PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goal’s commented on Rubicon Project announcement and offered the following feedback:

“We are very familiar with the technology that Rubicon Project has acquired.  It will be a monumentally difficult task for Rubicon to successfully integrate it with their own systems and could take up to a year.  In that time frame, it will be extremely challenging for them to innovate on behalf of publishers.  This deal smacks of desperation rather than innovation.  Integration of FAN technologies and employees will be challenging and there is no guarantee that it will work.  This is a huge gamble on Rubicon’s part to try and catch up with the technology leaders in the space and it will be at least a year before anyone will know if the deal was even worth it.”

Ad Operations Online will be seeking a response from the Rubicon Project – more to follow!

About PubMatic

PubMatic: (http://www.pubmatic.com) PubMatic’s Sell Side Platform provides premium publishers one platform with the technology and services needed to earn the most ad revenue possible while protecting their brands online. Some of the world’s most respected publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, MSNBC, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10.

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 US, Europe, and Asia.

About the Rubicon Project

the Rubicon Project, the world leader in Yield Optimization technology, launched in 2007 with a mission to automate buying and selling across the $65 billion global online advertising industry.  Powered by data-driven algorithms and pricing intelligence data, REVV, the company’s yield optimization platform, has optimized more than 900 billion ad transactions for more than 350 of the largest properties on the Internet and is forecasted to reach 500 billion RTB transactions by Q4 2010.  REVV helps premium Web publishers like NBC Universal, Time Inc., Gannett  and CareerBuilder make more money by optimizing their ad space, eliminate unnecessary ad operations costs and protect their brands.  The platform powers the REVV Marketplace, the world’s largest premium display advertising marketplace.  More than 600 ad networks, exchanges and DSPs access premium inventory and audiences through the REVV Marketplace and its unparalleled reach of more than 550 million unique users.  Headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Seattle, London, Paris, Hamburg and Sydney, the company is backed by $60 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures Asia, GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund and News Corporation.

LOS ANGELES – the Rubicon Project, the advertising technology company, has acquired Fox Audience Network (FAN), one of the Web’s most advanced advertising technology platforms, to significantly expand its team and continue driving rapid revenue growth. The acquisition accelerates the Rubicon Project’s plan to deliver premium Web publishers the most complete, end-to-end display advertising platform.  As part of the deal, News Corporation will receive a non-controlling minority equity stake in the new combined entity.
Separately, the Rubicon Project also announced an $18 million round of funding, bringing total financial investments to $60 million. The current financing round included funding from News Corporation, Clearstone Venture Partners, IDG Ventures Asia, Mayfield Fund, NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund and Jarl Mohn.  the Rubicon Project reached profitability in October 2010, ahead of plan and excluding any revenue from the FAN acquisition,  it will generate more than $100 million in revenue in 2010.

“There is great synergy across the technology and market vision of the two companies and teams. Backed by News Corporation’s support, FAN’s talented engineering team has developed unique, industry-leading display advertising technologies,” said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder of the Rubicon Project. “the Rubicon Project’s REVV platform is the number one yield optimization platform in the industry, powering more than 60 billion ad transactions each month and will process 500 billion real-time bidding (RTB) transactions in Q4. REVV fuels the industry’s largest display advertising marketplace, where 600+ ad networks, exchanges and DSPs from around the world reach 550+ million unique users. The addition of FAN’s technology assets positions us to provide a complete platform 18-24 months ahead of schedule.  Combining the technology with our market share and financial strength – we now have everything we need to successfully execute our vision.”

As part of the acquisition, more than 100 FAN employees will be joining the Rubicon Project team – a majority in engineering and product. the Rubicon Project does not sell its technology to advertisers; therefore it did not  acquire FAN’s direct ad sales team.

Key assets and highlights of the FAN transaction include:

MyAds self-service ad buying platform
FAN’s SDC publisher ad server
Audience hypertargeting and insights technology
Real-time bidding algorithms
100+ FAN technology employees
Former CTO and EVP of Product, Technology and Operations at FAN, John Carnahan, joins the Rubicon Project’s leadership team as CTO. Carnahan will be responsible for overseeing all product development activities, and formulating long-term vision and strategy for the REVV platform. Prior to FAN, Carnahan was Lead Developer at Yahoo! Research.

