, yet no one is delivering on the promise,” said Shawn Riegsecker, Founder and CEO for Centro. “We recognize a significant gap in the market where high-quality publishers are being taken advantage of with no control and no good alternative solutions. Through our partnership with Krux, we’ve built the Centro Brand Exchange to be the highest quality ad exchange in the industry giving publishers more controls, high CPMs and the highest level of data protection available.”

Centro’s owned and operated ad exchange offers exclusive high-quality inventory from nearly 1,600 of the industry’s most respected publishers.

“Media companies spend billions annually creating high quality valuable content and attracting premium audiences,” said Christian A. Hendricks, Vice President for Interactive Media at The McClatchy Company, “while we have known about ad exchanges gleaning audience data from our sites for quite some time, solutions to the problem have been fleeting at best. With the Centro Brand Exchange, media companies now have a compelling solution designed to protect valuable audience data and reduce audience data leakage.”

Centro extensively vets all publishers and advertisers invited to the exchange to ensure brands are appearing next to quality content and reaching valued and most-desired customers.

“In today’s market, publishers have come to recognize that their audience data exists as a standalone asset with tremendous value.  Unfortunately, legacy remnant sales channels have done a poor job recognizing and protecting that value,” said Tom Chavez, co-founder and CEO of Krux.  “Through the Brand Exchange, Centro is delivering a unique, premium, and trusted experience for both publishers and brands, and Krux is proud to partner with them in setting new market standards for media monetization and web data protection.”

For more information on the Centro Brand Exchange, available as of April 2012, please visit www.centro.net/exchange.

About Centro
Centro is the leading provider of intelligent media logistics software and services for agencies, publishers, and advertisers.  Since the company’s founding in 2001, Centro makes it easier to buy and sell digital media as a partner to more than 2,900 advertisers and 750 agencies, helping them simplify complex media decisions, connections, and processes in an increasingly digital world.  With its proprietary software, Transis, market-driven insight, and a commitment to outstanding customer service, Centro executes flawless digital media campaigns, resulting in better campaign performance, higher retention rates, and greater profitability for its clients.   Headquartered in Chicago with 28 offices nationwide, Centro’s success and commitment to culture has led to many accolades, including the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies, Red Herring 100 and No. 1 on Crain’s Chicago Business 2012 Best Places to Work for the second consecutive year in a row. For more information, visit www.centro.net.

About Krux
Founded in 2010, Krux delivers data fabric for the consumer web.  The company’s platform helps websites protect, manage, and monetize data across screens and sources.  With Krux, websites give their consumers cooler, safer, faster, smarter web experiences. With Krux, consumers gain confidence that their favorite websites are operating under the plain light of day.  Website operators in the US, Europe, and Asia have adopted Krux technology, including companies like The New York Times, NBC Universal, Sanoma, Recruit, Financial Times, BrainyQuote, GrooveShark, and The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.  Find out more at www.krux.com.

Lisbon, Portugal – Display advertising specialist Adform has today announced that it is opening a new regional office in Lisbon, Portugal. The move comes as a result of an increase in media agencies and online advertisers looking for local support in running display marketing campaigns in the Portuguese market, which previously had been largely run out of Spain.

Adform will enable Portuguese clients to more readily run campaigns through its unique single platform that hosts a complete gamma of services for successful display advertising, from traditional ad serving to real time bidding to dynamic creative optimisation to rich media to attribution.

To open the new office, Adform has recruited Jose Fradé as its new Business Development Director for Portugal. Fradé will be largely responsible for the opening and development of the local Adform office in Lisbon, looking to complement the rapid growth achieved in the neighbouring Spanish market. Fradé joins Adform from Havas Digital Portugal, where he was country manager working with clients including Peugeot, Citroên, Nike, Reckitt and Barclays. Fradé will report to David Fulton, Adform’s Chief Commercial Officer.

Fradé commented: “The boom in real time bidding across major markets in Europe is now prompting a similar response in Portugal, with publishers looking for solutions to sell their remnant inventory and get more revenue. These changes in the buying landscape together with an influx of creative rich media innovations in how display campaigns are run, provides the perfect base for success in delivering effective campaigns for media agencies and online advertisers alike.”

Fulton added, “Our local presence in the European markets is a major advantage. Our new Lisbon office will offer the Portuguese display advertising market greater local support and flexibility, meaning we are swift to turn around responses to any client requests. We have our ears to the ground in terms of what are the best technology developments for our clients so that we can provide services that reflect the local and European needs of our customer base.”

About Adform
Adform is the European specialist in online display marketing solutions, closing the loop for media agencies and online advertisers by integrating media planning, buying, optimization and reporting into one place.

Adform’s unique platform incorporates display ad serving, rich media, video, mobile, dynamic ads, personalised targeting, and real-time bidding through integrations with major inventory players, making display advertising simple, relevant and rewarding.

Adform was established in Denmark in 2002 and now has offices in 12 countries including Nordics, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Visit http://www.adform.com for more information or follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/adforminsider.

When mobile advertisers pay per click, curbing click fraud is vital in delivering cost-effective campaigns

Leading ad network claims industry leading anti-fraud tool

Ra’anana, Israel – DMG (DSNR Media Group) – a leading provider of digital advertising solutions for online, mobile, and video, announced today that Traffiliate for Mobile, DMG’s platform that provides comprehensive real-time visibility of mobile campaigns,
now includes an anti click fraud solution for more accurate measurement of mobile ad effectiveness. Based on DMG’s extensive
experience in mobile advertising, serving over 10 billion impressions monthly, this anti click fraud capability identifies unwanted clicks that can result in savings of tens of thousands of dollars every month for mobile advertisers. In addition to reducing costs, this software provides a more accurate assessment of clicks, leading to better planning and more effective campaign results.

Click fraud, when a click is generated without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link, has become a growing concern for
mobile advertisers. A Harris Interactive survey conducted last year reported that 47% of mobile application users clicked on mobile ads by mistake. Detecting accidental and fraudulent clicks for mobile advertising is more complex due to the variety of devices and browsers and the difficulty identifying unique IP addresses for each user. DMG utilizes a sophisticated system to detect suspicious patterns that can work around these technical complexities.

According to Shalom Berkovitz, CEO of DMG, “In today’s emerging mobile realm, advertisers are more likely to pay per click, and are
demanding a high level of accuracy for meeting their target audience. We are leading the industry by providing tools that can enforce a high level of integrity and trust enabling advertisers to more effectively use mobile advertising as part of their marketing mix.”

ABOUT DMG

DMG is a global digital advertising network serving advertisers, agencies and publishers.
Utilizing its unique optimization methodologies and technologies, DMG offers a full cross-platform solution for online, mobile and video. DMG delivers 40 billion impressions and over 7 million conversions each month, to over 350 clients worldwide. For more information, visit www.dsnrmg.com.

Businesses with Facebook Pages Can Use Their Facebook Presence to Build Consumer Awareness and Affinity, Bringing Their Offline Fans Online

London, UK and Providence, RI – Following its successful launch to create new MOO.COM cards using personalized Facebook card designs, themes and information, MOO.COM today announced a new, free offer that allows businesses to create eye-catching cards based on their Page.

More than four million businesses have Pages on Facebook. As more and more business owners and brand evangelists turn to social media for marketing efforts, MOO.COM is enabling millions of Facebook users who are large and small business owners to create customized, buzz-generating MOO.COM Business Cards to take their business offline– for free.

The new offer leverages the full potential of compelling and creative content that businesses and brands add to their Pages.

Page admins will all now be able to integrate their products and services showcased on Facebook Pages into their offline social and business networking experience using MOO.COM’s cards.

Because businesses and brands often want to market different elements of their services, MOO.COM cards can be individually designed and personalized, with each highlighting a different component of the brand or business. With MOO.COM’s “Printfinity” feature, businesses and brands can pair just the right images for a new offering, service or product launch – whether it’s for strictly business or for fun social and networking occasions.

“The response from our first MOO.COM offer was very positive and generated great momentum for our business,” said Paul Lewis, Head of Marketing for MOO.COM.“We quickly realized that we were filling a very timely niche in the marketplace for users who wanted a more dynamic, buzzworthy and fun social networking experience. Our new offer is designed to fulfil a further need on the business side and meet the expectations of our loyal customers for other, more versatile ways to use MOO.COM cards – and we’re delivering.”

