Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Private-equity firm Great Hill Partners has agreed to acquire Gizmodo Media Group from Univision Communications Inc., the companies said, ending the Spanish-language broadcaster’s foray into English-language digital media. James Spanfeller, the former chief executive of Forbes.com and president of consumer magazines at digital publisher Ziff Davis, will become chief executive of G/O Media Inc., a…
Ad tech has had another casualty. The news of Sizmek’s bankruptcy filing has shaken digital ad executives, who regarded the company’s ad server business as an important contender to Google’s. But the company’s vision of becoming a fully integrated buy-side tech stack was built on a crumbling foundation, according to ad tech sources. What didn’t help…
At the Atlantic earlier this week, Sidney Fussell reported on Airbnb’s policies toward hosts installing cameras to observe their customers and the platform’s apparent ambivalence about enforcing them. As Fussell notes, Airbnb hosts are permitted to have cameras installed in living rooms, common areas, and outdoor spaces, but not bathrooms and sleeping areas. They are…
Talks continued over the weekend to avert a programming blackout that would affect more than 24 million customers of AT&T’s DirecTV, U-verse and WatchTV services. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg News Updated March 24, 2019 2:29 p.m. ET Carriage deals between pay-TV distributors and programmers typically hinge on price. In the negotiations between AT&T Inc. T…
Visitors want fast websites, but advertisers want brand safety and viewable ads. In the end, ad concerns often end up winning at the expense of the user experience. According to data ad tech consultancy RedBud — examined for Digiday across 15 of the top 20 U.K. publishers — brand safety, viewability and verification tags represent…
As Amazon steps up its effort to show Wall Street it can generate profits, the e-commerce giant is aggressively blocking money-losing products from advertising on its site. In recent months, Amazon has been telling more vendors, or brand owners who sell their goods wholesale, that if Amazon can’t sell those products to consumers at a…
The adtech industry was unable to muster even a single speaker to fill a 10-minute slot to discuss the security implications of programmatic advertising at a much-anticipated event yesterday. The talks were run by the Information Commissioner’s Office at an undisclosed location in central London as part of efforts to dig into the murky depths…
Cookie-based ad targeting that doesn’t work in a mobile-dominant world is being replaced by people-based advertising. The Washington Post is trying to get ahead of the trend with a new ad product, FeedBuilder, that creates multiple versions of an ad and then contextually targets them to people based on what they’re reading. The tech favors…
This is an excerpt of a talk that I gave at the CMO Network in England on February 25, 2019.The marketing industry had so many expectations of the digital world. For example, everything would be real, measured, and trackable. But so many of those expectations turned out to be wrong. In short, much of what…
Photo: Moises Saman/Magnum Photos There’s a famous Ursula K. Le Guin short story called “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” about a fantasy city called Omelas, a joyous metropolis without guilt or violence, populated by “mature, intelligent, passionate” people who celebrate beautiful festivals and shop at (duh) a “magnificent Farmer’s Market.” Le Guin is…