About the Rubicon Project
the Rubicon Project, the world leader in Yield Optimization technology, launched in 2007 with a mission to automate buying and selling across the $65 billion global online advertising industry.  Powered by data-driven algorithms and pricing intelligence data, REVV, the company’s yield optimization platform, has optimized more than 900 billion ad transactions for more than 350 of the largest properties on the Internet and is forecasted to reach 500 billion RTB transactions by Q4 2010.  REVV helps premium Web publishers like NBC Universal, Time Inc., Gannett and CareerBuilder make more money by optimizing their ad space, eliminate unnecessary ad operations costs and protect their brands.  The platform powers the REVV Marketplace, the world’s largest premium display advertising marketplace.  More than 600 ad networks, exchanges and DSPs access premium inventory and audiences through the REVV Marketplace and its unparalleled reach of more than 550 million unique users.  Headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Seattle, London, Paris, Hamburg and Sydney, the company is backed by $60 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures Asia, GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund and News Corporation.

New York, NY – DoubleVerify, the pioneer and worldwide leader in online media verification, released findings from its 1H 2010 Trust Index. The report provides insight into compliance and brand safety in online advertising with the intentions of increasing trust and accountability in the market. Highlights from the Trust Index include: identification of the best-in-class networks in the market with regard to non-compliance, benchmarks for advertising delivery and types of non-compliance and an analysis of the overall industry performance. DoubleVerify analyzed hundreds of advertisers, thousands of verified campaigns and more than 150 billion advertising impressions between January and June 2010 to produce the bi-annual report, which can be downloaded at: http://www.doubleverify.com/trust-index-1h-2010/

To identify the top performers in the industry, DoubleVerify analyzed networks based on benchmarks of non-compliance, including: instances of ads served out of inclusion lists, in exclusion lists, alongside inappropriate content and ads served to international audiences. Companies determined top performers include (listed alphabetically): AOL’s Advertising.com, AudienceScience, Burst Media, FOX Audience Network, interclick, Microsoft Media Network, Tribal Fusion and ValueClick Media.

“In order for brand dollars to shift online, advertisers need to trust that their campaigns are running as intended and the Trust Index provides an overview of how the industry is doing against those expectations,” said Oren Netzer, CEO of DoubleVerify. “Our data shows that improvements are being made across the board to increase brand safety and trust. Verified campaigns especially showed vast improvement in non-compliance. Nevertheless, there’s still work to be done and we hope this data will provide benchmarks for advertising vendors to guide them toward these goals and move the industry forward.”

DoubleVerify took additional data into consideration when analyzing overall non-compliance of the online advertising industry, including: instances when multiple ads from the same advertiser were served, when ads were served alongside a competitor and when ads were served below the fold. According to the report, the most compliant advertising networks had an average of 2 percent incidents of non-compliance over the first six months of 2010. In comparison, the ten networks that struggled most saw an average of 37 percent incidents of non-compliance. Additionally, the most compliant platforms (DSPs, Ad Exchanges and Trading Desks) showed an average of 6 percent incidents of non-compliance – outperforming the lower tier of players by almost five times.

While each industry sector showed an effort to decrease non-compliance, all players were subject to fluctuations that illustrate the fact that even the best players face issues. The Trust Index details the overall average of non-compliance as well as the standard deviation of each group of industry players, showing how much variation there is from the “average”.  The standard deviation for the top performing advertising networks, for example, was 17 percent across campaigns. The standard deviation for the lowest performing ad networks was 28 percent.

DoubleVerify also analyzed how non-compliance on specific campaigns changed over time. Advertisers who worked with DoubleVerify to monitor, remediate and block non-compliant impressions witnessed a 67 percent decrease in inappropriate content and a 72 percent decrease in internationally targeted traffic.