“As global businesses and brands, large and small, and their agencies seek new ways tocatch attention and take advantage of new marketing channels, we believe this free offer will be a much-sought after additional tool to add to their marketing suite,” said Richard Moross, CEO and Founder of MOO.COM. “MOO.COM continues to innovate to develop a compelling and unique portfolio of printed products that bridges the gap between the dynamics of social networking and the emerging needs of businesses of any kind.”

According to company data, MOO.COM’s initial offer to integrate customers’ Facebook Page information and photos with MOO.COMstylish business cards was a huge hit, with users from 150 countries taking advantage of the unique offer – not just MOO.COM’s home turf of the US and UK, but also far flung locations such as Greenlandand the Maldives.

About MOO.COM
MOO is an award-winning online print business that is passionate about great design and the difference it can make to its customers and the world. Launched in 2006, MOO aims to disrupt the $100 billion global print industry by combining the values of professional design with accessibility and reach of the web; making great design available to all. By applying Web 2.0 principles to a 500 year-old market, MOO has become one of the fastest growing print businesses in the world, with triple digit annual growth and a global reach since launch. MOO prints millions of cards a month and has served customers in over 180 countries. MOO also empowers companies of 10 or more employees with MOO Business Services, offering volume discounts and easy order management for entire organizations. For more information, visit www.moo.com.

Taps Michel de Rijk to Lead Operations as Managing Director, Asia-Pacific

Xaxis, the world’s largest audience buying company, announced today the opening of a headquarters in Singapore to serve the Asia-Pacific region. With this launch, Xaxis is initiating an aggressive plan in the region with nine market roll-outs planned over the next 6 months – these new markets will include India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Hong Kong. The existing Xaxis operations in Australia will also come under the umbrella of the new headquarters, which represents the industry’s most comprehensive network of digital endpoints across online, mobile, social and video platforms.

Global digital media executive Michel de Rijk will lead the practice, joining Xaxis as Managing Director, Asia-Pacific. Prior to Xaxis, de Rijk served as a senior executive at digital ad firm EyeWonder, where he was responsible for launching operations in the Asia-Pacific, Benelux and Middle East regions. During his four years with EyeWonder, Michel served in several roles throughout each region and introduced the first ad-view-time metric to gain insights into the actual visibility of an ad. Previously, de Rijk worked for Dutch publisher De Telefoongids.

“As the largest audience-buying company in the world, Xaxis has an unmatched understanding of the global digital media-buying space along with local presence and expertise in each market it operates in,” said de Rijk. “This combination allows Xaxis to deliver proven audience solutions that are custom-fit for executing targeted campaigns market by market. From mobile in Indonesia to video in Taiwan, Xaxis offers maximum precision when delivering ads in all markets.”

Xaxis provides audience buying solutions to more than 700 global advertisers, delivering over 300 billion impressions each year. The proprietary Xaxis data management platform (DMP) houses the largest collection of unique anonymous audience portraits. Additionally, as the only universal and neutral data management platform in the industry, the Xaxis DMP allows advertisers to measure attribution, offline ROI, audience insights and brand impact based on the entire digital plan, not just the Xaxis portion of the plan. By year’s end, Xaxis will have offices operating in over 25 markets around the world.

“This commitment to expansion throughout the Asia-Pacific region follows a year of success and growth in North America, Europe and Australia,” noted Brian Lesser, CEO of Xaxis. “Ad spend in the region is expected to reach $170 billion within the next two years with online ad spend making up 31% of the growth.¹ Our clients have asked us to apply our knowledge and experience executing audience campaigns to the region. This launch displays the first step in our commitment to the region and will be followed with an aggressive expansion.”

Mark Patterson, CEO GroupM Asia Pacific, commented, “We have ambitious plans with Xaxis in the region. Our drive for value and improved audience delivery for our clients, as well as ownership of that capability – versus outsourcing as many groups do – will help us deliver on both, securely and rapidly, for our clients across the region and the digital spectrum.”

About Xaxis

Xaxis, a GroupM company and a part of WPP, is the world’s largest audience buying company. Through its proprietary platform, Xaxis offers advertisers a single, comprehensive resource from which to reach and engage with global audiences across the universe of digital media. Xaxis does this for its GroupM agency partners, Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare. Xaxis has a presence in 16 countries across North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.xaxis.com.

1. source: eMarketer

Thousands of manufacturers and major retailers rely on WebCollage for detail rich online product descriptions including videos, tours, images and text. WebCollage manages real-time, automatic content updates across a network of retail websites, assuring a consistent and intact branded shopper experience throughout the online retail channel.

“Bush Furniture is committed to improving the online shopping experience for our customers in all of our channels, and we believe excellent content is critical to success. Content distribution and maintenance is a significant challenge in this regard and we are impressed by WebCollage’s unique solution and excellent distribution,” says Mike Evans, Executive Vice President at Bush Industries.”We’re planning to leverage their best practices and success in the electronics channel and bring that capability to our retail partners in the furniture category.”

“We have run more than 50 detailed A/B tests with the world’s largest retailers and see uplift within 8% to 36% in conversion solely due the rich information that manufacturers publish using WebCollage,” says WebCollage CEO Scott Matthews. “We are very pleased to expand our turnkey solution to Bush Industries and the Furniture and Home Furnishings categories. We have every confidence they will see similar results.”

“We currently have 13 products across seven retailers with plans to expand more as we refine our content strategy. We envision adding products as we better understand how WebCollage’s insightful metrics are affecting sales,” adds Mr. Evans.

Bush Industries, Inc. (www.bushfurniture.com) is a leading manufacturer of case goods and ready-to-assemble furniture designed for office and home applications. The company operates two North American divisions – BBF and Bush Furniture – along with its RÖHR division in Germany and its China operations. With a 50-year legacy built on quality, safety, reliability and durability, Bush Industries is the trusted leader in designing furnishing solutions that meet work and home needs. The company is headquartered in Jamestown, N.Y., with manufacturing and distribution facilities located in western New York, Pennsylvania, China and Germany.

WebCollage (www.webcollage.com), the world’s leading provider of rich product information to retailer web sites (and their mobile visitors) perfected a new form of channel-marketing by helping manufacturers instantly publish content that increases sales, reduces return rates and improve conversions by up to 30%. WebCollage, used by over 1,000 manufacturers, provides tools to upload and update rich product content including video in real-time. Founded in 2000, WebCollage, a privately-held company headquartered in New York, is backed by investments from Sierra Ventures, Greylock Partners, Cedar Fund, Gilde IT Fund, and GSI Commerce.

Of 232 Initial Preferred Marketing Developers, Adobe is the First Company to be Recognized for Integrating with Pages, Ads, Apps and Insights APIs

• Three Quarters of the Browser Market Supports HTML5 Video Playback
• Full-screen HTML5 Playback Available in Majority of Browsers

Technology Innovator Will Guide Acxiom’s Global Product Engineering

PubLink is a set of open APIs and pre-packaged integrations that enable publishers to use PubMatic’s strategic selling platform as a single point of integration to access partners and services in real time. Through PubLink open APIs, PubMatic’s platform services are now available to several ad servers such as AdJuggler, Adzerk and Zedo. These companies can now extend PubMatic’s real-time bidding technology to the ad servers’ publisher clients.

“PubLink extends the publisher base for PubMatic beyond its existing customers who are using a variety of ad serving technologies,” said Rajeev Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of PubMatic. “We’re excited that ad serving companies are eager to integrate with our platform. Together, we will bring best-of-class monetization capabilities to publishers and help them grow their businesses.”

PubMatic will connect ad servers’ customers to the programmatic media buyers working with PubMatic. The integrations will increase liquidity in the real-time bidding marketplace and help them improve monetization for their publishers. To further illustrate the benefits of the integration to their customers, Adzerk announced the partnership on their blog.

PubLink allows publishers to access a variety of point solutions including audience data, ad verification and privacy controls, enhanced analytics, malware scanning, mobile content optimization and mobile ad serving. PubMatic will continue to add more partners in the coming months.

“Working with PubMatic represents another important step in AdJuggler’s publisher monetization strategy,” said John Shomaker, CEO of AdJuggler. “Our Exchange Media Program team has integrated closely with the PubLink API bidding and reporting infrastructure to extend our proposition of providing higher CPMs and fill for our publisher customers.”

PubLink is fully integrated with PubMatic’s strategic selling platform and a complementary set of capabilities that work with the PubDirect suite of management tools for premium publishers. Through PubDirect and PubLink, premium publishers are powering their own holistic revenue strategies and leveraging the influence of their brands for advertising partners and consumers.

