PubMatic enables United Online’s ad operations team to better manage ad revenue generated from United Online’s display ad impressions. The PubMatic platform helps maximize the value of United Online’s non-guaranteed inventory by providing optimization systems for non-guaranteed ad campaigns. PubMatic accomplishes this through advanced integrations with third party ad providers that allow for more efficient and effective use of ad impressions. This approach also helps connect United Online inventory to real-time bidding systems employed by demand-side platforms and ad agencies.

“Considering our extensive reach and scale and the efficiency of our existing operations, PubMatic’s optimization technology and client services team offers a great fit for us in a quickly evolving market so that we can also focus on building the other aspects of our ad business, like our verified audience platform, Adcurate,” said Jeremy E. Helfand, President of United Online’s Media Group.

PubMatic’s real-time technology decides which sales channel can best monetize every ad impression for the Web’s premium publishers and then dynamically routes those impressions to the highest paying source, whether it is an ad network, an ad exchange, a demand-side platform, or an ad sold by the publisher directly.

United Online’s brands have attracted a large online audience that includes more than 60 million registered accounts. The company’s offerings include its online social networking service, Classmates®, its online loyalty marketing service, MyPoints®, Internet access and email services under the NetZero® and Juno® brands, FTD®, a leading provider of floral related products and services, and Adcurate, a verified audience platform.

“The online publishing community is undergoing major changes in business models but one thing that remains constant is the significance of online advertising revenue in supporting the publishing industry. Whether it’s premium sponsorship, video, or non-guaranteed display, smart publishers are applying strategy and technology to maximize ad revenue,” said Rajeev Goel, PubMatic Co-Founder and CEO. “Publishers need a trusted partner that they can rely on to serve their needs and invest in technology on their behalf.”

About PubMatic

PubMatic’s (http://www.PubMatic.com) ad monetization and management solution combines impression-level ad auction technology, the most comprehensive brand protection tools, and enterprise ad operations support to give the Web’s premium publishers the most control over their revenue and brand. Some of the world’s most respected online publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10.

Privately held PubMatic is backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures, and has seven offices around the world in the US, Europe, and Asia.

About United Online

United Online, Inc. (Nasdaq: UNTD) is a leading provider of consumer products and services over the Internet, where the company’s brands have attracted a large online audience that includes more than 60 million registered consumer accounts. The company’s floral and related offerings include products and services for consumers and retail florists, as well as for other retail locations offering floral products and services, in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. The floral business utilizes the highly recognized FTD (www.ftd.com) and Interflora (www.interflora.co.uk) brands, both supported by the Mercury Man logo that is displayed in more than 40,000 retail floral shops worldwide. The company’s Classmates Media services include online social networking (www.classmates.com) and online loyalty marketing (www.mypoints.com) in North America. Classmates Media also operates online social networking Web sites in a number of European countries. The company’s Communications services include value-priced Internet access and email provided by NetZero (www.netzero.com) and Juno (www.juno.com).

Headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA, United Online operates through a global network of locations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and India. More information about United Online is available on the company’s Web site located at: (www.unitedonline.com).

NEW YORK – Tremor Media (www.tremormedia.com), the leading video monetization and advertising company, announced it has raised $40 million in funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund with participation from DFJ and Triangle Peak Partners. Existing investors including Canaan Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and SAP Ventures also participated significantly in this financing. The capital will allow Tremor Media to accelerate its lead in the online video advertising space and continue its rapid growth trajectory. It will primarily be used to invest in R&D to bolster Acudeo®, its leading technology platform, with new solutions for both advertisers and publishers, and to drive expansion into other media channels where digital video advertising will grow significantly.

Tremor Media, which has the leading video advertising network with the largest audience reach, has more than doubled the size of its network from 2009 to 2010*. The company became profitable in 2009, demonstrating revenue gains that exceeded more than twice the rate of growth of the overall online video market.

“Tremor Media is at the epicenter of video advertising. We have created the preferred technology and media platform for video advertisers, publishers and consumers and we are continuing to build long-term solutions that will meet the demand of the rapidly evolving digital video landscape,” said Jason Glickman, CEO, Tremor Media. “The next 12-18 months are critical for online video’s growth as massive advertising budgets shift to online video and consumption of online video rises. This infusion of capital will allow us to accelerate our lead in the marketplace and fuel our continued innovation. It is a validation of our company’s success and indicative of the enormous opportunity for the digital video space.”

“The online video industry is exploding and represents a major growth sector for the advertising industry. We’ve been evaluating this sector for quite some time and Tremor Media has clearly emerged as the category leader. The company has established its position through a combination of unsurpassed reach, audience targeting and ad management technology innovation that gives its blue chip advertisers tremendous buying efficiency and performance,” said Randy Glein, Managing Director of DFJ Growth Fund. “Tremor Media understands the needs of publishers and advertisers, delivering high impact media solutions that benefit the entire value chain. The company has demonstrated phenomenal growth and financial performance and has done an outstanding job anticipating the trends that are driving video advertising forward.”

In recent months Tremor Media has announced several new products and partnerships that further differentiate it in the online video marketplace. These advances include real-time audience targeting, several engagement-driven in-stream ad formats including the proprietary vChoice unit, and the first of its kind strategic partnership with DoubleVerify for third party ad verification. Read more at www.tremormedia.com.

*ComScore Video Metrix, comScore Releases February 2010 U.S. Online Video Rankings. February 2010.

About Tremor Media

Tremor Media (www.tremormedia.com), the leading online video monetization and advertising company, provides brand advertisers with in-stream and in-banner video advertising solutions on top-tier publisher sites with a combined 189.9 million uniques, reaching 90.6% of internet users. Tremor Media’s innovative video ad formats, advanced targeting, and industry-leading measurement tools enable advertisers to deliver efficient, scalable, and engaging video campaigns with measurable impact.

In addition, Tremor Media’s Acudeo® technology provides publishers with a full suite of products and services to monetize streaming video and maximize ROI. Acudeo delivers the industry’s most flexible and easy-to-use ad policy management tools and provides access to the industry’s leading revenue sources including turnkey integrations with all major video ad networks, ad serving, and video analytic technologies. With Tremor Media’s Acudeo technology, publishers can achieve maximum revenue while retaining total control and flexibility over their advertising inventory.

About Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund

Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund invests in revenue-stage technology companies that are expanding rapidly in large markets and are well-positioned to be category leaders. Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a leading venture capital firm with global presence through the DFJ Global Network of funds. DFJ’s mission is to identify, serve and provide capital for extraordinary entrepreneurs anywhere who are determined to change the world. The DFJ Network has grown to encompass over 150 venture capital professionals in more than 30 cities around the world, more than 600 portfolio companies funded, and over $6 billion of capital under management. The DFJ Network has produced such notable, industry changing companies as Athenahealth (ATHN), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by eBay), Focus Media (FMCN), DivX (DIVX), Mobile 365 (acquired by Sybase), Massive (acquired by Microsoft), EnerNOC (ENOC), FeedBurner (acquired by Google), Four11 (acquired by Yahoo), xFire (acquired by Viacom/MTV Networks), Mozy (acquired by EMC), Myfamily.com (acquired by Spectrum Equity Investors), Overture (acquired by Yahoo), Parametric (PMTC), TicketsNow (acquired by TicketMaster), and buy.at (acquired by AOL).

PALO ALTO, Calif. – PubMatic (http://www.PubMatic.com), the company that provides online publishers — including the majority of the comScore Top 10 — with the technology and services to significantly increase revenue and better manage their advertising inventory, announced that it has closed a $7.5 million up round led by existing investor Helion Venture Partners. Existing partners Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Nexus Venture Partners also participated. In all, the Sell Side Platform for premium publishers has raised $18 million.

The new funding will be used to accelerate the adoption of PubMatic’s recently announced set of new offerings, including: an impression-level ad auction with real-time bidding; global demand representation; audience analytics and monetization; enhanced brand control and data safety; guaranteed inventory yield management; and enterprise ad operations support. For the first time ever, sales and ad operations teams can manage all ad revenue from a single dashboard and gain new insights into inventory and pricing across non-guaranteed and guaranteed inventory channels. This will allow publishers to find new ways of selling existing inventory and improve the value of the inventory sold by their direct sales force.

“PubMatic has consistently surpassed its growth objectives and has a fast growing roster of ComScore top 250 publishers,” says Ashish Gupta, Managing Director of Helion Advisors. “With portals, ad networks and Demand Side Platforms evolving to maximize advertiser ROI, we are very excited about PubMatic’s singular focus on building the most advanced Sell Side Platform for publishers in the market.”