Additional highlights around overall advertising delivery norms include:
• 44 percent of ads on verified campaigns were served below the fold
• 10 percent of advertising pages included multiple ads by the same advertiser
• 4 percent of ads in verified campaigns were shown alongside a competitor’s ads

For more information and to view the report in its entirety, visit http://www.doubleverify.com/trust-index-1h-2010/

Methodology
DoubleVerify used a robust set of data analysis tools to analyze online advertising campaign activity across more than 150 billion advertiser campaign impressions from January 1, 2010 through June 30, 2010. Types of non-compliance analyzed include instances of ads served out of inclusion lists, in exclusion lists, alongside inappropriate content, multiple ads from the same advertiser, ads alongside a competitor, below the fold ads and ads served to international audiences. The data in the analysis was carefully normalized to the best of our ability. Advertising delivery providers were categorized into 3 main categories: Advertising Networks, Platforms (includes DSPs, ad exchanges and trading desks) and Publishers. Video Networks and Video Publishers were not included in this analysis.

About DoubleVerify
DoubleVerify (www.doubleverify.com) is the worldwide leader in online advertising verification and the top choice of marketers, agencies, ad networks and publishers looking to ensure brand safety, campaign transparency and regulatory compliance. DoubleVerify verifies more than 35 billion advertising impressions per month for hundreds of leading Fortune 500 marketers. DoubleVerify is headquartered in New York City, with engineering offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. Investors in DoubleVerify include Blumberg Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures.

LOS ANGELES – News Corporation’s MySpace (http://www.MySpace.com) and Fox Audience Network (FAN) announced a plan to integrate the FAN business directly with MySpace. The move will enable MySpace to leverage FAN’s team and its leading technology platform. In addition, FAN announced that its President, Adam Bain, will leave the company to pursue other opportunities.

“FAN and MySpace have worked together closely over the past several years and this integration will further align these two properties,” said Jon Miller, Chairman and CEO of Digital Media for News Corporation. “Adam has been an invaluable asset to News Corp, having led FAN’s growth from the ground up into one of the Web’s largest ad platforms, and we wish him well in the future.”

“By fully integrating FAN’s platform and team, we are in a great position to further leverage FAN’s technology, which allows advertisers to serve the right ad to the right person and apply that to content across MySpace to provide a more relevant experience for our users,” said Mike Jones, President of MySpace. “The FAN team is incredibly talented and we’re excited to welcome them to the MySpace family.”

Fox Audience Network was created in 2007 and currently reaches more than 150 million Internet users. The company leverages proprietary advertising technology to create highly-targeted advertising campaigns for a wide range of marketers, while also delivering cutting-edge tools and services to third-party publisher partners, advertising agencies and research companies.

About MySpace

MySpace is a technology company connecting people through personal expression, content, and culture. MySpace empowers its global community to experience the Internet through a social lens by integrating personal profiles, photos, videos, mobile, messaging, games, and the world’s largest music community. MySpace is a division of News Corporation. (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV)

About Fox Audience Network

The Fox Audience Network (FAN) is a unit of News Corporation that supports monetization efforts across the company’s online content portfolio, as well third-party publisher sites. FAN leverages proprietary advertising technology to create highly-targeted advertising campaigns for a wide range of marketers, while also delivering cutting-edge tools and services to third-party publisher partners, advertising agencies and research companies. FAN works directly with hundreds of advertisers to develop customized marketing programs that optimize both branded and performance-based strategies. The company also developed and manages a self-serve advertising platform, which is currently utilized by more than 30,000 advertisers. In all, FAN reaches more than 150 million consumers each month.

NEW YORK – Responding to marketers’ call for better brand safety and enhanced transparency online, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced that 16 member companies are the first to commit to comprehensive self-certification against the IAB “Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines.” Released in June of this year, the guidelines are part of a far-reaching industry initiative lead by the IAB to increase buyer control over the placement and context of advertising on ad networks and exchanges. The announcement was made at ClickZ Connected Marketing Week in San Francisco, where the IAB Networks & Exchanges Committee programmed a one-day forum on ad networks and exchanges.

The first 16 IAB member companies that will self-certify in early 2011 are:

24/7 Real Media

Fox Audience Network

Adify

Google

AOL/Advertising.com

ScanScout

AudienceScience

Specific Media

Burst Media

Traffic Marketplace

Casale Media

Tremor Media

ContextWeb, Inc. / ADSDAQ Exchange

Yahoo!