About PubMatic

PubMatic (http://www.PubMatic.com) gives premium publishers a real-time media selling platform for managing revenue and brand strategy. PubMatic’s platform combines real-time bidding (RTB), the most comprehensive brand protection tools, extensive audience insights and hands-on support to serve the world’s leading publishers. PubMatic is privately held, backed by funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures, and has seven offices around the world in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

David Skinner takes on new role of SVP, Corporate Development, while former Lemonade Inc. executive Timothy Smith is named SVP, Client Solutions

Q4 2011 Sees Best Quarterly Result Ever at $9 Billion, With 20% Uptick Over Q4 2010

Mobile Achieves Triple-Digit Growth Year-Over-Year

Brand Safety, Contextual and Viewability Metrics Define Latest Enhancement to Online Campaign Ratings – Now Available to Advertiser, Agency and Publisher Clients

Swoop is designed to discover billions of decision moments and create serendipitous engagement opportunities where publishers can enhance user experience and advertisers can deeply engage with their target consumers.

“iFood.tv has been a leader in bringing innovative ways to teach beginners and experts alike how to cook.  We are now excited to partner with Swoop to bring our users an innovative new way to ensure that they are saving money and to serendipitously discover exciting new offers.  Their integration at the ingredient level is an entirely new concept in advertising,” said Vikrant Mathur, CEO of iFood.tv.

“By using Swoop, we can provide our visitors with valuable information that they would normally seek in a secondary search, integrated directly into the recipes and articles they are reading,” said Jennifer Lee, VP Advertising, Cooking.com. “This helps to keep users engaged and coming back for more.”

“Being able to enhance and customize the user experience on a website is our number one priority,” said Ron Elwell, CEO of Swoop. “Swoop takes pride in being able to provide relevant information to consumers that they normally would have to search for, without ever having to leave the site. Improving the user experience is something that many publishers strive for, and we look forward to working with publishers to achieve this goal.”

Swoop recently launched their Local Offers service, which presents hyper-local content that matches a consumer’s interest, or intent, as it relates to food with corresponding offers and coupons at the local market where they shop. Swoop’s ability to identify a consumer’s intent and interest provides advertisers the opportunity to create meaningful engagement by inviting the consumer in for a relevant and timely discussion.

About Swoop

Swoop is a service that seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services – at times in the form of sponsored content or advertising – into the content that consumers are engaged with online.  Swoop is able to discover a consumer’s intent and interest based on a deep understanding of the content they are engaged with, providing advertisers with the opportunity to have deep and meaningful engagement with consumers.  Founded by a team with deep experience in web publishing, advertising technology and consumer marketing, Swoop is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Swoop is venture backed by US Venture Partners and Valhalla Partners.  For more information, please visit www.swoop.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Mclean, Va. – AddThis launches today a robust set of social plugins, analytics, and audience products to provide a full suite of sharing and engagement tools for publishers and brands. The announcements from the company, formerly known as Clearspring, accompany consolidation of the company’s brands under AddThis and come with new milestones for unique users and domains.

As the industry leader on the social open web, AddThis is now used by 14 million domains and reaches over 1.3 billion users monthly. The platform is loaded 3 billion times daily and processes 70 terabytes of real-time social data from across the web weekly to power an end-to-end data-driven product suite.

“The flow of big data for advertisers and publishers is only valuable if the data becomes actionable,” says AddThis CEO Ramsey McGrory. “AddThis powers the social web and social advertising through sophisticated data-driven products that make site owners and brands smarter and more effective.”

For site owners, AddThis expands its product set beyond sharing to a full suite of social plugins. The addition of Follow, Welcome, and Trending Content plugins and enhanced real-time Analytics will help to help publishers and advertisers make their sites and content more personal and engaging for visitors.

- Follow Tool – Follow buttons can be placed with content on site to allow users to become fans, followers or subscribers in one click.

- Trending Content Tool – The Trending Content tool uses a content feed API to continuously promote a brand’s top content in real time on their site, in newsletters or on social channels.

- Welcome Tool – The Welcome tool allows publishers to optimize an incoming user’s experience by welcoming them with a personalized greeting and call-to-action.

- Additions to Analytics platform – The Analytics product is expanding to provide insights on content generating fans and followers and the most popular sharing format – copying/pasting a URL.

“Together AddThis Analytics and the Trending Content tool automatically showcase the content our readers are engaging with most. Trending Content visually programs the most shared articles, while our editors log in to AddThis Analytics to get real-time insights into social performance for creating more of the content our users want,” says Ryan Urtheil, Director of Operations, Parade Magazine.

For brands, AddThis is expanding its social suite to activate data for paid-owned-earned strategies with their Social+ audience product set, which serves over 500 brands and their agencies. Social+ audiences leverage the largest social and interest graph on the web, enabling advertisers to tap how users are connected by social behavior, brand affiliation and intent.

“We utilize AddThis data products and services to drive receptive new 1-800-Flowers users into our conversion funnel. For Mother’s Day, we are relying on AddThis’ custom modeled audience targeting capabilities to reach users at significant scale for greater efficiency and ROI during our biggest holiday period,” says Will Ferguson, Senior Director of Online Marketing, 1-800-Flowers.

“We partner with the AddThis team on social data solutions because AddThis’ audiences provide quality reach we can’t get elsewhere,” said Xaxis’ Eugene Becker.

As of May 10, 2012, the AddThis, Clearspring Technologies, and XGraph will consolidate and move forward under the name AddThis. XGraph will remain a standalone brand for the data technology and processing platform of AddThis.

About AddThis

AddThis is the leader in socially connecting publishers, services and advertisers to audiences on the open web. Reaching more than 1.3 billion unique users monthly, AddThis’ social tools and analytics are used on more than 14 million unique domains to distribute and track digital content such as web pages, widgets, and videos to social networks, bookmarking sites, blogs, and more. AddThis’ proprietary XGraph data technology processes 70 percent of the world’s web traffic to deliver real-time insights, data-driven tools, and high-performing audience products. Visit addthis.com to learn more.

Today, we are announcing enhancements to our privacy toolkit that have been built in partnership with clients who are taking immediate action to comply with new privacy laws in Europe. With the UK’s looming May 26th deadline for the EU Cookie Directive, many companies are faced with the daunting prospect of potentially rearchitecting their websites to comply with the cookie consent requirement.

Specifically, sites need granular-level control over the tag code that sets non-essential cookies on every page of their sites. BrightTag ONE-Click Privacy simplifies compliance by leveraging the power of our BrightTag ONE integration platform to dynamically manage which tags and cookies are delivered to a computer or device based on a user’s consent preferences.

Because the EU regulations are new, though, it’s up to the website owner’s privacy team to build its own policies and make judgment calls about which cookies are essential and how to best gain cookie consent. Because regulations differ, the approach taken in the UK may not be the approach that’s needed in other countries, even though the user may be visiting the exact same website.

In partnering with the privacy teams at our global clients, we have learned that the ability to implement privacy governance now – and adapt quickly to changes as EU regulations evolve in the future – are critical to the success of compliance programs. As a result, we have added the following enhancements to BrightTag ONE:

• Flexible Policy Setup and Management – Simultaneous support for opt-in/opt-out privacy choices in multiple countries
• Intelligent Defaults – BrightTag ONE Partner tags now include a default privacy classification that serves as a starting point for privacy policies
• Granular Controls – Simple interface for categorizing individual tags and setting up custom privacy policies

We recognize that the privacy landscape is confusing which is why we have set out to design a flexible set of privacy tools that allow brands to easily implement what can often be a complex set of requirements across the globe.

Turnkey EU Privacy Solution Through Integration with TRUSTe
Also today, we are announcing a partnership with TRUSTe, the leading global privacy management solution provider. TRUSTe has a full suite of solutions for EU Privacy including their real-time preference management platform, TRUSTed Consent Manager.

Our integration with TRUSTed Consent Manager extends the capabilities of TRUSTe’s product for indicating “express” or “implied” consent to place cookies on a site. BrightTag’s enabling technology ensures that when a user opts out, the tags that place cookies are suppressed and no tracking code is placed on the end user’s computer or device.

You can read more about our integration with TRUSTe on the TRUSTed Consent Manager product page as well as in the press release.

Interested in more?