“We pride ourselves on our innovation and scale at PubMatic. No other company has come to market with so many tools to make certain premium publishers earn the most revenue while ensuring control over their brand, which has allowed us to grow revenue over 700% since a year ago,” says Rajeev Goel, Co-founder and CEO of PubMatic. “This new injection of capital will accelerate the pace of adoption and development of revenue maximizing and brand control tools for publishers.”

Helion Venture Partners (www.helionvc.com ) is a multi-stage venture fund with $350 million under management. The fund invests in businesses that are either technology-powered or catering to the consumer services space. The focus sectors of investment include – outsourcing, internet, mobile, technology products, retail services, education and financial services. The fund’s investors are well-respected global institutions including top tier university endowment funds, foundations and family offices.

PubMatic’s (http://www.PubMatic.com) and management technology combines an impression-level ad auction, the most comprehensive brand protection tools, and enterprise ad operations support to give the Web’s top publishers the most control over their revenue and brand. Some of the world’s most respected online publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including IAC, The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10.

Privately held PubMatic, backed by funding from Helion Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Nexus Venture Partners, has seven offices around the world in the US, Europe, and Asia.

NEW YORK – Yodle, (www.yodle.com) a leader in local online advertising and lead generation, announced that it has completed a $10 million Series D funding round. The round, raised from existing investors, was led by JAFCO Ventures and joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth. The Series D funding round brings Yodle’s total financing to $38 million.

In 2009, Yodle continued triple-digit growth with a 135% year over year revenue increase, making it the fastest growing provider of local online advertising services in the U.S., according to industry analyst Borrell Associates.

Additionally, the company continues to be an industry leader in innovation. In 2009, Yodle significantly expanded its nationwide franchise business (YodleFranchise) by bringing on clients like ServiceMaster and Two Men and a Truck, adding numerous strategic reseller partnerships, and expanding its local advertising network to over 75 hyper-local web publishers.

“We have proven that we have the most cost-effective and efficient marketing platform for small businesses in the market,” said Yodle CEO Court Cunningham. “We plan to continue to lead the market in 2010 with increased investment in innovation and new product launches to be announced in the coming months. All of our innovation is focused on driving the highest possible return on marketing investment for our clients.”

“We are very proud to continue to support Yodle, a fast-growing and clear leader in the local online advertising space,” said Tom Mawhinney, General Partner at JAFCO Ventures. “This round of funding is a testament to the success of Yodle and the value in its offering for local business owners. We expect great things for Yodle this year and in the future.”

About Yodle:

Yodle, www.yodle.com, a leader in local online advertising, connects local businesses with consumers in a process so simple and cost-effective that business owners can’t imagine any other way to advertise. Yodle has developed an integrated approach to signing up and serving local businesses that are transitioning their marketing budgets online. Yodle, is headquartered in New York, NY with a presence in 25 major cities across the United States and has hundreds of employees helping thousands of customers.

About JAFCO Ventures:

Based in Palo Alto, California, JAFCO Ventures is a venture capital partnership focused on companies that are emerging leaders in the communications, Internet, semiconductor and software industries. JAFCO Ventures was formed in 2003 and currently manages more than $350 million in capital. The fund’s charter is to invest in venture opportunities with true breakout potential where JAFCO Ventures can meaningfully add value with capital, the experience of seasoned venture capital investors, and the deployment of our Asia business development team, to help portfolio companies generate revenue from customers in Japan and other parts of Asia. For more information, visit http://www.jafco.com/.

About Bessemer Venture Partners:

Bessemer Venture Partners is a global investment group with offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Mumbai, and Tel Aviv. As the oldest venture capital practice in the United States, Bessmer has partnered as an active, hands-on investor in Ciena, Ingersoll Rand, Parametric, Skype, Staples, VeriSign, and W.R. Grace. Over the last century, Bessemer Venture Partners and its predecessor funds have invested in more than 100 companies that have gone public on exchanges in Canada, India, London, and the United States. To learn more, visit www.bvp.com.

About Draper Fisher Jurvetson:

Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a leading venture capital firm with a global presence through a network of affiliated funds, with offices in more than 30 cities around the world and approximately $6 billion in capital commitments. DFJ’s mission is to identify, serve and provide capital for extraordinary entrepreneurs anywhere who are determined to change the world. Over the past twenty years, DFJ has been proud to back over 500 companies across many sectors including such industry changing catalysts as Hotmail (acquired by MSFT), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by EBAY), EnerNOC (ENOC), athenahealth (ATHN), Focus Media (FMCN), Mobile 365 (acquired by Sybase), xFire (acquired by Viacom), United Online (UNTD), Overture (acquired by YHOO), Interwoven (IWOV), Four11 (acquired by YHOO), Massive (acquired by MSFT), Parametric (PMTC) and Mozy (acquired by EMC).

About Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth:

Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund invests in revenue stage technology companies that are expanding rapidly in large markets and are well positioned to be category leaders. Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a leading venture capital firm with global presence through the DFJ Global Network of funds. DFJ’s mission is to identify, serve and provide capital for extraordinary entrepreneurs anywhere who are determined to change the world. The DFJ Network has grown to encompass over 150 venture capital professionals in more than 30 cities around the world, more than 600 portfolio companies funded, and over $6 billion of capital under management. The DFJ Network has produced such notable, industry changing companies as Athenahealth (ATHN), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by eBay), Focus Media (FMCN), DivX (DIVX), Mobile 365 (acquired by Sybase), Massive (acquired by Microsoft), EnerNOC (ENOC), Feedburner (acquired by Google), Four11 (acquired by Yahoo), xFire (acquired by Viacom/MTV Networks), Mozy (acquired by EMC), Myfamily.com (acquired by Spectrum Equity Investors), Overture (acquired by Yahoo), Parametric (PMTC), TicketsNow (acquired by TicketMaster), and buy.at (acquired by AOL). http://www.dfjgrowth.com and http://www.dfj.com.

SEATTLE – Mpire, the market-leading advertising verification and optimization technology company, announced that its patent-pending AdXpose service was selected by MediaCom, one of the world’s largest strategic planning and buying agency networks, to help optimize display advertising campaigns for a leading consumer electronics company. After implementing AdXpose, the technology delivered substantial performance increases by reducing budget spent on wasted impressions and refining creative based on user engagement reports.

MediaCom began testing AdXpose in August to assess and improve the performance of its online display buys. The goal of this optimization was to reduce the cost per sale on a campaign running across numerous ad networks and exchanges where they were buying on a CPM and CPC basis. Mpire’s AdXpose technology was embedded into the client’s buy across thousands of sites within Mpire’s AdXpose-certified ad network, and via several other ad networks and direct buys, which were vetted by AdXpose.

Over the course of four months, the MediaCom team was able to achieve a significant increase in the number of unique viewers (+45%), viewer engagement (+33%) and click-through rates (+20%) across the AdXpose network by removing underperforming sites from the network buy, and providing enhanced visibility and transparency by quantifying the percentage of ads that were actually being viewed or interacted with.

MediaCom also used AdXpose’s “heat mapping” reporting feature to glean insights about how users interacted with the ads.  The technology captured what percentage of viewers “moused over” or clicked on the ad, which creative images or ad copy attracted their attention, and total time spent interacting with the ad. When viewed next to the overall campaign results at the individual site placement level, the AdXpose data illuminated a direct correlation between interaction with ads and increased click-through and conversion rates.   Armed with this information, MediaCom optimized site distribution and page location of the ads, as well as the creative images and copy, which led to a significant increase in conversion to sale.

“With AdXpose we have visibility of things we’ve never seen before in any reporting suite. We have a host of new reports to help us assess the quality of the inventory we’ve purchased, as well as reports to give us a deeper understanding of how users are interacting with our creative.  When combined these reports enable us to optimize our media buys and creative to deliver unprecedented efficiency,” said Justin Barton, digital group head at MediaCom.

“MediaCom’s campaign showcases the full breadth of performance enhancing capabilities of AdXpose, and demonstrates how savvy marketers can leverage data insights to create more targeted and effective campaigns,” said Kirby Winfield, chief revenue officer at Mpire.  “As the landscape for display advertising continues to grow and evolve, more and more marketers are turning to AdXpose to obtain greater transparency, efficiency, safety, and results from their campaigns.”