CPX Interactive

ValueClick Media

“We applaud the efforts of these ad networks and exchanges to be the first to commit to the standards and practices covered by ‘Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines,’” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “It is no small task to undergo the self-certification process and, once compliant, these organizations will provide marketers the highest level of brand safety. Every agency and marketer should consider compliance with these guidelines as a buying standard and we invite additional ad networks and exchanges to join the program.”

“The IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines demonstrate to marketers and agencies that we put brand safety first,” said Jay Sears, General Manager of ContextWeb, Inc.’s ADSDAQ Exchange, and Co-Chair of the IAB Networks & Exchanges Committee. “These 16 companies that have raised their hand must now engage in a full-scale implementation that will require extensive training and investment—it shows a true commitment to control, transparency and simplifying the buying of digital media.”

“The certification program we designed is a way to provide marketers and agencies a standardized approach that will make buying advertising easier and give increased control over where ads are placed,” said David Jacobs, Senior Vice President, Advertising.com, and Co-Chair of the IAB N&E Ad Certification Working Group. “We anticipate broad adoption of these guidelines by parties participating in the self certification process.”

The rigorous self-certification process requires the participating companies to:

Attend IAB training sessions developed to guide compliance officers through the proper implementations of the guidelines
Conduct quarterly internal audits to test compliance with the guidelines
Submit forms to the IAB from both the compliance officer and business unit leader attesting to adherence to the guidelines
“Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines” can be found on the IAB website at: http://www.iab.net/ne_guidelines.

About the IAB’s Networks & Exchanges Committee:

The IAB Networks and Exchanges Committee is comprised of senior leaders of ad networks and ad exchanges that are general member companies. The committee is dedicated to furthering the interests of ad networks and ad exchanges in today’s complex ad marketplace. Committee objectives are to foster the highest standards of professionalism and accountability in relationships with publishers, advertisers and the agency community, to develop programs that enable revenue growth, and to create best practices that protect consumers and the industry. A full list of Committee member companies can be found at: http://www.iab.net/networks_and_exchanges_committee.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

Analysis finds more than 7,000 companies advertising on ad networks

New York, NY, April 28 – Kantar Media, the leading provider of strategic advertising intelligence to advertisers, advertising agencies and media properties, is introducing Internet ad network competitive tracking reporting.

With the introduction, Kantar Media will be the only research provider to offer detailed insight into the companies, advertisers and products running on ad networks, and the only source of industry-specific and category-specific ad network trending.

The reporting will be available as data through the company’s Stradegy™ product, which provides competitive multi-media expenditure and occurrence information to media buyers, and Evaliant™ product, which details competitive online advertising intelligence, providing expenditure, occurrence, impressions and creative.

“Advertising networks have emerged as a primary channel for Internet display advertising, enabling advertisers and agencies to reach both wide audiences and targeted demographic groupings. Ad networks have made it possible for site owners to monetize inventory that hasn’t been sold through direct sales channels,” says Mark Nesbitt, president of Kantar Media’s Intelligence sector. “But to date, industry- and advertiser-level trending and data analysis for such networks, as well as insight into the source of such display advertising, has not been available. Our reporting will now enable further growth and utilization of these networks by providing insight into the volume of network advertising running across the 4,500 premier, top-tier and local sites in the U.S. and Canada that Kantar Media monitors.”

“Kantar Media’s ad network impression data will be an invaluable resource for brands and marketers going forward,” said Judit Nagy, Vice President, Market Research, Fox Audience Network. “This pioneering effort to track ad network impression volumes helps express the importance and the maturity of online ad networks in the overall media marketplace.”

Kantar Media’s Internet ad network reporting, which was designed in consultation with agencies, publishers and ad networks, will enable advertisers and agencies to see which brands are running on which networks. Duplication reporting will also allow buyers to better optimize network buys for the greatest reach and efficiency. While the reporting will not reveal network individual site placements, agencies will be able to identify which networks have the highest level of overlap when evaluating flights and campaigns.

The service will allow site owners and media companies to understand which networks have the highest penetration of advertising running within the universe of premier and market sites that Kantar monitors. With this, media companies can target prospects not running on networks – that is, brands paying for premium placements directly through site partnerships – or prospects advertising on ad networks but not with them. Additionally, sellers of advertising will be able to evaluate product categories that may suit available inventory that carries light or no current network activity.