• Learn the difference between tags and cookies in our Tag 101 FAQ
• Read more about the BrightTag ONE-Click Privacy feature.
• Request a demo of BrightTag ONE by clicking the “Get a Demo” button at the top of this page.
• Contact us to learn more about BrightTag’s views on privacy

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – TRUSTe, the leading global privacy management solutions provider, and BrightTag, a technology platform provider for the digital marketing industry, today announced a technology partnership to expand the TRUSTe EU Privacy Management Suite. The technology partnership will integrate TRUSTe’s comprehensive EU privacy solutions with BrightTag’s industry-leading tag management and integration platform, helping companies to quickly and easily address the EU Cookie Directive.

With this turnkey solution, businesses can seamlessly combine their tag and privacy management services, delivering on-site notice for informed consent, as well as assuring consumer consent choices.

“Our collaboration with BrightTag allows us to deliver TRUSTe’s EU privacy solutions at the source of data collection,” said Chris Babel, CEO for TRUSTe. “This deep integration benefits companies by enabling them to address the EU Cookie Directive and also benefits consumers by providing additional assurance that their privacy choices are being honored.”

“As an established leader creating privacy tools for consumers, TRUSTe provides website operators with a comprehensive out-of-the-box privacy solution to simplify cookie auditing and address the EU Cookie Directive’s requirement for informed consent,” said Mike Sands, CEO for BrightTag. “BrightTag’s enabling technology helps TRUSTe deliver a robust cookie consent solution that can be simply and quickly implemented.”

TRUSTe and BrightTag Integration Delivers Turnkey Solution for the EU Cookie Directive Through integration with the BrightTag ONE(TM) platform, TRUSTe has extended the capabilities of its EU Privacy Management Suite. TRUSTe’s flagship high-performance, real-time preference management platform, TRUSTed Consent Manager, is now linked with the unique capabilities of the BrightTag ONE integration platform that controls when and where tags and cookies are placed on a site-by-site basis. Consent Manager allows companies to:

– Quickly and easily implement a full suite of EU privacy and tag management controls that address the EU Cookie Directive, including:
– auditing,
– notice and consent, and
– centralized and simplified tag management and cookie controls;
– Deliver control over how third-party marketing and analytics tags collect and distribute data on their sites; and
– Classify tracking technologies on their sites in order to adhere to different levels of data collection standards required by the EU
Cookie Directive.

The TRUSTe-BrightTag solution also ensures the very highest privacy standards by leveraging TRUSTe’s more than 14 years of online privacy expertise and recognized leadership as the leading global privacy management solutions provider.

The EU Cookie Directive requires that websites provide consumers with simple and easy-to-understand information regarding their choices for consent*, yet most websites were not designed for cookie control. Featuring the TRUSTed Consent Manager, the TRUSTe-BrightTag solution gives consumers clear transparency and choice regarding the collection and use of their personal data and can be easily implemented by website operators.

TRUSTed Consent Manager supports the informed consent requirement of the EU Cookie Directive and allows websites to implement either express or implied consent notices. As website operators determine the best way to communicate informed consent to their end users, they can leverage BrightTag’s highly flexible platform to only allow cookies to be set that the consumer has approved.

Availability

TRUSTed Consent Manager and the privacy features within BrightTag ONE are available separately now, and are also available as an integrated solution. For additional information, contact TRUSTe at eu_sales@truste.com or 1-888-878-7830 or visit http://www.truste.com/eu-consent-manager .

About BrightTag

BrightTag provides industry-leading tag management and data distribution solutions that help companies make their online data instantly useful in any web or mobile application, while solving fundamental privacy, data quality and site performance challenges. The BrightTag ONE(TM) integration platform moves beyond tags by directly connecting sites to services in real time, eliminating barriers and speeding innovation. BrightTag’s clients include many of the world’s top brands and hundreds of online marketing and analytics providers continue to integrate their technology with BrightTag ONE. BrightTag was named by VentureWire and an independent board of review at Dow Jones as one of the 50 most innovative technology companies of 2011 and a member of the FASTech50.

About TRUSTe

TRUSTe is the leading global privacy management solutions provider and offers a broad suite of solutions that enable multinational companies to safely and efficiently handle the customer data powering their online businesses — including advertising, cloud services, mobile applications, and websites. Over 5,000 web properties from top companies like Apple, Disney, eBay, Forbes, HP, Microsoft, and rely on TRUSTe to ensure compliance with evolving and complex international privacy requirements. TRUSTe’s mission, based on a “Truth in Privacy” framework, is built on a solid foundation of transparency, choice and accountability regarding the collection and use of personal information. TRUSTe’s privacy seal is recognized and trusted by millions of consumers worldwide as a sign of responsible privacy practices. For additional information on TRUSTe and its offerings, please visit http://www.truste.com .

*It is therefore of paramount importance that users be provided with clear and comprehensive information when engaging in any activity which could result in such storage or gaining of access. The methods of providing information and offering the right to refuse should be as user-friendly as possible.

EMERYVILLE, CA – Exponential Interactive, the global digital advertising company, today launched Appsnack (TM), a mobile advertising division that provides in-app, rich-media brand engagement solutions for brand advertisers.

Appsnack provides advanced HTML5 rich-media advertising that delivers sophisticated and engaging brand experiences that behave like bite-sized apps, hence the name Appsnack. The ads enable users to engage with video, product info, and, for example, locations of nearby retail stores.  Appsnack will use Exponential’s e-X Advertising Intelligence platform to bring advanced audience targeting to mobile ads, so brands can reach their prospective customers and engage them with relevant, high-impact campaigns.

It has appointed Sandy Shanman as general manager, mobile, to lead this new division. Mr. Shanman was most recently senior VP, mobile solution sales, strategy and business development at cloud-based applications provider Limelight Networks. Prior to Limelight he held VP sales roles at Quattro Wireless, now Apple’s iAds, and AOL-owned advertising network Advertising.com.

Mr. Shanman says, “Rich media and video are rapidly becoming the most effective brand vehicles in the app economy, just like on the web. There’s a tremendous opportunity for brands and their agencies to capitalize on this trend in a more intelligent way, and that’s what Appsnack will provide.”

Mr. Shanman and team will oversee relationships with agencies such as MediaCom, Pereira & O’Dell, Starcom, Universal McCann and Zenith Optimedia.  Appsnack will also capitalize on Exponential’s global footprint to deliver its offering to agencies across the globe.

Dan Beer, media and strategy supervisor at Pereira & O’Dell, says, “As audiences increase their time on both display and mobile platforms, it will be extremely helpful to have a single source of actionable intelligence to use to target in both environments. Appsnack’s solution is the kind of comprehensive approach we’ve come to expect from Exponential.”

Appsnack will also provide a comprehensive monetization solution for publishers and app developers. “App developers will capitalize on Appsnack’s rich-media ads via a lightweight SDK. We will offer some of the most engaging mobile ads for iOS and Android that leverage our media efficiency layer and custom HTML5 rich-media creative development,” says Mr. Shanman.

The new mobile solution is being offered to Exponential’s existing publisher partners who have allocated at least 12 billion in-app mobile impressions, including BuddyTV Guide, ChaCha, Dictionary.com, goodreads, MapMyRUN, MeFeedia, Photobucket and XE. Concurrently, Shanman and his team will be driving relationships with new publishers and app developers through the company’s sales presence in 25 countries worldwide.

“Trying to navigate the complexities of the mobile ecosystem can be challenging, particularly when trying to maximize revenue across multiple mobile devices. Appsnack provides the advanced technology and seamless integration we need to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible,” says Richard Jalichandra, CEO of MapMyRun.

Appsnack (www.appsnack.com) is a mobile advertising solution that provides in-app, rich-media brand engagement campaigns for brand advertisers. It is a division of Exponential Interactive, the global digital advertising company that also owns global online advertising provider Tribal Fusion, engagement video platform Firefly Video and in-stream video advertising specialist AdoTube. Exponential is headquartered in Emeryville, California and offers its solution to brand advertisers in 25 countries.

Los Angeles – GumGum, the world’s largest in-image ad platform, today announced an agreement which will introduce in-image advertising in Canada for the first time. GumGum is partnering with Montreal-based Oboxmedia, a media company with more than 40 websites targeted to over 8 million online entertainment conscious Canadians aged 18 to 44 yrs. old. This is the first time GumGum has been offered outside the US where it pioneered in-image advertising which turns publisher photographs into interactive user experiences by placing contextual ads on part of the images.