About Mpire
Mpire is the market-leading advertising optimization technology company that is evolving traditional online advertising into a more relevant and engaging medium for publishers and advertisers. Its patent-pending AdXpose™ is the first and only verification and optimization technology that gives brand marketers and agencies transparency and confidence anywhere their ads run across the Internet, including exchanges, ad networks and direct publisher placements. Backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Ignition Partners, Mpire is based in Seattle, Washington.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Smaato Inc., a leading mobile ad optimizer and mobile advertising company announced the distinguished VC partners for the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award 2009. Smaato is delighted to have Tim Draper (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Frédéric Veyssière (Innovacom Venture Capital) and Niall Davis (aeris CAPITAL) supporting the award for a second year and being introduced to the winning companies. We are also thrilled to a have the following VCs participating this year:

•Mark Kvamme (Sequoia Capital)
•Rich Wong (Accel)
•Jörg Sievert (SAP Ventures)

Ragnar Kruse, CEO & Co-Founder of Smaato stated: “We are pleased to announce a fantastic line-up of VCs for the forthcoming Smaato Award. It’s an honor to have the support of so many distinguished individuals for making this competition come to life. For the award winners it’s a great opportunity to meet top tier VCs from around the world and to have a real shot of getting funding.”

About the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award:
The award will honor mobile publishers or developers with an outstanding mobile ad-enabled solution in three categories: iPhone, in-application (any platform) or mobile web. Developers shall provide a description of their website, application or game, a download location, along with high res images and screenshots. In addition they may provide up to three PDF pages of supporting materials. Deadline is October 9th, 2009. For more information and to participate please visit: www.smaato.com/award.

Besides meeting with the above named venture capital partners, Smaato will invite the winner to participate at the Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona, Spain in February 2010. Additional prizes are also on offer, including a free booth at M-Days in Munich, Germany in January 2010.

VC biographies

Tim Draper (Draper Fisher Jurvetson)

Timothy C. Draper is the Founder and a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His original suggestion to use “viral marketing” in web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and YahooMail, and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique by hundreds of businesses. On behalf of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Tim serves on the boards of Glam, Kyte.tv, Meebo, ShareThis, SocialText, and Wigix. Previous successes include: Skype (EBAY), Overture.com (YHOO), Baidu (BIDU), Parametric Technology (PMTC), Hotmail (MSFT), PLX Technologies (PLXT), Preview Travel (TVLY), Digidesign (AVID), and others.

Mark Kvamme (Sequoia Capital)

Mark Kvamme is a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital focusing on investments in enterprise data management software and consumer media and advertising services. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 1999, Mark was Chairman and CEO of CKS Group, an advertising agency that pioneered new advertising strategies by integrating marketing with technology. Earlier in his career Mark was a Director of International Marketing for Wyse Technology, the President and CEO of International Solutions, and was a founding member of Apple France. Mark has a BA in French Economics and Literature from the University of California at Berkeley.

Rich Wong (Accel)

Richard joined Accel in 2006, with a focus on mobile services, enterprise software/SaaS, and energy technologies. Rich currently serves on the board of AdMob, the largest mobile advertising player, Parature, a leader in SaaS based customer support, SunRun, the leading provider of residential solar power, and Getjar Networks, the largest mobile development community and open mobile app store. Prior to Accel, Rich also served as a board advisor to Plaxo (acquired by Comcast), Sana Security (acquired by AVG), and Simplicita (acquired by Sandvine).

Frédéric Veyssière (Innovacom)

Based in San Francisco, California, Frédéric Veyssière heads Innovacom’s investments in North America. Frédéric serves on the board of Actelis Networks, Mobile Complete, PixSense, Vantrix and is a board observer with Bytemobile and Envivio. Previously he was a board member with Atrica (acquired by Nokia Siemens Networks) and a board observer with Bitfone (acquired by Hewlett Packard).

Prior to joining Innovacom in 2000, Frédéric worked with TeleSoft Partners, a San Mateo–based venture capital fund, as a consultant in charge of business development for Europe.

Jörg Sievert (SAP Ventures)

Jörg Sievert covers Europe and Israel for SAP Ventures and provides a tight linkage to SAP’s headquarter in Walldorf, Germany. Prior to joining SAP Ventures, Sievert led Business Consulting for BEA Systems for Central and Eastern Europe and provides significant experience in developing and executing solution selling strategies for SW products and is well connected in several industries.

Niall Davis (aeris CAPITAL AG)

Niall Davis is Partner at aeris CAPITAL AG since 2006. Prior to founding aeris, he was IT Investment Manager at first Ventury and Director at Astarte New Media AG. Niall Davis is one of the Board Members of Smaato.

The jury members are: Bambi Francisco (vator.tv), Bena Roberts (GoMoNews), Caroline Lewko (WIP), Giselle Tsirulnik (Mobile Marketer), James Cameron (Camerjam), Jim Cook (MobiAdNews), Kei Shimada (Infinita), Lubna Dajani (Mobile Monday, NYC), Mark Wächter (Mobile Monday, Germany & BVDW), Matthäus Krzykowski (Editor, Venture Beat), Matthew Snyder (ADObjects), Michelle Sklar (bnetTV), Peggy Anne Salz (MSearchGroove), Ragnar Kruse (Smaato Inc.), Rudy De Waele (dotOpen/mTrends), Tim Green (Mobile Entertainment UK), Tomi Ahonen (Author), Trey Harvin (mobiThinking).

About Smaato Inc.

Smaato is a pioneering mobile advertising company that operates the leading mobile ad optimization platform called SOMA (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) and partners with mobile publishers, developers, ad networks and operators.

SOMA’s unique feature is the aggregation of multiple leading ad networks globally to maximize mobile advertising ARPU. SOMA can be easily integrated with ad networks, ad inventory owners (publishers, developers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.

Smaato is an active member of the Mobile Marketing Association, the dot.mobi Advisory Group and the German Digital Media Association BVDW. Smaato received a Top 100 Private Company Award by AlwaysOn Media (2009 & 2007) and was an Andrew Seybold Choice Awards finalist at CTIA 2008 for best Newcomer, among other awards.

Smaato Inc. is based in Redwood Shores, California. The privately held company was founded in 2005 by an experienced International management team. The European headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany.

As the advertising industry tries to tap the growing number of people using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, the answer may lie in a little box of Godiva chocolates. This is no ordinary box of bonbons. Although it has aroused the appetites of millions of people, it can never be eaten. Its ingredients do not consist of cocoa or milk, but of bits of code. This box of Godiva chocolates exists only on the Internet and was recently promoted by the famous chocolatier as part of a recent campaign through AdNectar.

Increasing Purchase Intent and Click-Through Rates

Recent studies conducted by an online brand ad metrics company, Vizu, show that AdNectar’s campaigns are truly paying off for brands using sponsored virtual items as marketing messages.  The company’s research shows that branded social gifts increased purchase intent, awareness and engagement while actually improving the user’s experience.  “Our study showed that AdNectar’s social gifting ad approach clearly drove purchase intent,” said Dan Beltramo, CEO of Vizu.

In the Godiva study, those exposed to the AdNectar’s virtual chocolate were 20 percent more likely to purchase a real box of Godiva in the next six months than the control group that was not exposed.  This is particularly notable since most purchase intent studies of online campaigns barely break 2 percent lift according to Dynamic Logic, a leading advertising effectiveness company.

Effectively branding virtual items is not limited to well-known chocolate companies.  Method, a leading brand of eco-friendly home care products, recently launched a virtual goods campaign with AdNectar.  The results were even more impressive.
“Our campaign achieved a more than 60 percent lift in purchase intent,” said Gunther Lie, director of interactive marketing at Method. “AdNectar was very effective in driving traffic to our Facebook fan page as well as increasing awareness of the brand through the viral spread of our sponsored virtual items.”

According to AdNectar, the average click-through rate for its campaigns hovers around 0.8 percent and can reach up to 8 percent.  These clicks are generated by a hypertext link below the virtual item which directs users to the sponsor’s site of choice such as a landing page, home page or a pop-up video.  This CTR is significantly higher than the typical rates found on Facebook, which are in the range of 0.04 percent.

Preferred by User

Nir Eyal, CEO of AdNectar, believes the high purchase intent and click-through rates are a result of “user-generated targeting.”  Eyal said, “The users always know more than the marketer about what they and their friends like.  Virtual items let the users find our target audience for us.”  It is likely, for example, that a user, who voluntarily sends a virtual Sunkist soda (a recent AdNectar client) to another user, knows something about the person he or she is sending the virtual fizz to.  Eyal explains, “It is likely that the sender knows that the person being sent the virtual item, enjoys soda, loves the brand, or loves orangey goodness.  In any case, that’s a target customer for our client and is something you just can’t do with a traditional banner ad.  The best part is, it’s all voluntary.  The user chooses to send the virtual item because they enjoy doing so.  That’s why the AdNectar motto is ‘advertising people appreciate.’”