According to Nesbitt, Kantar’s tracking will make it possible to easily view competitive brand network detail to determine who is responsible for the majority of campaigns and make it possible to understand network share across industries, categories, advertisers, brands and products. At release, Kantar Media will be collecting data for 29 networks, with more networks to be added over time.

ANALYSIS OF INTERNET AD NETWORKS

Using a two-month data set (December 2009 – January 2010) that reports ad network impression delivery by product, parent company and category, Kantar Media documented an initial analysis of Internet ad networks.

The analysis found that as a group, the 29 ad networks tracked accounted for 22.1% of total impression delivery across the monitoring base. Publisher direct ad placements had a dominant share of 77.9%, with the top four ad networks accounting for more than 85% of total network impression delivery.

An analysis of the top ten product categories based on total impression delivery, showed that nearly 80% of the impressions for the “Amusements and Events” category were via networks, while some top product categories distributed less than 10% of their ad weight through networks.

Kantar Media’s analysis of ad network monitoring data identified more than 7,000 parent companies that placed ads through the 29 networks tracked during the December-January period. However, a select group of just ten companies accounted for more than 40% of all network-delivered impressions.

That represented a higher concentration than the publisher direct segment where the top ten companies accounted for about one-third of all impressions delivered via that channel. The top ten network advertisers are a mix of large blue-chip companies and smaller, less well-known firms.

The top ten publisher direct advertisers include prominent internet marketers. The tables below show the Top Ten rankings for each of these segments. The percentages are each company’s share of total segment impressions. There are four companies common to both lists.

85% of the network-delivered impressions in the data set flowed through just four of the 29 ad networks. This implies that individual advertisers and products concentrate their network buys on a small number of these entities.

Kantar Media also analyzed ad network activity for each product by the Top 100 parent companies by internet ad spend to identify how many individual networks were used.

The results showed 56% of the products used exactly one ad network. Only 17% of products used more than four networks. The mean was just 2.3 networks out of the pool of 29.

The full ad network analytics and trends report is available at: http://www.kantarmediana.com/Ad-Networks-Analytics.php

About Kantar Media
Established in more than in 50 countries, Kantar Media enables exploration of multimedia momentum through analysis of print, radio, TV, internet, social media, and outdoors worldwide. Kantar Media offers a full range of media insights and audience measurement services through its global business sectors – Intelligence, Audiences and TGI & Custom. Combining the deepest expertise in the industry, Kantar Media tracks more than 3 million brands and delivers insights to more than 22,000 customers around the world. www.KantarMediaNA.com

Ad Tag Cloud 2.0 Also Receives Industry Innovation Award

New York, NY – adMarketplace, Inc. announced the launch of version 2.0 of its Ad Tag Cloud, an engaging ad unit that brings the yield of search advertising to content publishers.

The Ad Tag Cloud 2.0 presents website visitors with a dozen search terms and invites them to mouse-over the keyword they find most interesting. When a user rolls-over over a keyword, a related advertiser offer appears– and like search advertising, the user can choose to click on the offer to go to the advertiser’s website.

Keywords and related offers are behaviorally targeted based on aggregated user interaction data including keyword roll-overs, click-throughs, and conversions. The Ad Tag Cloud 2.0 is available as a flash-animated javascript tag in standard IAB sizes, and can be serve as a complementary publisher revenue stream alongside other advertising solutions like Google AdSense.

“We have seen tremendous success running the Ad Tag Cloud on the Fox Audience Network. Users are engaging and interacting with the new unit and we are increasing our yield with adMarketplace,” says Warren Kay, Vice President at Fox Audience Network, which includes MySpace.

In related news, the Ad Tag Cloud 2.0 was recognized for its creativity, originality, and potential to deliver revenue to web publishers at DOMAINfest in Los Angeles, where it won the PITCHfest Global Service Innovator Award in a competition of new monetization products.

“Publishers are looking for a better way to monetize their unsold display inventory, and the Ad Tag Cloud 2.0 responds to that need,” says Jamie Hill, adMarketplace CEO. “Text ads have changed very little over the last 10 years, and our publishers are excited that the Ad Tag Cloud gives them access to high quality, relevant offers in an attractive unit that also delivers value to users and advertisers.”

adMarketplace delivers performance web traffic to over 100,000 advertisers. This deep advertiser coverage, competitive pricing and proprietary targeting allows adMarketplace to offer publishers competitive Revenue Per Unit yield through pubMarketplace.com.