GumGum’s proprietary image recognition and targeting technology behind the ad placements can yield 20 times the click-through rate of traditional online ads. In the US, GumGum works with online publishers like Time Warner, Hearst Corporation, Tribune, TMZ, Gannett and Glam Media.

“Oboxmedia is a one-stop shop for followers of entertainment, lifestyle, sports, auto, and music and sets the conversational agenda for millions of young, passionate, and creative tastemakers and their social circles. Images play a central role in that process. Now, with GumGum, Oboxmedia can monetize their photos while creating an additive user experience,” says Ophir Tanz, CEO and founder of GumGum. “We’re excited to serve the Canadian territories in partnership with Oboxmedia.”

“To us, successful online branding is about more than generating clicks. It’s about getting face time with the right users in environments that support the brand’s promise,” says Christopher Rovny, Oboxmedia’s co-founder & Vice-President, Business Development. “With GumGum, we introduce a unique and captivating way of extending brand messages to contextually relevant images. In addition to helping brands reach audiences predisposed to their message, the GumGum model gives us a completely new monetization stream and provides brands the opportunity to reach highly targeted mass audiences.”

With more than 40 websites attracting over 9 million monthly unique visitors,  Oboxmedia (www.oboxmedia.com) is a one-stop shop for French- and English-speaking Canadian followers of entertainment, lifestyle, sports, and music. Focused on delivering “digital engagement,” Oboxmedia offers its clients access to core entertainment audiences, enabling them to reach these audiences exactly where they play and consume media both. Brands become the center of uniquely produced videos, photos, editorials, and real life events with Oboxmedia’s signature style that never fails to attract the exact audience. Based in Montreal, the company was founded in 2009.

GumGum (www.gumgum.com) is the world’s largest in-image ad platform and a Quantcast Top 10 Network, reaching 150 million unique visitors and serving billions of in-image ads per month.

GumGum’s proprietary image recognition and targeting technology helps garner user engagement through highly targeted campaigns that yield 20 times the click-through rate of traditional advertising units. In addition to helping brands reach audiences predisposed to the marketer’s message, the GumGum model gives publishers a completely new monetization stream and provides brands the opportunity to reach highly targeted mass audiences.

Hundreds of the Internet’s premier websites, including Time Warner Inc., Tribune, Scripps, Gannett, Hearst Corporation, Internet Brands Inc. and Glam Network rely on GumGum to turn photographs into lucrative interactive experiences by overlaying text, banner or Flash ad units on top of the images.

Founded in 2007, GumGum is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA and backed by investments from GRP Partners, First Round Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Crosscut Ventures.

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its Q1 2012 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, showing that online retail spending reached $44.3 billion for the quarter, up 17 percent versus year ago. This represents the tenth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.

“The first quarter of this year was especially strong for retail e-commerce as we returned to year-over-year growth rates in the high teens, numbers we haven’t seen since 2007,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “While the economic recovery continues to be painfully slow, the channel shift to e-commerce appears to be accelerating. This presents opportunities but also challenges for brick-and-mortar retailers if they can’t hold onto their offline market share in the digital world. E-commerce has reached critical mass in several product categories, and it will be important to monitor these sales trends by category in order to correctly gauge the impact e-commerce is having on overall retailer performance.”

Other highlights from Q1 2012 include:

• The top-performing online product categories were: Digital Content & Subscriptions, Computer Software, Consumer Electronics, Jewelry & Watches and Event Tickets. Each category grew at least 17 percent vs. year ago.
• 48.8 percent of e-commerce transactions included free shipping, the highest percentage for a quarter on record outside of the holiday season. Only Q4 2011 (51.8 percent) and Q4 2010 (49.3 percent) have been higher overall.
• According to comScore’s Q1 2012 Retail survey, 38 percent of tablet owners have made a purchase on their devices within the past month. Apparel was the most popular category for purchase among tablet shoppers.

Webinar Series: State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy through Q1 2012

Join Gian Fulgoni and Andrew Lipsman, VP of Industry Analysis, as they present an update of the state of the U.S. online retail economy through Q1 2012 in a live webinar on Thursday, May 17 from 2-3 p.m. EST / 1-2 p.m. CST / 11-12 p.m. PST. New topics being covered include retail “showrooming” and shopping behavior on tablets.

To register for the webinar, please visit: www.comscore.com/SOR_Q1_2012_Webinar

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Cost-per-engagement pioneer tackles wasted impressions with exposure-based viewable impressions pricing; launches new “Content Ads”

Former Universal McCann EVP Assumes New Role as SVP Business Development

Frequent Business Travellers Are 83% More Likely to Try or Buy New Products or Services

Social media research firm is joining Cognizant at the NAB Show to demonstrate how television viewer social media conversations can provide new insights to advertising and media partners

Performance advertising network offers solutions for websites to make money and enrich web content

Ahead of Digital Content NewFronts, AOL Becomes First Major Publisher to Offer TV-Like GRP Guarantee for Online Video

Leverages Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings^TM Measurement to Guarantee On-Target Audience Delivery

With Guohe SDK for Windows Phone, Microsoft aims to provide app developers a new choice in developing their mobile advertising strategy and achieving profit. Microsoft will continue to cooperate with Guohe to better serve Windows Phone developers and to explore an integrated ad management solution to help developers enhance profits via mobile ads.

Neo Zhang, co-founder of Guohe, says, “To be part of Microsoft’s Windows Phone SDK Gallery is a significant milestone for us. We firmly believe that Windows Phone is a platform with substantial potential and we are honored to be part of it. This partnership will surely bring larger value and better mobile intelligence experience to the mobile internet ecosystem, and to create more business opportunities for app developers in China. ”

Guohe is dedicated to providing the best autonomous ad management experiences and supporting developers in mobile ad exchange and sales. With Guohe, developers can manage and analyze ads in their own apps, for instance, tracking detailed statistics such as ad exposure, CTR, daily ad-receivers, total ad-receivers, etc. Moreover, according to pre-set ad proportion and priority, Guohe can automatically optimize ad performance based on location, demographics, etc. Guohe also provides unique direct advertising services for developers and advertisers, ensuring outstanding brands’ exposure in top apps.

Guohe SDK for Windows Phone is now available for download: http://guohead.com/v/sdk.html

About Guohe

Guohe (guohead.com) is a leading mobile advertising management platform in China dedicated to helping developers realize business value for their apps and provide advertisers with mobile ad planning, analysis and optimization services. Guohe has integrated 15 mainstream advertising networks both inside and outside China and concentrates on providing premium advertising optimization and management services.

Guohe has won recognition from prominent experts within the industry and has been adopted by many of the elite developers in China since it was founded at the end of 2010. Guohe has offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei. Guohe was awarded “Best Mobile Ad Platform” at the end of 2011 by Sohu IT, and nominated for ChinaMode’s “Award for Most Attended Start-ups” and Business Value magazine’s “Award Internet Innovation in China”.

Joining BlueSnap Ecosystem, subscription based Zibaba platform offers new way to sell on Facebook and maximize revenue

Cupertino, Calif. – BlueKai, the world’s most connected customer data cloud for data management, analysis and activation, today announced the launch of a new partner program.  The BlueKai Partner Program is designed to give marketers an easy way to evaluate all of BlueKai’s over 110 (and growing) partners, offering a range of solutions for media execution, analytics, attribution, site and creative optimization and more.

The BlueKai Partner Program (www.bluekai.com/partner), further positions BlueKai as the category leader in the burgeoning data management space as widespread adoption of data-driven marketing strategies continues to grow.  The partnerships reflected in the program represent three major trends that are currently taking place:

• ·         Marketers and agencies continue to have a myriad of options when it comes to data-powered media.  As a result, real-time data access through seamless integration with other media buying processes are key to deciding which partners to choose

• ·         Data Management Platforms (DMPs) are no longer just tools for marketers.  Rather, the marketplace is witnessing quick adoption within the publishing community as well as data aggregators who are looking to better manage and monetize their data assets.

• ·         Data utilization is getting more mature and is extending beyond just ad targeting.  A whole new realm of app partners are now plugging in data as a service to help inform and power their own solutions, from audience analytics, modeling, attribution, site optimization and dynamic creative optimization, to name just a few.

“BlueKai’s mission is to create seamless data connectivity, not just from an infrastructure standpoint but also from a partnership perspective,” said Omar Tawakol, CEO of BlueKai.  “Our vast network of partners is an indication of the growth of data-driven choices that are now available to marketers and publishers to better realize the potential of data.  This new partner program was created to make this ecosystem more accessible to marketers who are evaluating these innovative services and to create partnership dialogue among various solution providers.”