Virtual Goods Reach Tens of Millions Daily

Apparently, lots of users appreciate virtual items.  AdNectar reaches 50 million monthly unique users through its network of application partners and has agreements in place with 6 of the top 15 applications on Facebook.  The company believes virtual items are no longer a niche offering and estimates that 5 million virtual items are exchanged on Facebook every day, 90 percent of which are within the applications built on the social networks.
“Virtual items have become mainstream and are integral to many of the top social media applications,” said Eyal. “Users have come to expect them as a part of the social networking experience and they seek out better ways to communicate with friends.  AdNectar simply replaces what is are generally generic offerings, with branded virtual items that add to the user’s enjoyment while driving awareness and sales for advertisers.”

About AdNectar
AdNectar specializes in creating effective advertising that consumers appreciate.  By associating brands with virtual items, marketers are able to insert their brand message directly into the social media experiences.  AdNectar provides an integrated advertising platform that is more enjoyable for users, more effective for marketers and more profitable for publishers.  Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, AdNectar is backed by highly regarded private and institutional investors including Battery Ventures.  For more information, visit www.adnectar.com.  Please direct media inquires for AdNectar to:  Nir Eyal, nir@adnectar.com, 917.279.8578

About Godiva Chocolatier

With production facilities in Belgium and the U.S., Godiva Chocolatier is recognized around the world as the leader in fine chocolates. From its famous truffles and shell-molded chocolate pieces to its European-style biscuits, gourmet coffees and hot cocoa, Godiva Chocolatier is dedicated to 75 years of excellence and innovation in the Belgian tradition.   Please direct media inquires for Godiva to:  Alison Brod Public Relations, Alana Radmin / Ellen Fobes, alana@alisonbrodpr.com / ellen@alisonbrodpr.com, 212.230.1800

About Method

Founded in 2000, method is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Today, method is the leading innovator of premium healthy home and personal care products. Method can be found in over 25,000 retail locations throughout the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. Major retailers include Target, Wegman’s, Costco, Duane Reade, Safeway, Waitrose (UK), Shopper’s Drug Mart (Canada) and Woolworths (Australia). method is a privately held company backed by high net worth individuals and a private equity firm.  Please direct media inquires for method to:  Rachel Goldberg, method public relations, Rachel@methodhome.com, 415.746.1764

About Vizu

Vizu is the leading online brand advertising measurement system. Their Ad Catalyst real-time measurement infrastructure for assessing ad campaign effectiveness provides powerful benefits for publishers and advertisers. Through the use of Ad Catalyst, clients gain actionable Brand Lift data on their online advertising campaigns, giving them a powerful advertising ROI metric. Vizu is a privately-held company based in San Francisco, CA, with backing from leading venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Greycroft Partners. For more information visit: www.vizu.com.  Please direct media inquires for Vizu to:  Ben Heskett, bhesket@vizu.com, 415.362.8498 ext 17.

NEW YORK – Lotame, a platform enabling targeted advertising to customizable audiences through social media, announced it has partnered with two innovative technology providers to maximize the value of online brand advertising campaigns. With Vizu’s brand advertising measurement system and Amplify’s computational linguistic technology, Lotame can provide third party data on the success of advertising campaigns based on impact on the audience’s intentions and how they talk about the brand following the campaign.

“Our customers have come to expect the rich campaign reporting we do, and analysis provided by both Amplify and Vizu add another layer of insight that complements our own insight into unique social data,” said Scott Hoffman, CMO for Lotame. “When looking into third party measurement providers, we were intent on finding innovators, who could add unique value to our advertising clients. These partners help us demonstrate value in ways that can’t be determined by a click on the ad.”

Amplify’s patented computational linguistic technology mimics the process of human understanding to automatically extract the meaning of text in digital content. By automatically scanning for the significant topics, attitudes and pending decisions within any text, Amplify enables Lotame to assess the tone of conversations about brands before, during and following campaigns. Lotame also uses Amplify to determine user interests and provide brand safety to enhance its targeting of ads to receptive audiences.

“In an environment where advertisers are looking to maximize the value of every banner view and social media publishers are looking for ways to improve the value of their ad inventory, this partnership is helping to define what is possible in social media-powered advertising,” said Mark Redgrave, CEO of Amplify. ”By focusing on the social media user, his or her demonstrated interest and what they go on to say about the brand, Lotame has connected advertising value to the real engine of social media – the people.”

Vizu’s Ad CatalystSM is designed to increase brand marketers’ confidence in online advertising. Ad Catalyst provides a service that measures ad campaign effectiveness, allowing brands and advertisers to easily improve the return-on-investment for their online branding campaigns. Ad Catalyst goes beyond counting click-through rates to measure how online ads impact viewer perceptions of key brand attributes. Brand lift, as measured by the Ad Catalyst service, offers a more relevant metric than CTR for brand building campaigns.

“Lotame is redefining the value proposition of online advertising, and particularly social media,” said Dan Beltramo, CEO of Vizu. “Part of the education process in getting brands to expect more from their online campaigns is showing the increase in real world metrics like purchase intent and brand attitudes. Our integration with Lotame represents an excellent use of our technology that is proving very satisfying to savvy advertisers.”

About Lotame

Lotame provides a platform for easily building and addressing customizable consumer audiences based on social media activity in addition to implied or stated interests. Lotame has specifically designed its patented Crowd Control platform to take full advantage of the unique attributes of social activity, using participation and user generated content as a foundation for improved campaign performance. Lotame is a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Please visit www.lotame.com for more information.

About Amplify

Amplify (www.openamplify.com) is a web service that brings human understanding to content. Using patented Natural Language Processing technology, Amplify identifies the significant topics, brands, people, perspectives, emotions, intentions, actions and timescales contained in text – delivering real-time XML data that enables advertisers, publishers, ad networks to take the guesswork out of brand safety and targeting decisions.

About Vizu

Vizu is the leading online brand advertising measurement system. Our Ad Catalyst real-time measurement infrastructure for assessing ad campaign effectiveness provides powerful benefits for publishers and advertisers. Through the use of Ad Catalyst, our clients gain actionable Brand Lift data on their online advertising campaigns, giving them a powerful advertising ROI metric. Vizu is a privately-held company based in San Francisco, CA, with backing from leading venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Greycroft Partners. For more information visit: www.vizu.com – Advertise With confidence.

-  Local Online Advertising Leader Yodle Announces Completion of $10 Million Series C Financing
Yodle, Inc., a leader in local online advertising and lead generation, announced today that it has completed a $10 million Series C funding. The round was led by JAFCO Ventures, joined by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth and existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bessemer Venture Partners. The funds will be used to double investment in product and technology innovation as well as to continue a national sales expansion.

Silicon Valley, CA and New York, NY—January 12, 2009—Brash.com, (www.brash.com) the recently launched vertical content network for men from Glam Media, Inc., today announced the Brash 50 Women. The Brash 50 Women list includes the most sought-after women poised for great success in 2009 from across industries, including film, sports, television, modeling and music.

The Brash 50 Women list represents a dynamic range of women, including long-time favorites such as Jennifer Lopez, as well as up-and-coming “it” girls like Megan Fox and Taylor Swift. A number of diverse personalities are represented among the Brash 50 Women ranging from reality TV hosts (Heidi Klum) to Grammy winning recording artists (Alicia Keys) and from tennis stars (Maria Sharapova) to award winning screenwriters (Tina Fey). The full list can found in full at www.brash.com.

“The appreciation of a smart, beautiful and successful woman is something all men can relate to,” said Richard Pérez-Feria, editorial director and curator of Brash.com. “The Brash 50 Women list is a tribute to the women who have gained our respect and admiration in 2008, and who we won’t be able to take our eyes off of in 2009.”

Launched in October 2008, the Brash Network is an edgy, upscale vertical network that caters to men’s desires and needs focusing on lifestyle, entertainment, automotive and gadgets, and news both from a national perspective and with local influence. To commemorate its launch Brash released the first annual Brash Hall of Fame and Brash 100 lists honoring the bold and brave men that have created and stood for positive change in the world across sports, politics and entertainment. Those lists can be found at http://brash.com/brash100/.