Visit pubMarketplace.com today for more information about Ad Tag Cloud 2.0.

adMarketplace, Inc. is a profitable and fast-growing online advertising and technology company headquartered in Manhattan. Launched in 2006, adMarketplace.com delivers performance advertising to over 100,000 online advertisers across over 300,000 web properties including those powered by pubMarketplace.com. Our mission is to deliver the performance of search advertising from content traffic.  For more information, please visit www.adMarketplace.com.

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world reported the top 15 ad networks based on their reach among U.S. Internet users in December 2009. The ranking showed that AOL Advertising remains the top ad network, reaching 187 million U.S. Internet users, or 91 percent of the total audience, followed by Yahoo! Network (180.9 million) and Google Ad Network (178.1 million). The fastest growing ad network by audience reach among the top 15 was Microsoft Media Network U.S., which grew 31 percent versus year ago, followed by Collective Network (up 22 percent) and Audience Science (up 16 percent).

Top 15 Ad Networks

December 2009 vs. December 2008 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations

Source: comScore Media Metrix

Total Unique Visitors (000)

Dec-2008    Dec-2009    % Change

Total Internet : Total Audience  190,650     205,709         8

AOL Advertising                                173,804     187,023         8

Yahoo! Network                                 165,879     180,909         9

Google Ad Network                              157,131     178,134        13

ValueClick Networks                            159,420     170,774         7

Microsoft Media Network US                     126,158     165,470        31

Specific Media                                 153,079     165,230         8

FOX Audience Network                               N/A     156,981       N/A

24/7 Real Media                                142,448     155,856         9

Collective Network                             126,294     153,905        22

interCLICK                                     137,076     148,989         9

Tribal Fusion                                  139,778     147,169         5

AudienceScience (formerly Revenue Science)     126,261     146,428        16

Traffic Marketplace                            147,024     144,115         -2

Adconion Media Group                           142,133     141,235         -1

Turn, Inc                                      123,150     138,297        12

“Ad networks continue to be a powerful mechanism for delivering a large audience online, with eight different networks reaching at least 75 percent of the entire U.S. online population,” said comScore senior vice president Jeff Hackett. “Increasingly, however, ad networks are improving their capability for reaching more targeted audiences as well, which delivers enhanced value to advertisers and helps sustain higher CPMs for the channel. 2010 should bring us continued innovation and performance from this growing online sector.”

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

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK – Fox Audience Network (FAN), a division of News Corporation, and WPP (NASDAQ:WPPGY) announced a partnership to provide marketers with more accurate and in-depth information to increase the effectiveness of their digital marketing investments.

FAN will work with units of WPP’s Kantar and WPP Digital under the terms of the new partnership. These collaborations will provide marketers with better insight across inventory aggregated by both FAN and the Media Innovation Group of WPP Digital.

WPP companies will gain access to FAN’s Audience Segmentation service to enrich their insights, planning and measurement offerings. The enhanced audience segmentation services will enable WPP clients to understand and reach highly customized yet anonymous groups of consumers who share relevant interests, such as autos, games, movies or music. In addition, FAN will gain access to deep consumer insights from Kantar, the research arm of WPP, broadening the information available in its Audience Segmentation platform.

“There is more data than most online marketers know what to do with but not enough insight or action,” said Mark Read, CEO of WPP Digital. “We are delighted to be working with FAN to integrate Audience Insights into the various WPP platforms, extending FAN’s analytics across more publishers and more channels, online and offline, than ever before.”

“In working with WPP, we gain a valuable partner as we extend our Audience Insights platform, which already covers more than 80% of online consumers in the U.S., into the most comprehensive audience analytics service in the industry,” said Adam Bain, President of Fox Audience Network. “Together, we will create new insights for marketers about who is visiting their digital properties and how particular audience segments are responding to marketing messages.”