As part of the program, BlueKai Partners will be segmented into the following areas where they will be assigned various badges that denote the level of integration, partnership or affiliation with BlueKai and its data program:

• ·         Media Partners – Partners (ad networks, exchanges, trading desks, publishers, etc.) who tap into BlueKai’s vast data assets to target ads more effectively and efficiently across online or video inventory.  Integration levels will be assigned based on data transfer methods, ability to ingest media data and integration into BlueKai’s interfaces.  Integration is key to maximizing data transfer and targetable audience size, building scale in the shortest time possible and gaining real-time and integrated access to BlueKai’s 3^rd party data.  Badges denote further partnership attributes including international coverage and incorporation of data for analytics.

• ·         Branded Data Providers – Includes data aggregator partners whose third party audience data is made available for acquisition in the BlueKai Exchange.  These badges showcase a variety of data types including Intent, Retail, CPG, Travel, Auto, Behavioral, Offline, B2B, Financial and Demographic.

• ·         App Partners – Partners who are tapping into BlueKai data as a service and building value-add solutions for Attribution Models, Video, Modeling, Survey, Social and Creative and Site Optimization and beyond.

• ·         DMP Partners – Marketer, publisher and data aggregator partners who leverage BlueKai’s data management platform to manage, monetize, analyze and take action on first party data assets.

• ·         Privacy Partners – BlueKai is affiliated with these partners to drive initiatives around self-regulation, data certification as well as consumer transparency and privacy.

“It’s become increasingly important for marketers and publishers to connect their data given the rapid adoption of integrated marketing,” said Bruce Beigel, Senior Managing Director at Winterberry Group.  “This partner program will help to simplify the the whole process of connecting the data sources to each other and making the data actionable across a variety of data use cases, campaign execution platforms  and marketing channels.”

BlueKai recently announced a partnership with Cognitive Match, who joins the BlueKai Partner Program as an app partner.  Cognitive Match, developer of market leading Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) solutions, is tapping into BlueKai’s platform for data intelligence to inform its dynamic creative offering to marketers.  For more information, see press release.

About BlueKai
BlueKai (www.bluekai.com) provides the leading data management platform (DMP) that connects, analyzes and activates proprietary data assets for marketers and publishers. By aggregating all the customer data assets within an organization, BlueKai’s platform provides an intelligent unified view of consumers allowing for more relevant interactions across all touch points. This enables BlueKai customers to achieve higher marketing performance, more customers and more revenue. The BlueKai platform is uniquely integrated with the world’s largest marketplace for anonymous 3rd party audience data providing unparalleled audience prospecting and analytics.

The BlueKai customer data grid is the most connected and most adopted data platform in the ad tech ecosystem. Trusted by 6 of the top Fortune 15 corporations and numerous global brands, the privately-held company is based in Cupertino, Calif., and is a recipient of the 2011 OnMedia B2B Company of the Year award.

The Best Performing TV Ads for Tax Prep Began Airing the Day After Christmas; TurboTax and H&R Block Dominate the List of Top Tax Ads

With highly personalized recommendations, publishers see 4X increase in videos viewed, enabling greater revenue streams for content on smartphones, tablets, PCs and connected TVs

Agencies, brands and publishers can create VAST-compatible ads

Neal Richter, PhD, The Rubicon Project, and Qayed Shareef Join Renowned Team Providing Strategic Guidance to mediaFORGE

New York – LiveIntent today announces LFX, the first platform designed to allow publishers to manage and monetize their valuable subscribers wherever they are – in email, on mobile devices and across the web. LiveIntent’s LFX provides premium publishers with the tools they need to control access and optimize yield of direct-sold, house, DSPs and Agency Trading Desks’ demand. It also allows advertisers to efficiently reach subscribers in the same way they access premium display on the web – programmatically or through a publisher’s direct ad sales force.

According to LiveIntent’s CEO, Matt Keiser, “LiveIntent’s LFX delivers the features and benefits publishers and advertisers have come to expect from other online media channels, while reaching a publisher’s most engaged customers, the brand loyalist that trusts a publisher’s content and ads.”

LFX for Advertisers

In addition to publishers’ direct ad sales forces, advertisers, DSPs, and agency trading desks now have the ability to quickly and easily buy and bid on a publisher’s most engaged audience: subscribers. Campaigns can be targeted based on location, device, time of day and browser, as well as demographics including gender, age and household income. For even greater targeting sophistication, first and third party data can be used, including data sets from Bizo,Rapleaf and Axciom. LiveIntent is also the only company within the email ecosystem providing advertisers with brand safety options through a partnership with DoubleVerify and consumers assurance through the DAA’s AdChoices program.

“Marketers trust Bizo to help them reach targeted audiences of business professionalsw, wherever they are online,” said Russell Glass, CEO, Bizo. “Through our partnership with LiveIntent, we are able to add email newsletters to the Bizo platform, providing the brands that we support access to targeted and engaged business professionals through the email newsletters they read everyday.”

Advertising partners already contracted to use LFX range from agencies to DSPs to trading desks. Launch partners include Centro, Booyah Advertising, Horizon Media, Merkley+Partners (Smart Car), Razorfish (Intel), Adnetik, Neo@Ogilvy, Connection Engine, andVarick Media Management.

“Our clients are always seeking the best ways to reach their audience through premium channels,” said Alex Horowitz, Senior Manager of Strategy andPartnership, VMM. “LiveIntent gives us the ability to reach a premium audience through the most active and unique channel – email, across both web and mobile devices.”

“The granularity of the audiences we can reach using LFX will play a key role in our upcoming campaigns,” said Christiane Grando, Strategy Director, Razorfish. “LFX makes access to premium subscribers much easier, and we have confidence that we are getting our campaign in front of an audience with a built-in level of trust.”

LFX for Publishers

LiveIntent currently powers the email ad inventory management for a growing number of ComScore Top 100 Publishers. One of the publishers planning to leverage LFX is LearnVest, a daily financial email targeted to women.

“LFX has improved the efficiency and deliverability of our email ads. With enhanced targeting capabilities, we have more premium inventory to package and sell,creating a better experience for both our marketing partners and users.” Jacquelyn White, VP Advertising

“Email advertising is one of the most effective forms of online advertising – email is the number one app on computers, smart phones and tablets,” said Keiser. “With worldwide email accounts numbering more than 2.9 billion, an efficient solution for reaching this engaged audience was overdue.”

About LiveIntent

LiveIntent is the only company with a real-time display ad platform for email. LiveIntent works with publishers, advertisers and agencies. Providing the only ad serving, SSP, DSP / trading desk and exchange capabilities for reaching subscribers. The company is venture-backed by Shasta Ventures, Battery Ventures, First RoundCapital, Lerer Ventures and Grape Arbor VC. LiveIntent was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in NYC. For more information and a real-time demonstration of the company’s technology, visit www.liveintent.com.

SAN FRANCISCO – BrightRoll, the world’s largest provider of digital video advertising services, today announces it is teaming up with Google’s AdMob to allow publishers and developers to seamlessly integrate video ads into their mobile apps and generate revenue from premium advertisers.

Through this collaboration, publishers and developers who have the AdMob SDK can now use its Ad Network Mediation to access BrightRoll pre-roll ad units through the BrightRoll AdMob Adapter. BrightRoll is the first video ad network available through AdMob Mediation, which lets publishers manage their networks to increase their fill and eCPM.

“App developers often work with several ad networks to maximize mobile revenue. The updated Mediation solution in AdMob’s new SDK 6.0 makes that process easier and enables developers to more effectively build their businesses,” said Clay Kellogg, head of mobile platform and partnership strategy at Google. “Brightroll’s efforts to make their video ads available via AdMob’s Mediation solution represent an industry-leading example of innovation in mobile advertising.”

Mobile video advertising offers publishers attractive revenue opportunities and superior CPM rates compared to traditional mobile display ads. BrightRoll adapts advertisers’ traditional TV or web video content into pre-roll ad units for a broad range of mobile devices including iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets. BrightRoll currently runs global, large-scale campaigns in every major advertising category, including entertainment, CPG, business, auto, financial services, and food and beverage.

“Google and BrightRoll are pleased that publishers and developers can now harness the power of dynamic pre-roll ads on the AdMob SDK to improve in-app experience and drive revenue growth,” said Tod Sacerdoti, CEO and founder at BrightRoll. “This integration substantially expands the BrightRoll mobile offering and gives advertisers increased reach and scale on mobile devices.”

