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| Helping publishers get the most from display advertising with Admeld Posted: 13 Jun 2011 08:12 AM PDT (Cross-posted on the DoubleClick Publisher Blog) It's now clear that investments in new technologies, new ad formats and improved buying and selling processes are helping to grow the display advertising pie. This benefits publishers who make more money from display ads, users who receive free ad-funded content and marketers who are able to grow their businesses online. However, we often hear from major website publishers that ad management today is still mind-numbingly complicated and inefficient. We've been investing in our publisher tools to try and improve this landscape and have made great progress, but we think we can do even better. To help major publishers get the most out of the rapidly changing and growing display ad landscape, we've signed an agreement to acquire Admeld, a New York-based yield optimization firm. Here's a basic summary of the display ad industry, from the perspective of major publishers. There are lots of different ways that they can sell their display ad space. Often, they'll sell space directly to advertisers or agencies, using an ad server to actually deliver and measure the ads (like Microsoft's Atlas, AOL's AdTech, DoubleClick's DFP, Yahoo's APT, OpenX, Zedo, 24/7 Real Media and others). Alternatively, they'll make their ad space available indirectly—to hundreds of ad networks (like Advertising.com, Specific Media, Collective, 24/7, ValueClick, Vibrant, AdSense, Undertone and others), each with thousands of advertisers, or to various advertising exchanges or technology platforms (like Yahoo's Right Media, OpenX, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, ContextWeb, AdBrite, AppNexus and others) that match them with ad buyers (like ad networks and demand side platforms) who represent advertisers, in real-time marketplaces. Some publishers also work with a "yield optimization" provider (such as Rubicon Project, Pubmatic and others) that supplies technology to select ads from across these many indirect options, while providing personalized service and support. In a very complex and rapidly growing display ad landscape, that's what Admeld does. Providing better ad management services to publishers is an area that has seen a huge amount of investment in recent months. Formed just over three years ago, the Admeld team is an example of the huge strides the industry is making—it has quickly developed a great service that is helping many major publishers manage their ad space more efficiently and profitably. By combining Admeld's services, expertise and technology with Google's offerings, we're investing in what we hope will be an improved era of flexible ad management tools for major publishers. Together with Admeld, we hope to make display advertising simpler, more efficient and more valuable, provide improved support and services, and enable publishers to make more informed decisions across all their ad space. These are all things our publisher partners have been asking us to further invest in. Of course, Admeld will continue to support other ad networks, demand side platforms, exchanges and ad servers, to yield the best possible results for publishers. We believe that this investment will be an important step to help online publishers, and will further improve and grow the display advertising industry as a whole.      |
| It’s a slam dunk for NBA web searches Posted: 12 Jun 2011 02:49 PM PDT Way back in 1946, the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Chicago Stags in the first professional basketball league championship. Plenty has changed since then, including the name of the league (BBA to NBA), the team names (who are the Stags?!) and the length of the uniform shorts. But there are still some certainties in hoops—the rim remains 10 feet high, there are still five guys per team on the court—and at its core, basketball remains the same. In fact, sometimes it even repeats itself. This year's finals series between the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat is a re-match from five years ago. When we take a look at the data in our Insights for Search tool, it seems that sports fans across the U.S. are much more interested in the match-up this time around, as searches for both teams are currently far outpacing their 2006 levels.  Basketball has always been a game of big stars—with just 10 players on the court at any one time, one player can change the game in a major way. Looking at players like [kobe bryant] and [tim duncan], we can see the professional league's best players have shined during the NBA Finals. This year is proving to be no exception as the big names in the playoffs dominate people's basketball searches. Mavs forward Dirk Nowitzki is the most popular Maverick and Lebron bests his fellow super-stars, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, as well as the rest of the Heat players.   While Lebron "King" James and Dirk "The Diggler" Nowitzki are the top dogs on their respective teams, it's another player, Jason Kidd of the Mavericks, who is really the breakout star of these Finals. The 17-year NBA veteran has visited the Finals before (with the New Jersey Nets in 2002 and 2003), but he's never won a championship; in fact, Kidd has played in more playoff games without winning a championship than any other active player. With his team currently up 3-2, this year might finally be his to win. While he's had a career worthy of the Hall of Fame, the veteran has seen a resurgence in interest from U.S. sports fans this season, as you can see in the chart below.  Another way to look at NBA Finals search trends is geographically. As you'd expect, foreign-born players are seeing interest spike in their homelands. Dirk Nowitzki is popular in Germany and Joel Anthony, a Canadian playing center for the Miami Heat, is generating lots of interest from Canuck hoops fans.  It's not just the two cities with teams left playing that are searching for info on the series. Cleveland—the jilted former home of Lebron James—has taken a bigger interest in the [nba finals] than ever before. It seems both lovers and haters are paying attention to their former star's fate.  To understand the fan frenzy in Dallas, we need look no further than how the team stacks up to the traditional fare for most Texans: barbecue. In the Dallas area, [mavs] searches are currently outpacing [bbq] searches. When basketball is outpacing ribs in Texas, you know something big is going down in the Lone Star State.  Though I'm neither a Texan nor a Floridian, with just two potential games left in a neck-and-neck series I'll be settling in to watch Game 6 this Sunday hoping for another historic NBA Finals moment.     |
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