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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

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

Yesterday, as the Republican presidential debate took place via YouTube, the Democratic National Committee quietly launched a rather notable Web 2.0 initiative itself. FlipperTV is a new service from the Democratic Party site that offers a growing library of video clips of the Republican candidates on the campaign trail. Users are encouraged to take the video and "use the footage as they wish." Wink wink.

In an era when home-brewed YouTube videos are more entertaining than 90 percent of network television, the DNC's strategy seems obvious. Why pay high-priced advertising companies to create mudslinging attack ads (that could blow up in its face) when you have millions of supporters with the technology to make their own videos and take responsibility for the content. The site even suggests that we "hold these candidates accountable for their comments and actions."… Read more

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--What is the best way to make money with ads tied to online video? And how can traditional advertising models benefit from new methods pioneered online?

Those were major topics of discussion during the morning keynote today at the Dow Jones Consumer Technology Innovations conference here. And while panelists--representatives from Google, Verizon and Polaris Venture Partners--made some interesting points, they also made it quite clear that there are not yet obvious answers to the questions.

To Michael Hirshland, a general partner at Polaris, one encouraging developing trend is the continued emergence of what he termed "prosumer&… Read more

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--StudioNow exists because, as a video editor, you probably suck.

The Nashville-based company has created a service that turns unwieldy libraries of video footage into watchable, short videos. The system works as follows: video gets uploaded to their servers. The company then taps its international network of videographers and editors to hone the footage down, and then it turns the finished product back to the customer, who then puts it on a site somewhere.

Customers pay StudioNow a fee for services, and StudioNow then pays its editor a commission. The business is not dependent on clicks, advertising, … Read more

This story was updated at 2:36 PT to provide comment from Facebook and at 3:59 PT to provide further comment from MoveOn.

Is there more to the controversy surrounding Facebook's "Beacon" ads? MoveOn.org thinks so.

Last week, a feud began to brew between leftist activist group MoveOn.org and social-networking site Facebook concerning its "Beacon" advertisements, which broadcast information about users' activity on third-party partner sites to their friends' Facebook newsfeeds. According to MoveOn, it's a violation of user privacy because there's no way to universally opt out of Beacon … Read more

This post was updated at 8:03 PM PT to provide additional comment from MoveOn.org.

Facebook issued a statement on Tuesday afternoon in response to online activist group MoveOn.org's charge that its "Beacon" advertising program is a violation of users' privacy.

"We encourage feedback from our users on new products," the Facebook statement read, "but in this case, the MoveOn.org-led group misrepresents how Facebook Beacon works. Beacon gives users an easy way to share relevant information from other sites with their friends on Facebook."

Beacon, which is part of Facebook'… Read more

Online activist group MoveOn.org is poised to announce a campaign targeting Facebook's "Beacon" advertisements, which post information about users' activity on partner sites (movie rentals, purchases from online retailers) onto their friends' News Feeds. According to MoveOn representatives, the organization considers this to be a "glaring violation of (Facebook's) users' privacy," and has launched a paid ad campaign on Facebook, a "protest group" on the social-networking site, and an online petition to encourage the company to allow users to opt into the program at their own volition.

"The bottom line,&… Read more

AT&T is adding to its stable of online advertising properties, in a move to further diversify its ad business from phone books.

The phone giant said Monday that it will acquire privately held Ingenio, a provider of pay-per-call advertising technology, for an undisclosed sum. AT&T said that it will fold Ingenio into its subsidiary that handles local online search advertising. Those properties include Yellowpages.com, AT&T Real Yellow Pages and 1-800-Yellow Pages.

The deal is expected to close in January 2008.

Ingenio, founded in 1999 and backed by Silicon Valley venture firm Benchmark Capital, … Read more