About BrightRoll

BrightRoll is the world’s leading provider of digital video advertising services. The company has access to billions of monthly digital video impressions across the globe through its network and exchange (BRX). The company enables advertisers to execute smart digital video advertisers across the web and mobile landscape. Proprietary buying technology, combined with full site disclosure and flexible targeting provides BrightRoll network and exchange customers with the reach, frequency and scalability needed to achieve campaign goals. The company provides publishers with access to the industry’s largest video marketplace to maximize monetization of their inventory. BrightRoll is a privately held, venture-backed company headquartered in San Francisco, California.

For more information visit brightroll.com or brx.com

Lewis is charged with helping agencies, trading desks and DSPs build more efficient and effective video campaigns. Lewis joins from Xaxis, the company formed from the joint venture between the MIG and GroupM, as director of strategic planning for EMEA. After starting his career at ad network 24/7 Real Media, Lewis moved agency side to Carat International.  He then worked at Lycos Europe to help it grow its network capabilities, before returning to 24/7 to launch WPP’s demand side platform.

Anne Peiré is responsible for helping agencies and ad networks build their businesses in France and throughout Europe. She joins Adap.tv from the Paris office of German TV network, RTL Group, where she was international sales manager.  Direct clients included Clarins Group, Ubisoft, BNP Paribas and media agencies included Havas, Mediacom and OMD.

Brian Fitzpatrick, managing director of Adap.tv in Europe states: “Lewis and Anne are an exceptional addition to our European team. With 15 years of combined experience in digital media, they will ensure that clients have the insights and tools they need to achieve success in video advertising.”

About Adap.tv

Adap.tv builds technology that destroys the inefficiencies of television and video advertising. It delivers a programmatic way to plan, buy, sell and measure across multiple sources, screens and methods of transacting. Adap.tv is comprised of two operational units – the Adap.tv Platform and the Adap.tv Marketplace.  The Adap.tv Platform provides advertisers, publishers and ad networks with automated ad trading solutions customized to meet any business goal. As the world’s largest source of video supply and demand, the Adap.tv Marketplace has thousands of sellers and hundreds of campaigns running daily. Headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., Adap.tv has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London and Sydney. Adap.tv is a privately held company backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Gemini Israel Funds, Redpoint Ventures and Spark Capital. For more information, please visit http://adap.tv/. Follow Adap.tv on Twitter @Adaptv.

NEW YORK – IgnitionOne, the global leader in digital marketing solutions, is launching major improvements to its Digital Marketing Suite (DMS), that will allow marketers to easily compare and contrast multiple attribution profiles from within the Analytics section of the DMS. The enhancement will open the door to more innovative and beneficial use of attribution and improve the valuation of marketing channels.

IgnitionOne first introduced attribution modeling with its DMS in 2009 and is unique in the industry by offering attribution as an integrated part of the DMS and the optimization process. This update to the platform will allow marketers to set up a secondary attribution profile that runs side-by-side with the primary profile that their media is being optimized against. This secondary profile will offer insights on how an alternate attribution profile would change how different channels are being credited and how that would affect optimization.

Key benefits to customers

- Allows customers to look at how different attribution settings will affect their online marketing data and goals without having to alter their current attribution profile being optimized against in the DMS.

- Allows customers to test attribution profiles that are not based on last click

- Opens the door to increased and more innovative use of attribution by allowing for testing new models

- When coupled with real-time, fully attributed data, IgnitionOne’s DMS gives marketers better insights to not only decide which attribution profile is best for them but also enables them to make it actionable with automated optimization

“Attribution is not a feature, tactic or a product — it is an integrated part of the digital marketing process,” said Will Margiloff, CEO of IgnitionOne. “There has been a lag in adoption due to marketers’ hesitance to migrate away from legacy last-click reporting metrics used for years. They all agree that it’s a flawed model, but lack the tools to evangelize acceptance of more accurate and sophisticated modeling. We solve this problem by providing the ability to see previews of alternate results.”

One of the first IgnitionOne clients to benefit from this update is CPO Commerce, America’s leading online tool retailer. “Having access to multiple attribution models will help us continually optimize our marketing investment, ensuring we are meeting our customer acquisition goals and our ROI targets,” said Dale Fujimoto, Director of Marketing at CPO Commerce.

I Spy Marketing, a digital marketing agency that works with brands including Radisson Edwardian, Harrods and Jobsite, will also be receiving the update. “Understanding how different attribution models will impact our optimisation gives us the data we need to find the optimal set up. This feature will allow us to see what attribution profile will give us best return for media spend, without any financial risk.” said Andy Siviter, Operations Manager for I Spy Marketing.

About IgnitionOne
IgnitionOne, the global leader in digital marketing solutions, enables companies to integrate and centralize cross-channel marketing efforts within one platform, allowing for deeper insights and greater online success. Managing over $1 billion of advertising annually across search, display and social, IgnitionOne provides the world’s top marketers with media optimization, cross-channel attribution and website conversion solutions. IgnitionOne’s solutions are powered by proprietary, integrated technology: IgnitionOne’s Digital Marketing Suite®.

IgnitionOne currently powers more than $30 billion in revenue each year for leading brands, including General Motors, Chico’s, Ann Taylor, La Quinta, Travel Guard and Fiat, as well as advertising agencies such as MRM Worldwide and CyberAgent.

For more information, please visit http://www.ignitionone.com or follow the company on Twitter @ignitionone.

NEW YORK – Simulmedia, a targeted television advertising company, announced that it will shortly close a new $6 million round from existing investors Avalon Ventures, Union Square Ventures and Time Warner Investments, to help finance Simulmedia’s fast-growing targeted ad network. This is the company’s third institutional round of financing, which combined with a seed round, totals $27.25 million.

“It is highly gratifying to have your early stage investors stay with you as you grow,” says Dave Morgan, Simulmedia’s founder and CEO. “And grow we have. Over the past 9 months the company has gone from 20 to 40 employees and revenue has doubled every quarter.”

The Simulmedia Audience Network is the world’s first data-driven, targeted ad network for television. Its TV viewing prediction and analytics platform is powered by data from more than 17 million set-top boxes. The company uses its platform to more efficiently target ads reaching all 116 million US TV households including analog homes. To date, the company has successfully run over 200 campaigns for 11 different media agencies on behalf of 24 different TV advertisers in the entertainment, travel, and financial services categories. In each campaign, Simulmedia has delivered more target audience reach at an average cost lower than 75 percent of the other networks purchased by its advertisers.

“Twenty years ago, the average US household had access to 28 TV channels. Today, households have over 165 channels and have access to over 10,000 programs per month,” says Mr. Morgan. “The average household reach of a 30-second spot was 20 percent in the 1970s. Today, it’s less than 5 percent. Television advertising’s reach problem is the challenge we are built to help resolve.”

“Simulmedia’s impact on the $70 billion US TV ad market is an irresistible force meeting an immovable object,” says Rich Levandov, Managing Director, Avalon Ventures. “We like Simulmedia’s odds in this match-up. The team has done it before.”

In a recent campaign for a major national travel brand, Simulmedia was the second most efficient network and delivered broadcast network scale at cable efficiency. The campaign covered 13% of the advertiser’s target audience of 25-54 year-olds for only 9.4% of budget. Simulmedia delivered nearly 87% more reach than the network average. The company reached more unique 25-54 year-olds at a lower cost per person than two of the big broadcast networks.

“We really like our investment in Simulmedia–they are game changers for the TV industry. It’s the first company to bring web-like ad targeting to television and do it at scale, and the company is being rewarded with real revenue growth,” says Rachel Lam, Group Managing Director, Time Warner Investments. “We expect Simulmedia to be a very big company.”

Simulmedia, Inc. (www.simulmedia.com) is a New York City-based television ad targeting company and operates the Simulmedia Audience Network, the world’s first data-driven audience network for television.  The company’s targeting platform leverages predictive technologies and anonymous viewing data from more than 30 million US TV viewers to help national advertisers and their agencies better reach their target audiences, and better measure the results. Simulmedia aggregates TV audiences through partnerships with TV system operators and national networks and reaches all 116 million US TV households. Over the past year, the company helped national marketers and their agencies target, deliver and measure more than 200 campaigns and see results which were 25-300% better than they were able to achieve with traditional TV ad scheduling and targeting methods.