Specifically the partnership includes the following:

Compete, a division of Kantar Media, will integrate enhanced features from FAN’s Audience Insights platform into its Compete PRO offering, the leading online measurement and digital intelligence service (found at www.compete.com).
WPP Digital’s Media Innovation Group will incorporate elements of the FAN media planning suite into ZAP, its proprietary digital advertising platform.
FAN will aggregate additional retail and other information on an anonymous basis from Kantar Media into its Audience Insights platform to provide more robust audience segments to advertisers.
About WPP

WPP is the world’s largest communications services group. Through its operating companies, the Group provides a comprehensive range of advertising and marketing services including advertising; media investment management; information, insight and consultancy; public relations and public affairs; branding and identity; healthcare communications; direct, digital, promotion and relationship marketing and specialist communications. The company employs 145,000 people (including associates) in 2,400 offices in 107 countries. For more information, visit www.wpp.com.

About FAN

The Fox Audience Network (FAN) is a unit of News Corporation that supports monetization efforts across the company’s online content portfolio, as well as third-party publisher sites. FAN leverages proprietary advertising technology to create highly-targeted advertising campaigns for a wide range of marketers, while also delivering cutting-edge tools and services to third-party publisher partners, advertising agencies and research companies. FAN works directly with hundreds of advertisers to develop customized marketing programs that optimize both branded and performance-based strategies. The company also developed and manages a self-serve advertising platform, which is currently utilized by more than 30,000 advertisers. In all, FAN reaches more than 158 million consumers each month* and owns partnerships with more than 700 online publishers.

*Source: comScore Media Metrix, September 2009

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world today reported the top 25 ad networks based on their reach among U.S. Internet users in April 2009. The ranking showed that AOL’s Platform-A remains the top ad network, reaching nearly 176.5 million U.S. Internet users, or 91.5 percent of the total audience, followed by Yahoo! Network (167.1 million) and Google Ad Network (164.5 million). New ad network FOX Audience Network ranked sixth, reaching 149.2 million people. Several ad networks in the top 25 achieved double-digit growth during the past year, led by Turn Inc. (up 121 percent), CPX Interactive (up 88 percent) and 24/7 Real Media (up 48 percent).

______________________________________________________________________________
Top 25 Ad Networks

April 2009 vs. April 2008

Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations

Source: comScore Media Metrix

Total Unique Visitors (000)
Apr-2008        Apr-2009       % Change

Total Internet: Total Audience          190,728         192,875           1

Platform-A                              170,508         176,455           3
Yahoo! Network                          160,206         167,129           4
Google Ad Network                       155,882         164,518           6
ValueClick Networks                     140,930         160,307          14
Specific Media                          144,773         158,012           9
FOX Audience Network                        N/A         149,249         N/A
24/7 Real Media                          99,959         147,668          48
Traffic Marketplace                     114,682         143,519          25
Microsoft Media Network US              119,595         139,674          17
Tribal Fusion                           135,113         138,274           2
Casale Media – MediaNet                 127,184         137,884           8
interCLICK                              107,961         134,834          25
Turn, Inc                                60,617         134,028         121
Adconion Media Group                    117,965         133,498          13
CPX Interactive                          69,178         130,370          88
Collective Network by Collective Media   88,279         129,808          47
ADSDAQ by ContextWeb                     93,815         123,534          32
AudienceScience (formerly Revenue Science)  N/A         121,001         N/A
Burst Media                              89,670         116,727          30
Undertone Networks                       72,940          97,053          33
AdBrite                                  81,838          91,033          11
Pulse 360                                   N/A          82,574         N/A
Vibrant Media                            72,351          80,779          12
Adify                                       N/A          73,467         N/A
Kontera                                  52,159          72,870          40
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“Underscoring the growing importance of ad networks to the digital advertising economy, each of the top 25 ad networks has expanded its reach during the past year,” commented Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. “It almost seems that new ad networks are emerging every day, each aimed at helping advertisers achieve their campaign objectives, whether it’s to deliver reach and frequency or to target a specific audience segment.”

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

Social Networking Category Has Record Month Led by Gains at Twitter and Facebook

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for April 2009 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. April saw Americans turn to the Web for the latest information related to the swine flu, causing traffic to soar at CDC.gov. The month also saw visitation to social networking sites reach record numbers, driven by growth at Twitter.com and Facebook.com, as well as an increase in visitation to real estate and home-related sites as the spring season prompted many Americans to consider home improvements. The tax category also experienced strong growth as procrastinating Americans tried to beat the April 15 deadline.