About Glam Media

Glam Media is the pioneer and global leader of Vertical Content Networks, leveraging a revolutionary new media model that brings brand advertisers to targeted vertical audiences online. With more than 900 publishers worldwide, Glam Media comprises Glam.com, a carefully curated network of popular and influential lifestyle women’s websites, blogs and magazines, and Brash.com, the newly launched network catering exclusively to men. Glam Media’s reach is deep and far-reaching; it is the comScore Top 10 Web property, with a total reach of 54 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and 98 million uniques globally, and is also a Top 10 Display Ad Publisher. Glam Media is #1 for Women in US, UK, and Germany, and has been the fastest growing company in 2007 and 2008. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. The company is headquartered in New York City, New York and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich, Berlin and Tokyo.

Yuki Yamamura, Japanese Internet Pioneer and Former CEO of DoubleClick Japan and Excite Japan Launches Glam Subsidiary

Tokyo, Japan, Silicon Valley, California and New York, New York—November 25, 2008—Glam Media, Inc. (www.GlamMedia.com), pioneer of vertical content networks and recently ranked comScore Media Metrix Top 10 Web property, today announced the launch of Glam Media Japan KK (www.glam.jp). Glam Japan launches with leading magazine partners and more than 20 local Web publishers, blogs and sites including CanCan, Nikkei Woman and Cafeglobe. Global luxury, beauty and consumer packaged good brands headlining as launch advertisers for Glam Japan include: MAYBELLINE NEW YORK (NIHON L’OREAL K.K.); FENDI JAPAN; MHD Diageo Moet Hennessy K.K. and ANA.

With its influential publisher and content network, Glam Media Japan is positioned to be a key partner for brand display advertisers in the region. Glam Media’s global expansion follows the continued demand by advertisers for global premium content from vertical content networks like Glam Media. Glam launched its UK and German operations in June and July of 2008, respectively.

Glam Japan will include original editorial as well as content curated from the Glam Publisher Network including Japanese magazine publishers and sites. Glam Japan and its network of 20+ publishers at launch are focused on core Style (Fashion, Beauty, Luxury and Shopping) and will expand into Entertainment, Living, Luxury, Family and Health & Wellness in early 2009. A complete list can be found at www.glam.jp.

“Glam Media is compelling for Japanese consumers and brand advertisers alike,” said Yukihiro Yamamura, CEO of Glam Japan and VP of Glam Media. “For women who love the latest fashion, beauty, lifestyle and entertainment, Glam Media connects them directly to publishers—large and small—who are passionate about their areas of interest. For advertisers, Glam offers a better way to engage with passionate audiences and we look forward to replicating Glam’s successful media model here in Japan.”

“Japan is one of the most sophisticated consumer markets in the world,” said Samir Arora, chairman and CEO, Glam Media. “We are thrilled to launch Glam Media Japan today. Under the leadership of Yukihiro Yamamura, Glam is committed to leveraging premium content from our local network publishers to help brand advertisers reach a focused women audience in Japan.”

Since its launch four years ago, Glam Media’s mission has remained unchanged: to bring brand advertisers to passionate audiences visiting the Web’s professional mid and long-tail publishers and content creators. For brand advertisers in Japan, Glam Media offers its unique targeting technology platform, Glam Evolution™, enabling vertical targeting of women by audience, content, primetime and placement, and providing brand engagement and hyper targeting to maximize results.

Glam Japan is headed by Yukihiro Yamamura, who joined the company as CEO of its newly formed subsidiary Glam Media Japan KK, and as a Vice President of Glam Media, Inc., earlier this fall. Yamamura joined Glam from DoubleClick Japan where he was CEO and most recently from Excite Japan, where he was CEO since 1999. An Internet pioneer in Japan, Yamamura spent his career focused on the display brand advertising market and launched one of the leading portals and women’s destination sites in Japan. As the CEO of DoubleClick Japan, he was responsible for setting up the first Internet advertising media network service in Japan. Later at Excite, Yamamura launched the company in 2002 as subsidiary of Itochu Corporation and managed it since then as a separate, publicly listed entity.

About Glam Media

In pioneering a powerful new publishing model, Vertical Content Networks, the founders of Glam Media created a new media model that brings brand advertisers to targeted vertical audiences online. With more than 700 sites, Glam Media comprises Glam.com, a carefully curated network of popular and influential lifestyle women’s websites, blogs and magazines, and Brash.com, the newly launched network catering exclusively to men. Glam Media’s reach is deep and far-reaching; it is number one in reach for women and a comScore Top 10 Web property, with a total reach of 56 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and 97 million uniques globally, and is also a Top 10 Display Ad Publisher. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. The company is headquartered in New York City, New York and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich, Berlin and Tokyo.

Silicon Valley, CA and New York, NY—November 18, 2008—Glam Media, Inc. (www.GlamMedia.com), recently ranked comScore Media Metrix Top 10 Web property, today announced the launch of the Glam Applications Network. The platform that enables brand ad-enabled applications and widgets to be integrated into web sites and blogs, Glam Apps “Atako”, includes a standardized payment system for developers, publishers and media companies. Apps and widgets will be available in the Glam Apps Store (www.GlamApps.com), which provides a curated set of applications for publishers to add new features, build traffic and create new revenue streams. Today, Glam Apps names more than 50 premier charter developers, including: Sphere (a division of AOL); BuzzFeed; Meebo; PollDaddy; PicApp, JS-Kit and Kwanzoo. GlamTV, a signature application on the Glam Apps platform, features video content from select media partners including Cinelan, Diagonal View and Young Hollywood.

As the largest vertical content network, Glam Media fills a unique position in the marketplace, bringing together publishers, developers, content producers, media companies, agencies and advertisers to create branded, distributed media content and applications. The Glam Applications Network, launching today in beta, is immediately available to the 700+ web sites in the Glam.com and Brash.com vertical networks—and will be open to all professional Web publishers in early 2009. Examples of Glam Apps include: polls; slideshows; video commenting and contests; content feeds & syndication; ratings; recipe search, quizzes and shopping search.

Glam Apps Atako was built with brand advertisers’ needs in mind. Glam Apps’ ad-supported widgets contain IAB standard ad units that can be sold by Glam Media, the media publisher, agency and/or the developer. Today, most widget platforms are designed only to add functionality to social networks with no targeting technology or controls for brand advertisers, like brand proximity and relevance. For example, the main display ad may be a retail client, with widgets on the same page showing non-targeted or even competitive retail ads. Glam Media’s platform is also noteworthy because it solves the challenge of revenue-sharing with a built-in distributed ad payment system. Glam Apps Atako allows a range of monetization and distribution choices for developers building applications: ad-enabled with required IAB-standard ad units, sponsored or advertorial widgets, paid for or subscription based applications and free no-ads utilities.

“Widgets and distributed content are great examples of how interactive media companies are transforming marketing in search of new ways for consumers to engage with brands,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “That these widgets adhere to IAB ad standards, simplifies the interactive ad buying process and will help expand the value and measurement capabilities of widgets.”

Glam Media has already created many successful application campaigns for advertisers. Glam Apps builds on this success with a platform that allows developers to create the apps and for advertisers to sponsor them. With Glam Apps, brand advertisers can develop custom publisher features and share-of-voice branded widgets on targeted sites, resulting in deeply immersive campaigns and advertorials. Agencies can use Glam Apps Atako to create integrated brand applications and widgets that leverage the distribution of the Glam Publisher Network. Application campaigns previously built on the Glam platform include:  a styling video built for Levi’s® brand Luv My Levi’s® campaign; a flirting widget for V05; Glam Re-Skins, which enable a publisher to automatically re-skin their entire site with specific ads; and Glam Spotlight units which allow an advertiser to distribute video in a brand-engaging/skinned module.

Media companies can use Glam Apps Atako to create widgets for content distribution in a “rights-managed” system with monetization or distribution from content networks. Video providers and media networks can use GlamTV and BrashTV applications to distribute protected video content packaged with high-CPM display and video ads.

Glam-developed applications that are part of Glam Apps at launch include:

GlamTV/BrashTV: an innovative video application that allows for the distribution of professionally-produced premium content across the Glam Network, reaching 22 million users with over 50 million views per month three months after its beta launch.

Glam Now:  a vertical content story headlines widget promoting the hottest story links in the Glam Network, reaching 31 million users with over 100 million widgets views per month.

“The Glam Applications Network allows developers and advertisers to easily promote and distribute applications on a wide variety of web sites with a built-in system for monetization,” said Ryan Roslansky, VP of Products & Audience for Glam Media. “Not only are we expanding the app distribution market for developers, we are opening up new opportunities for publishers to add functionality to their sites and for advertisers to reach users with innovative campaigns.”