Founded and led by Internet entrepreneur Dave Morgan, Simulmedia is backed by Avalon Ventures, Union Square Ventures and Time Warner Investments.

Businesses also exploring the power of Strings to extend their brands and deeply engage with customers

New York –  In today’s social-centric world where people continuously connect with others digitally to share experiences, gopogo (www.gopogo.com), a geo-location platform for recording, sharing and discovering connected experiences, announced its open beta test and launch of its community. More than 10,000 people in New York and Los Angeles are currently testing gopogo and creating “Strings” – sharable social objects consisting of any group of places that have relevance and context for the user.  gopogo is available now online and will soon be available for download to iOS mobile devices.

gopogo’s Strings let users capture and record multiple activities or experiences linked together in succession to form a complete thematic experience or story – such as “Sublime Times on the High Line” starting with hot coffee and cool tunes at Mojo Coffee; meeting friends at Cafe Cluny for fine French food and celebrity watching; walking it off via the High Line elevated park; then getting some culture at the Gagosian Art Gallery. Afterward, the Strings – complete with photos, videos and commentary – can be archived and shared on social networks and with the gopogo community. By browsing through gopogo’s library of user-generated Strings, users can also discover other experiences organized by location, theme, or areas of interest.

“There are plenty of individual apps that let you check in, write and read reviews, upload photos, publish interesting anecdotes, play location-based games, and even earn virtual and real social capital.  The problem is that they are all just fragmented collections of information, that can be time-consuming to manage individually and difficult to package and share with others as a complete, thematic experience,” said Jason Alan Snyder, founder and CTO, gopogo. “Only gopogo provides social media users with a single platform to record and save experiences, and then share them across all of the other social media platforms.”

gopogo’s Strings combine the best aspects of many top social media platforms, but it excels at providing context and giving people the tools to tell a complete story about the user’s inter-connected experiences. On one hand, Strings can be highly informational and filled with useful, practical and factual information.  At the same time, they can be a platform for storytelling and self-expression, by capturing personal anecdotes and sentiments that defined the experience and showcase how places connect. Together Strings create a complete, narrated experience that can be saved, shared and discovered by others looking to learn more about you, or simply to be inspired by the things you have done.

“Life is a series of connected experiences, and with social media we’re sharing more information about ourselves than ever before.  At the same time, we’re also losing most of what we’ve shared because there is no easy way to archive the information, or make it available for others to easily discover,” said Jason Alan Snyder, founder and CTO, gopogo. “We believe that people want a simpler way to chronicle their real-world experiences, and then archive and share them with others as digital social objects. gopogo gives them a simple way to do this, plus a built-in community of other people who like to share experiences and discover new ones.”

In addition to gopogo’s consumer application, the gopogo platform is currently being tested by businesses, brands and content creators as a new way to engage with their customers, build brand awareness and loyalty, drive traffic and sales, and create connections between the digital and physical worlds.  These businesses can create their own branded Strings to promote themselves, distribute coupons or capture valuable insights about their customers. Or, they can license gopogo’s technology via its white label program, enabling them to create, promote and manage special offers and events targeting their existing member base.

About gopogo

gopogo is a geo-location platform for recording, sharing and discovering connected experiences.  Its proprietary “String” technology lets users create a complete narrative story about their favorite places or outings – including photos, videos and personal commentary – and archive or share them with others as digital social objects.  Businesses, brands and content creators are also using Strings to engage with their customers, build brand awareness and loyalty, drive traffic and sales, and create connections between the digital and physical worlds. gopogo is headquartered in New York City, and will soon have Strings connecting people nationwide.  Find, follow or build your favorite Strings at www.gopogo.com, or visit us on Facebook, Twitter (@gopogoinc) and YouTube.

SAN MATEO, California – FreeWheel, the video technology company serving enterprise-class entertainment companies, today unveiled three new extension products for their flagship ad management system, Monetization Rights Management® (MRM), that will support entertainment companies in delivering on their integrated television and digital upfront commitments.

Developed with input from programmer and distributor customers participating in the upfronts, the new products will allow MRM customers to offer a better experience for their viewers across connected devices, optimize ad revenue generation on their content, and give advertisers additional options to target specific audiences at scale.

Several existing FreeWheel customers have already deployed or have signed on to use the MRM extensions, which are:

·      Audience management, which publishers can use to bolster their proprietary data with third-party data sources and enhance ad targeting to known audience attributes at scale and across connected devices. MRM customers already target against specific content and content locations, but now they can provide more relevant ads for specific demographics of viewers

·      Scenario forecasting, a powerful management tool that predicts how inventory availability, ad delivery, and ad sell-through rates are affected by “what-if” changes to inventory settings, such as increasing commercial breaks or driving additional traffic to particular Web pages. This functionality protects a user’s experience while watching video content and balances supply with demand across inventory types

·      Extended forecasting, which gives MRM customers up to two full years of visibility on inventory availability during and after the upfronts season and how it adjusts due to seasonal programming events

The products have been designed with flexibility around the business of FreeWheel’s customers in mind. For example, one customer is leveraging audience management to not only enhance their targeting, but also execute demographic-targeted campaigns as make goods for under-delivery in linear TV, an especially useful feature to fulfill commitments emanating from upfront agreements.

“The television upfronts are rapidly changing to account for consumers watching video content on a variety of devices, as well as via many distribution methods, such as VOD and game consoles,” said Frans Vermeulen, SVP of Revenue and Strategy. “It’s vital that our customers are able to quickly expand their revenue strategies across devices and environments, and these solutions were developed with this in mind.”

The television upfronts generated $9 billion in ad sales, or 15 percent of full-year ad sales, for television networks last year, according to market research firm eMarketer. With an increased focus on multichannel advertising campaigns, as well as exposure from the Digital Content New Fronts, expectations are that larger, multiplatform campaigns will be utilized to take advantage of consumers viewing content on the nearest available screens.

FreeWheel makes video revenue decisions for 70 percent of the brands in thestandard cable TV channel line-up, the majority of which will hold presentations during the television upfronts.

Additional technical information about the new product extensions can be found on FreeWheel’s FreeThink blog.

About FreeWheel

FreeWheel manages the economics of content for the enterprise-class world of entertainment, offering technical infrastructure for revenue rights management and business operations, wrapped in advisory services. Founded and led by a team of executives from the world’s leading technology companies, FreeWheel’s solutions have already armed companies like AOL, ESPN, FOX, NBCUniversal, Sky, Turner, and VEVO with the technology andservices they need to profitably scale their professional content across devices and revenue models. For more information, visit www.freewheel.tv. Follow the company @FreeWheel.

YP will include:

• Approximately 1,200 The Real Yellow Pages^® print directory titles reaching about 150 million homes and businesses in 22 states;
• YP.com, a top 40 website according to a leading global digital measurement firm;
• The YP^SM Local Ad Network, which includes more than 300 mobile and online publisher websites nationwide providing digital reach to more than 71 million monthly unique visitors; and
• The YPmobile^® app, which allows users to search local businesses from their mobile devices.

The business units generated approximately $3.3 billion in revenues in 2011. Among other agreements, YP has agreed to honor existing union contracts.

“This transaction makes strategic sense for both AT&T and Advertising Solutions,” said José Gutiérrez, president and CEO of AT&T Advertising Solutions. “It enables AT&T to focus on its core strategy of leadership in wireless, IP, cloud- and application-based services. At the same time, it gives our advertising customers, partners and developers continued access to strong advertising and search innovation and performance.”

The transaction includes assets of AT&T Advertising Solutions, which delivers sales and customer support, and AT&T Interactive, which conducts interactive product development. It does not include the recently formed AT&T AdWorks, a New York-based operation that sells advertising offerings across 3-screen platforms (online, mobile and TV).

“YP will continue to deliver the industry-leading service and products our customers and partners expect from us,” said David Krantz, president and CEO of AT&T Interactive. “And everyone will work hard to make the transition seamless for the millions of consumers and thousands of advertisers, developers, publishers and resellers using our services.”

The transaction is subject to Hart Scott Rodino notification with the U.S. Department of Justice and is expected to close in mid-year 2012. For the business units, AT&T will receive approximately $750 million in cash, subject to adjustment primarily related to timing of closing, a $200 million note and a 47-percent equity interest in YP. AT&T expects a minimal effect on 2012 earnings from the transaction and does not expect to record a material gain or loss on the transaction.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s largest 4G network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile Internet, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse^® and AT&T│DIRECTV brands.

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.