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MTV Networks consolidates new-media advertising into 'Digital Fusion'

Viacom's MTV Networks unit announced on Tuesday that it has created Digital Fusion, a new-media advertising division designed to bring together the marketing for its oft-disparate digital brands.

Digital Fusion, according to a release from MTV Networks, encompasses both innovation and consolidation. On one hand, it's an efficiency move to give the company an edge in the increasingly competitive online-ad market. But with that renewed efficiency, MTV hopes to go further, using it to "create entirely new digital-ad products, from creative uses of existing inventory to original interactive experiences, including video content, online games, microsites, and widgets.&… Read more

Openads turns 10,000

It's often difficult to find existing or new customers to adopt a new release. Openads, however, is having the opposite problem. With 10,000 publishers jumping onto the latest release of its ad network, the "problem" will be managing its growth:

I am very pleased to announce that, as of yesterday, over 10,000 publishers are using the latest Openads stable release (2.4). In the space of just 3 months we have reached this exciting milestone with publishers upgrading from the older releases and new publishers turning to Openads to manage their online advertising.

Think of Openads as the open-source Doubleclick. Except that it offers real choice for publishers:… Read more

Closing the circle on the Sony ad and "Timing Is Everything"

A few weeks back, I posted about Sony using a 1965 John Dominis photograph to illustrate how "Timing Is Everything." Given that the picture in question could hardly have been taken with a Sony digital camera (which wouldn't exist for decades), I thought it a poor choice to illustrate the technical prowess of Sony's latest digital SLR.

After I wrote the original post, I noticed something else when I was studying the original photograph and the one in the ad; they weren't quite the same. I thought it a slightly amusing oddity but not much … Read more

Facebook's Zuckerberg: 'We simply did a bad job' handling Beacon

This post was updated at 1 PM PT with comment from Overstock.com.

Plagued by allegations of everything from deceptiveness to invasion of privacy, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has publicly backed down on the social-networking site's controversial Beacon advertisements and announced new modifications.

In a post on the company blog on Wednesday morning, the 23-year-old executive apologized for the mess surrounding Beacon, which shares information about users' activity on third-party partner sites and posts it to their friends' "News Feeds."

"We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more … Read more

How online communities influence marketing methods

"Successful advertising campaigns today spark discussions rather than blatantly sell products." This point is the core of a new analysis out of Harvard Business School--a study of how consumers use online communities to learn about advertisers and products. It's a reflection of changes in the way people get reliable information--through each other, within closely-networked Web-based networks, in addition to various forms of media.

Read the full story at HBS's Working Knowledge site.

Rough seas nearly sink Facebook's Beacon

Facebook's "Beacon" advertising program nearly ran aground this week.

First, the liberal activist group MoveOn.org tore into the strategy, which shares members' activity from third-party sites on their Facebook "news feeds," as an invasion of privacy. Then MoveOn upped the ante earlier this week over the program's lack of an opt-out control. Then, on Thursday, reports began to surface that the program was close to being heavily altered or even cut altogether. The advertising program continues to be scrutinized by legal experts, and several advocacy groups have already filed complaints to the Federal … Read more

Facebook announces modifications to Beacon advertising program

This post has been updated to clarify the names of companies participating in the Beacon program.

Facebook has altered its controversial "Beacon" advertising program, following complaints by users and protests from activist groups like MoveOn.org. The Beacon ads, which project Facebook users' activity on third-party partner sites--retailers like Blockbuster and eBay, for example--to their friends' "news feeds," are a key part of Facebook's much-hyped new social-advertising program, but they hadn't received the friendliest of reception.

It's a situation reminiscent of the one last year when the initial launch of Facebook's News … Read more

AdBrite gets $23 million in VC funding

The online advertising market just continues to heat up.

Online ad marketplace AdBrite has received $23 million in Series C venture funding. The money comes from current investor Sequoia Capital, as well as from DAG Ventures and Mitsui Ventures. AdBrite launched a real-time auction model this year and was named the third-fastest growing young tech company in North America by Deloitte's Rising Star program.

The news follows an even larger funding announcement from rival online ad network Specific Media. Earlier this month Specific Media closed $100 million in Series B financing with private equity firm Francisco Partners.

The funding … Read more

Facebook will modify, not spike Beacon ads

In the wake of reports that suggested Facebook might be close to axing its controversial Beacon advertising program altogether, a company employee has come out and said that while changes to the application are imminent, it's not going away.

This follows a BusinessWeek report from Wednesday that indicated the program would be tweaked or even eliminated altogether.

Beacon, a component of Facebook's new "Social Ads" initiative, was assailed soon after its debut by leftist activist group MoveOn.org over what the group saw as grave privacy concerns. MoveOn stepped up its rhetoric earlier this week when … Read more