The charter developers for Glam Apps at launch include: Apture; Bang International; BuzzFeed; CookThink; FoodChannel; Fotoviewr; Grouptivity;  Meebo; Kwanzoo; NearbyNow; Ojingo (Blipback); PicApp; Pixsta; Predictify; Poll Daddy; TheFind; JS-Kit; Sphere; ShareThis; Polyvore, The Astrologer and WeSeed.

“Sphere partnered with Glam Media to build a module for Glam Apps that is distributed content at its best,” said Tony Conrad, CEO of Sphere. “For Glam’s publishers, Sphere’s module connects their articles to contextually relevant content from their archives and also displays related content from around the Glam Publisher Network. Participating publishers will serendipitously see inbound traffic from other Glam sites. The module also integrates a high quality ad unit that provides marketers a new and innovative way to engage with their audience and drives incremental revenue for the publisher.”

“JS-Kit provides ultra-lightweight community services like Comments, Ratings, and Polls for any web site,” said Khris Loux, CEO of JS-Kit.  “Glam Apps gives us a new way to access premium web publishers and advertisers at the same time.”

“PicApp is thrilled to be selected by Glam Media as a developer partner,” said Eyal Gura, PicApp’s CEO. “PicApp gives Glam’s publishers easy access to millions of premium images from sources such as Getty Images, Corbis, Splash News, Newscom, Image Source and others. Our images not only enhance and drive traffic to publishers’ sites, but also encourage viewers to further interact with the content. The partnership with Glam Media, and other partnerships to be announced soon, is a further demonstration of PicApp’s appeal to blog networks.”

Built upon standards including Google Gadget, OpenSocial and OpenID, the application distribution software powering Glam Apps Atako is scheduled for full open source release in Q4 of 2008. Glam’s first open source release underscores the company’s commitment to creating a vibrant community of developers with the common goal of integrating functionality into a wide variety of publishing platforms. Integration with OpenID creates a whole new class of consumer applications in a distributed media environment, where users can use one log-in across the wide Glam Publisher Network or specific vertical networks, enabling social networking and communication applications.

Today, Glam is also launching GlamID, a distributed login and registration platform built off OpenId for use across Glam Media properties. Glam Apps Atako is built on Google’s open source Gadget technology. Glam Apps allows developers to leverage Glam Evolution, Glam’s unique ad services platform with full Brand Sense Accountability and ROI measurement for advertisers. Glam is also one of the first to use the newly announced tracking comScore Extended Web measurement (CXW), to help measure and report reach and advertising for distributed Web content such as Glam Apps. This allows targeting, measurement and reporting of key data to brands and agencies.

For additional information, please visit www.GlamApps.com.

About Glam Media
In creating a new prototype, Vertical Content Networks, the founders of Glam Media have introduced a revolutionary new media model that powerfully brings brand advertisers to targeted vertical audiences online. With more than 700 sites, Glam Media comprises Glam.com, a carefully curated network of popular and influential lifestyle women’s websites, blogs and magazines, and Brash.com, the newly launched network catering exclusively to men. Glam Media’s reach is deep and far-reaching; it is a comScore Top 10 Web property, with a total reach of 52 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and 88 million uniques globally, and is also a Top 10 Display Ad Publisher. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital.  The company is headquartered in New York City, New York and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich, Berlin and Tokyo.

Silicon Valley, CA and New York, NY—October 20, 2008—Glam Media, Inc., the pioneer of vertical content networks (www.glammedia.com), today announced the Brash 100 List and the Brash 50 Hall of Fame at the launch of the men’s vertical network Brash.com. The Brash Lists include men across the fields of sports, politics, business and entertainment that are game changers. Glam is also launching an online campaign—“Change the Game”—highlighting that Bold, Brave, Big, Blunt and Brash men that are creators of positive change in the world.

“Our goal with the Brash 100 and Brash Hall of Fame Lists is to honor the leaders of the world, the men who embody the concept of changing the game and, in doing so, set the brand and aspirational qualities behind the launch of Glam Media’s Brash.com,” said Scott Schiller, EVP of Global Marketing, Glam Media. “Now more than ever, stories of men who have been bold, the men who stood for their beliefs and helped bring about positive change, is both timely and essential.”

The Brash Top 100 List represents a broad range of bold, risk-taking men in the world today. Many of these men, such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch and Warren Buffett, are visionaries in their fields; their bold decision-making and leadership have resulted in great success. There are prolific athletes, such as David Beckham, Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps, who have set records and continue to inspire millions. Artists and actors on the list include Bono, Johnny Depp, Sean Connery, Shah Rukh Khan and Sean Penn.

The Brash Hall of Fame includes the 50 men whose lives left an indelible mark on history. Philosophers, inventors, businessmen, artists and politicians are included, all of who left behind a legacy of based on their brashness, courage and brilliance. There are inventors and artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Andy Warhol, Isaac Newton and Pablo Picasso, and leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Jr. The full lists can found in full at www.brash.com.

Glam Media’s vision is to “change the game” by helping make the Web more entertaining, fun, emotional and aspirational by unleashing the power of creative and professional publishers, authors, content creators and video producers. Glam is the first to create a definition of digital primetime by using advanced technology to package premium audiences, vertical content and sites, and hyper targeting to deliver brand engagement.

Glam Media is newly ranked as a comScore MediaMetrix Top 10 Web property and is also a 10 Display Ad Publisher, connecting brand display advertisers to more than 52 million uniques in U.S. and a global vertical content network of more than 700 sites. Glam.com targets Women with six channels: Style (Fashion, Beauty, Shopping); Entertainment; Living; Luxury; Family and Health & Wellness; and the recently launched vertical targeting African Americans, Black Life. The Brash.com vertical for men has five channels: Lifestyle; Entertainment;Tech; Auto and News.

About Glam Media
The founders of Glam created a new media model to bring brand advertisers to niche and premium audiences online. Today, Glam Media is the fastest growing Top 20 Media Company in the U.S. with a total reach of 52 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and approximately 90 million global uniques, and is also a Top 10 Display Ad Publisher (comScore Ad Metrix). Glam Media is now Glam.com a carefully curated network of more than 700 popular and influential lifestyle women’s Web sites, blogs and magazines; and Brash.com the newly launched men’s network. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. Glam Media is headquartered in New York City and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich and Tokyo.

Silicon Valley, CA and New York, NY—October 20, 2008—Glam Media, Inc. (www.GlamMedia.com), the recognized pioneer of vertical content networks, celebrates its four-year anniversary today, which also coincides with the company’s new rank as a comScore Media Metrix Top 10 Web property. Today, the company also launched Brash.com a new vertical network for men with Lifestyle, Entertainment, Tech, Auto and News channels.

“Glam brings alive the promise of the Internet, combining reach and context for display advertisers, while focusing on valuable consumers, said Samir Arora, chairman and CEO, Glam Media. “Our new ranking as a top 10 comScore Web property validates that Glam has the right model for harnessing the long tail of the Web to create a new kind of media company.”

In 2004, Glam launched with a mission to bring brand advertisers to passionate audiences developing along the Web’s long tail. Earlier, the company operated in stealth mode at a retro-modern Victorian home in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco and talked to hundreds of brand advertisers worldwide. Glam.com launched with just 12 network publishers in September 2005 at New York Fashion Week, and became number one for women less than two years later in June 2007. Today, Glam Media is a top 10 comScore property just three years after launch and is replicating its network model with its newly launched its all-men’s vertical, Brash.com.