“When news of the swine flu pandemic erupted, many Americans turned to the Internet as their primary source of information for how to keep themselves and their families safe,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “April also saw a record number of visitors at social networking sites with Facebook and Twitter each adding millions of new users as a result of continued media attention and overall interest in the sites.”

Swine Flu Drives Americans Online in Search of Information

News of the swine flu outbreak prompted many concerned Americans to jump online in search of information about prevention, detection and treatment of the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s site, CDC.gov, witnessed a 142-percent increase to 5.7 million visitors, making it the top-gaining property in April.

Social Networking Reports Record Visitation

The social networking category experienced a record month, growing 12 percent to nearly 140 million visitors, or nearly three-quarters of the U.S. online population. MySpace Sites led the category with 71 million visitors, followed by Facebook.com with 67.5 million visitors, an increase of 10 percent from the previous month. Twitter.com, now the third ranked social networking site, experienced another explosive month of visitor growth, jumping 83 percent to 17 million visitors.

Americans’ Homes Top of Mind in April

Many Americans sought information related to their homes in April with the Real Estate category reporting a 10-percent increase to 48.4 million visitors and the Community – Home category gaining 10 percent to nearly 30 million visitors. Move Network led as the most visited real estate site attracting 13.2 million visitors (up 88 percent vs. March), followed by Yahoo! Real Estate with 6.8 million visitors (up 11 percent) and AOL Real Estate with 3.6 million visitors (up 15 percent).

The start of spring led many Americans to consider home repairs and remodeling, driving traffic to the Community – Home category. About.com Home & Garden led the category with nearly 4 million visitors (up 16 percent), followed by AOL Home with 3.8 million visitors (up 29 percent) and Better Homes & Gardens Network with 3.8 million visitors (up 13 percent).

Top 50 Properties

Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in April with more than 155 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 149 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 126.5 million visitors. Facebook.com climbed one spot in the ranking to #8 with 67.5 million visitors.

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking

Platform-A led the April Ad Focus ranking, reaching 91 percent of the nearly 193 million Americans online. Yahoo! Network ranked second, reaching 87 percent, while Google Ad Network ranked third with an 85 percent reach. Specific Media moved up seven spots to #5 reaching 82 percent, while FOX Audience Network climbed three positions to #6 reaching 77 percent of Americans online.

Table 1
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)

April 2009 vs. March 2009

Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations

Source: comScore Media Metrix

Total Unique Visitors (000)

Mar-09     Apr-09    % Change   Rank by

Unique

Visitors

Total Internet: Total Audience    192,173    192,875       0        N/A

CDC.gov                             2,371      5,736     142        214
CHINAONTV.COM                       2,674      6,300     136        185
Move Network                        7,002     13,191      88         77
Twitter.com                         9,313     17,001      83         56
MLB.com                             6,860     12,497      82         87
Betawave Partners – Partial List    3,972      7,145      80        163
Hollywood.Net -
Hollywood Online Network       4,821      6,850      42        169
teen.com Network                    5,495      7,806      42        145
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) 3,774      5,086      35        236
Wikia Sites                         3,638      4,892      34        239
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*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in April 2009.

Table 2
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Site Categories* by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)

April 2009 vs. March 2009

Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations

Source: comScore Media Metrix

Total Unique Visitors (000)

Mar-09        Apr-09      % Change

Total Internet: Total Audience     192,173       192,875        0

Community – Teens                   19,947        24,142       21
Business/Finance – Taxes            18,311        20,585       12
Social Networking                  124,406       139,781       12
Real Estate                         43,924        48,357       10
Entertainment – Music               86,817        95,511       10
Community – Home                    27,161        29,857       10
Retail – Computer Software          34,346        37,685       10
Retail – Flowers/Gifts/Greetings    28,356        31,019        9
Online Gambling                     11,670        12,754        9
Gaming Information                  40,637        44,370        9

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For tables 3 & 4, please refer to: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/5/Social_Networking_Category_Has_Record_Month_Led_by_Gains_at_Twitter_and_Facebook

About comScore Media Metrix

comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.

About comScore

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