2002-2004: Concept and Prototype Stage
• Founders start to meet informally, the focus of discussion is on the move to online publishing and the profit potential of connecting compelling content and e-commerce
• Founding team comes together. Fernando Ruarte, Ernie Cicogna, Susan Kare, Vic Zaud, Dianna Mullins, Rebecca Bogle, Emmanuel Job, Raj Narayan start as co-founders, and later Jack Rotolo, Jack Wu and Carl Portale join
• Seed & Series A:  Funding by Information Capital LLC
• Vision:  to help bring entertainment, emotion and aspiration to the Web, help brings brands online, and package content and commerce with desirable ads
• Changes name from Project Y to Glam Media, Inc., moves to Brisbane, CA and starts office in New York

2004-2005: Year One—Vertical Focus on Women
• June 2004: Completes first prototype of Web site
• October 2004: Changes name to Glam Media, Inc. to focus on Women as the first target. Starts building Glam.com and Glam Publisher Network
• December 2004: Series B funding of $10M by Accel, DFJ and Walden
• September 2005:  Glam.com launches at Fashion Week in New York and at DEMO conference in California
• November 2005: Glam Publisher Network launches with 12 partners
• December 2005: Founding and executive team decide to focus 100% of efforts on media, Samir Arora becomes interim, then full time role as CEO

2006: Year Two—The Startup Wiggle
• February 2006: Nanette Lepore is the first top fashion designer to blog Fashion Week live –and does it with Glam.com
• September 2006: Glam vaults to number one in fashion online, enters comScore Media Metrix top 10 women’s properties list

2007: Year Three —Becoming #1 in Women’s Properties
• January 2007: Glam closes Series C Funding of $18.5 million from DAG Ventures and existing investors
• May 2007: Glam is the number one Web property for women, reaching over 17 million uniques, outperforming  iVillage/NBC
• June 2007: Glam strikes multi-year ad deal with Google

2008: Year Four—Becoming Top 10 Web Media Property
• January 2008:  Glam Media introduces brand engagement advertising platform Glam Evolution™
• February 2008:  Glam Media raises $85 million in private strategic funding
• March 2008:  Launches Glam Living under Joe Lagani, former publisher of Conde Nast’s House & Garden
• May 2008:  Glam Media launches GlamTV Platform for video
• June 2008:  Glam Media  launches in UK and acquires UK-Based Monetise LTD
• July 2008:  Glam launches in Germany with Burda Cross Media as Joint Venture Launch
• August 2008:  Glam Ranked #10 as Display Ad Publisher according to June Ad Metrix comScore
• September 2008:  Launches Black Life vertical to wide acclaim
• September 2008:  Hires former Yukihiro Yamamura to run newly formed subsidiary Glam Media Japan KK
• September 2008:  Glam Media is #5 on Adweek Digital Media Hot List
• October 2008:  Glam ranked Top 10 Web Property according to August comScore, fastest growing in Top 50
• October 2008:  Launches Brash.com vertical for men—leveraging the technology platforms built for vertical targeting—Glam Evolution Ad Server and Glam Insider for Publishers

Glam Media is newly ranked as a comScore MediaMetrix Top 10 Web property and is also a 10 Display Ad Publisher, connecting brand display advertisers to more than 52 million uniques in U.S. and a global vertical content network of more than 700 sites. Glam.com targets Women with six channels: Style (Fashion, Beauty, Shopping); Entertainment; Living; Luxury; Family and Health & Wellness; and the recently launched vertical targeting African Americans, Black Life. The Brash.com vertical targets men with five channels:  Lifestyle; Entertainment; Tech; Auto and News.

About Glam Media
The founders of Glam Media created a new media model to bring brand advertisers to vertical audiences online:  vertical content networks. Today, Glam Media—with its Glam.com (women) and Brash.com (men) networks—is the fastest growing Top 10 media Web property in the U.S. with a total reach of 52.3 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and 75 million uniques globally. Glam Media recently entered the comScore Top 10 Web properties list and is also a Top 10 Display Ad Publisher. With 700 sites total, Glam Media is composed of: Glam.com—a carefully curated network of popular and influential lifestyle women’s Web sites, blogs and magazines; and Brash.com—the newly launched all men’s network. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. Glam Media is headquartered in New York City and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich, Berlin, and Tokyo.

NEW YORK – Yodle, Inc., a leader in local online advertising and lead generation, announced today the expansion of its technology platform to include support of franchise operations. The new offering, YodleFranchise, builds on the success of Yodle’s current online advertising solution for individual local businesses and is among the first services of its kind to specifically address the needs of both local franchise owners looking to promote their individual locations online as well as the franchise as a whole.

YodleFranchise is powered by Yodle’s robust online advertising solution, already proven to help individual local service-oriented businesses find new customers using the internet. YodleFranchise organizes all of a franchise’s advertising efforts into one large-scale, synchronized effort – all while carefully maintaining the local angle necessary to help drive results to individual locations. As a result, corporate offices can easily monitor and coordinate the campaigns of all their locations and/or franchisees without having to bring additional costly marketing personnel in house.

“We recognize that franchises have unique advertising needs that require a solution that is both large enough to handle a franchise’s entire network and local enough to drive results to their individual locations,” said Yodle CEO Court Cunningham. “YodleFranchise combines the local online advertising capabilities of our original offering with reporting and centralized control features that are powerful enough even for the largest of franchises.”

In the middle of an economic downturn, smart small business owners are demanding an advertising solution that gets them in front of their customers online. According to the Coleman Report, franchise loan failure rates are up by more than 55% since 2006. This shows more than ever that franchises need the kind of results-driven online marketing solution that Yodle delivers.

Yodle’s approach to simplifying online advertising for local businesses has driven 700%+ revenue growth in 2008 vs. 2007. To find out more information on Yodle’s new franchise offering, go to www.yodle.com/franchise.

About Yodle

Yodle provides local businesses with a simple and affordable way to get new customers and phone calls using online advertising. Yodle, a company funded by Bessemer Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is transforming local online advertising by connecting local business owners with consumers in a simple, measurable and relevant way. Yodle has developed an integrated approach to signing up and serving local businesses that are transitioning their marketing budgets online. Yodle is headquartered in New York, NY with a presence in 18 major cities across the United States and has hundreds of employees helping thousands of customers. To find out more about Yodle, go to www.yodle.com.

Brisbane, California and New York, New York—September 11, 2008—Glam Media, Inc., the pioneer of vertical content networks, today announced the launch of Glam Black Life (blacklife.glam.com), a new vertical providing brand advertisers with access to the largest network of African American woman-focused sites. Launch advertiser Lexus will roll out its Luxuryawaits.com campaign to Black Life bloggers and publishers in October. More than 50 sites are part of Glam Black Life, where Glam Media represents their premium ad inventory as part of the larger Glam network of 640 publishers. Glam Black Life is led by former Sahara Media (HoneyMag.com) executive Tamera Reynolds, who is the Director of Glam Black Life. Asten Morgan Jr., former director of national sales at BET, will serve as Black Life’s Executive Director, National Sales.

“This new endeavor is an exciting opportunity for Lexus,” said Dave Nordstrom, Lexus Vice President of Marketing. “Glam Media has created a unique way to reach African American women online as they pursue their passions and we’re happy to align Lexus with those pursuits.”

With close to four million uniques, Glam Black Life reaches more African American women than any other network with a selection of premium and popular sites including: TheYBF.com; Shake Your Beauty; Afrobella; Brown Girl Gumbo; Stylechile; The Fashion Bomb; The Blay Report and I Like Her Style, among others. Glam Beauty Editor India-Jewel Jackson is expanding her current role, and will also oversee all Glam Black Life original editorial content on Glam.com and the curation of content from across the Glam Publisher Network.

“Young, Black and Fabulous (TheYBF.com) was started three years ago out of my passion for celebrity gossip and was the first blog of its kind to focus on black celebrity gossip and entertainment news,” said Natasha Eubanks, founder and editor of TheYBF.com. “Glam Media supported my blog then and now as TheYBF.com reigns as one of largest and most popular black celebrity blogs, Glam continues to deliver the premium advertisers and monetization that has helped make me successful.”

“A comparable network of premium African American women publishers cannot be found in one place anywhere else on the Web,” said Tamera Reynolds of Glam Black Life. “Glam Black Life enables Glam Media to bring together a unique and relevant mix of content that is generated both in-house and by its talented network of publishers that appeals to the African American female demographic, and provide advertisers with the environment to reach this highly sought-after audience.”

Glam’s vertical content network now features seven separate channels representing each vertical including: Style (Fashion, Beauty, Shopping); Living; Entertainment; Wellness; Health, Family and Black Life. Each channel offers a distinctive blend of original editorial, media partner content and curated content from the Glam Publisher Network. The company’s market-leading publisher network of 640+ sites includes Apartment Therapy, BagSnob, Dwell, EatingWell, FashionTribes, Manolo the Shoeblogger, SheFinds, Stylebakery and many others.

About Glam Media

The founders of Glam created a new media model to bring brand advertisers to niche and premium audiences online. Today, Glam Media is the fastest growing Top 20 Media Company in the U.S. with a total reach of 44 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and 81 million global uniques, and is also a Top 10 Display Ad Publisher (comScore Ad Metrix). Glam Media provides a compelling mix of owned & operated Web sites including Glam.com and the carefully curated Glam Publishing Network of more than 640 popular and influential lifestyle Web sites, blogs and magazines. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. Glam Media is headquartered in New York City and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich and Tokyo.

Brisbane, CA and New York, NY—Sept 5, 2008—Glam Media (www.glammedia.com), pioneer of vertical content networks, announced the introduction of Glam Perks, a set of value added services for publishers, including a deal with Splash News & Picture Agency that gives the more than 600 sites in the Glam Publisher Network access to licensed photos, at no cost to publishers. Glam is the only network to provide publishers with comprehensive media services to leverage publisher content, audience and traffic.

“Glam monetizes my site with the best brand advertisers, something that requires a level of business, operational and technical capability that would be nearly impossible for most independent publishers to replicate themselves,” said Stephanie Rahlfs, creator of Stiletto Jungle blog. “But the media services are what truly set Glam apart from other advertising partnerships.”

With the introduction of Glam Perks, Glam now provides publishers with a full suite of services which go beyond representing ad inventory to include a range of media, operational and technical services to make publishers truly successful. Services include:

* Content services: Rights-managed photo access through Splash News and premium video content, from media providers, via the GlamTV platform.

* Audience and Marketing Services: Strategic distribution of publisher content across sites in the Glam Publisher Network via the GlamNow story box application which appear on most Network sites, on Glam.com, in daily email newsletters and through Glam Search.

* Custom advertorial services: Graphic design and technical support for premium brand advertising campaigns, including the creation of customized website skins, implementation of logo and banner ad takeovers, editorial support and other services to help publishers create deep brand engagement.

* SEO optimization services: Free site and keyword optimization services with SEO experts.

In providing access to photos from Splash News, Glam is solving a big challenge for publishers that are seeking rights-managed and relevant photos for their sites. Under the terms of the deal with Splash, Glam publishers have licensed and free access, via the GumGum licensing platform, to a set number of Splash photos per month free of charge and unlimited red carpet photos. Splash is the leading independent entertainment news and picture agency in America and brings the most up-to-date celebrity and Hollywood images to millions of people around the world through their distribution arrangements with leading newspapers, magazines, and TV.

“Splash wants to support bloggers by giving them licensed access to our photos,” said Gary Morgan, CEO of Splash News. “As a content provider, Splash continues to innovate its business model to take advantage of new opportunities and dynamics with the rise of mid-tail sites and networks like Glam Media.”

The Glam Publisher Network launched in November 2005 with 12 initial charter members and has grown over 5,000% to more than 600 web sites and blogs today—making Glam the largest vertical content network and category leader in women today. Glam facilitates the creation, launch and building of businesses for its hundreds of publishers by allowing them to focus on creating original content and engaging their audiences while Glam Media provides an “ecosystem” to increase revenue by leveraging the publishers’ digital content at premium advertising rates for advertisers worldwide.

“Glam’s carefully curated network of publishers is the cornerstone of our business and we are always grateful for their fresh and passionate editorial,” said Julieta Alvarado, Director of Network and Community Marketing for Glam Media. “Glam Perks further demonstrates our commitment to making our publishers successful.”

Glam Perks, launching on October 1st, and other services are available to members of the Glam network on the Glam Insider publisher dashboard.

Glam’s vertical content network features six separate channels representing each category including: Style, Living, Entertainment, Family, Health & Wellness. Each channel offers a distinctive blend of original editorial, media partner content and curated content from the Glam Publisher Network. Glam Media brings together premium media content and 640 publishers to give advertisers a unique and diverse platform for brand engagement with their target audiences. The company’s market-leading publisher network of 600+ sites includes: Apartment Therapy; BagSnob; FashionTribes; SheFinds; Shake Your Beauty, Stylebakery and others.

About Glam Media

The founders of Glam had an epiphany about what it would take to bring brand advertising online—to niche and premium Web audiences. Today, Glam Media is the fastest growing Top 20 Media Company in the U.S. With a total reach of 43 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and 81 million global uniques, and is also a Top 10 Display Top Display Ad Publisher (comScore Ad Metrix). Glam Media provides a compelling mix of owned & operated web sites including Glam.com and the carefully curated Glam Publishing Network of more than 640 popular and influential lifestyle Web sites, blogs and magazines. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. Glam Media is headquartered in New York City and Silicon Valley, California, with international offices in London, Munich and Tokyo.

GlamX Allows Publishers and Brand Advertisers To Optimize Vertical Ad Inventory Across The Glam Publisher Network

BRISBANE, CA and NEW YORK, NY—July 9, 2008—Glam Media, (www.GlamMedia.com), the pioneer of vertical content networks and number one in reach for women online, today announced the launch of GlamX Ad Exchange, the Web’s first vertical ad exchange for display inventory placement and targeted brand advertising.

GlamX Ad Exchange enables advertisers to target by audience, content and placement effectively connecting publishers, advertisers, agencies and networks in one innovative platform. “By maximizing the exchange of open inventory between publishers and advertisers in a fast and efficient vertical ad exchange, GlamX delivers the efficiency our agencies and Glam Publisher Network partners have wanted online for a long time,” said Fernando Ruarte, CTO for Glam Media.

The GlamX Ad Exchange is the first vertical display advertising marketplace bringing together quality advertisers that want mass reach with professional publishers. GlamX brings ease to buying display advertising quickly and efficiently and brings increased value from available ad inventory. Media planners and buyers can set campaign goals and attributes creating increased return on investment for their brand ads. Publishers get an additional source of revenue by improving their sell through and offering additional ad inventory.

With this announcement, Glam now offers publishers, agencies and brand advertisers a full set of digital advertising services with the Glam Evolution Ad Services platform: Glam Digital Primetime™ for premium display and video ads; Glam Interactive Solutions for custom brand engagement campaigns; and now GlamX Ad Exchange for all other brand ads, below the fold and non-primetime remnant ads. “GlamX Ad Exchange compliments the Glam Evolution Ad Services platform by allowing members of Glam Media’s Publisher Network to optimize their non-primetime inventory while simultaneously helping advertisers reach their intended audience.

Everyone wins.” said Ryan Roslansky, VP of Products for Glam Media. The GlamX Ad Exchange is designed specifically to allow members of Glam Media’s Publisher Network to make additional ad inventory available to Glam approved brand advertisers, agencies and trusted ad networks. Advertisers can reach a highly targeted and engaged audience with secondary ads that provide far better reach.

GlamX is an open exchange, allowing brands to bid for different targets and optimize their spending in a fully transparent environment. Unlike broader ad exchanges and ad networks, GlamX is the first vertical exchange that brings audience focus and channel context to display ads. GlamX can target and deliver ad inventory by audience, content, primetime, page placement and context on the Glam Publisher Network.

Agencies and brand advertisers using GlamX then gain access to impact and audience profile analysis, ad target analysis, brand metrics and audience segmentation effectiveness metrics—all of which can be used to improve allocation of advertising budgets across campaigns. In addition, Glam Evolution’s Digital Primetime targeting and new audience behavior reporting capabilities combined with Glam Media’s reach of more of 42 million unique monthly visitors in the US and 77 million global uniques will both maximize monetization and provide valuable insight on brand awareness.

The GlamX beta is available immediately to select digital agencies and publishers in the Glam Publisher Network. GlamX will be available to all agencies in Q4 of 2008.

The Glam Publisher Network was formed in November 2005 with 12 initial charter members and has grown over to become the largest distributed vertical content network and category leader in women on the Web today. Glam facilitates the building of businesses for its hundreds of publishers by allowing them to focus on creating content and engaging their audiences while Glam Media’s vertical network connects branded display advertisers with the online audiences of 500+ Web sites and blogs in the Glam Publisher Network.

Glam’s vertical content network is five channels today including Living; Fashion & Beauty; Entertainment; Health & Wellness and Family. Curated from hundreds of sites in the Glam Media Publisher Network, each channel offers a distinctive blend of original editorial, syndicated and media partner content created by trendsetting insiders and experts. Glam Media interfaces with a network of partners to provide a host of media services such as display and video advertising, content syndication, advertorials, search and other applications.

About Glam Media
Glam Media pioneered the vertical content network model and is the fastest growing Top 20 Media Company in the US. With a total reach of 42 million unique monthly visitors in the US and 77 million global uniques (comScore Media Metrix), Glam Media provides a compelling mix of fresh, original content created in-house on its owned & operated web sites and the carefully curated Glam Publishing Network of more than 500 popular and influential lifestyle Web sites, blogs and magazines. For premium national brand advertisers, Glam Media offers an unprecedented array of reach and targeting that are singularly attractive to both upscale and aspirational consumers. Glam Media is backed by Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital and Information Capital. Glam Media is based in New York City and Brisbane, California.