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Anti-abuse ad displays special message just for kids

When you're young and observing or experiencing abuse, especially when it involves people close to you, it can be hard to find the strength to talk to someone about it. An innovative new advertisement could help direct children -- without alerting their parents or others who may be threatening them -- that there's a way to seek help.

Spain's ANAR Foundation (Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk) created an anti-abuse ad that uses lenticular printing to display two pictures that differ based on the viewer's height. The group created the ad to reach abuse victims who might be accompanied by their aggressor. … Read more

Tumblr CEO says average cost of ad campaign tops six figures

NEW YORK -- Companies are spending, on average, "north of six figures" on advertising campaigns on Tumblr, the CEO of the blogging platform said Wednesday.

David Karp, speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, noted that advertising remains Tumblr's biggest challenge, but it's seeing good traction with its efforts.

"Budgets are starting to ratchet up," Karp said. He noted that "some of the best advertisers in the world" are turning to Tumblr.

Tumblr sits alongside the Internet elites in terms of audience, but the 6-year-old blogging medium has lagged far … Read more

Yahoo continues to recast itself and debuts two new ad features

As Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer continues to work to reformulate the company as a modern mobile-forward search engine with new products and features, she's also thinking about earning revenue the good old-fashioned way -- advertising.

The company launched two new ad features on Monday. One is a new way of introducing ads called Yahoo Stream Ads, and the other is a redesigned Yahoo Billboard.

"As we continue to build products and features that inspire and entertain our users, we're committed to delivering engaging and effective advertising opportunities," Mayer wrote in a blog post Monday. "Over … Read more

Salesforce.com launches self-serve social ad app

Salesforce.com is turning things up a notch for its Marketing Cloud platform with a new product styled similarly to its other cloud-based products: Social.com.

Social.com stems from Salesforce's acquisition of Buddy Media and its subsidiary, the London-based Brighter Option.

Thus, the Marketing Cloud now boils down to three core areas: social media listening (Radian6), publishing content (Buddy Media), and branding (Social.com). The new service is described as a self-serve application for use by agencies, brands, developers, retailers and advertisers in developing, automating, and managing social ad campaigns.

Touting it as the first platform that connects … Read more

Google: 'Glassware' developers prohibited from displaying ads

Google, which relies on advertising for some 95 percent of its revenue, doesn't want ads on its hotly anticipated Google Glass eyewear.

The blanket prohibition came in the fine print of a policy made public this evening, which says "Glassware" developers may not "serve or include any advertisements" and they "may not charge" users to download apps for the device.

Today's announcement, which coincided with news that Google Glass Explorer Edition prototypes were about to ship, indicates that the Mountain View company is proceeding carefully, even slowly, when allowing third-party developers access … Read more

Samsung probed for allegedly bashing rival HTC online

The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission has reportedly launched an investigation into Samsung on allegations that the phone-maker was paying students to post negative online comments about HTC devices, according to AFP. HTC is one of Samsung's most staunch rivals.

Supposedly, the South Korean tech giant hired students to both write the inflammatory comments about HTC products and also recommend Samsung cell phones. The commission says that this type of behavior is akin to false advertising. According to AFP, the Fair Trade Commission spokesman Sun Lih-chyun said, "The case was set up last week after we received complaints." … Read more

Location information to make mobile ads more valuable

NEW YORK--Hyper-targeted advertising based on your location is coming to mobile phones and could finally bring money into the mobile advertising market, say experts at the All Things D mobile conference here Monday.

In two separate interviews, the CEO of the mapping app Waze and ad executives Jason Spero from Google and Mollie Spilman of Millennial Media talked up the importance of users' GPS location information to help tailor advertising.

Spilman said that this kind of advertising is very powerful to brands.

"Location is important because we know where you are, and when you are doing something," she … Read more

Facebook boosts ad targeting with partner categories

Ever amping up new ways for advertisers to engage with users, Facebook began rolling out a new feature today that doubles down on the social network's use of ad targeting.

Dubbed "partner categories," Facebook's new feature aims to target ads to more categories of people. These categories use data from third parties, such as Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon, to glean information about what users buy on the Web.

Here's more from a Facebook blog post:

For example, a local car dealership can now show ads to people who are likely in the market for a … Read more

Firefox readies tougher stance on cookies

Up until now, only Apple's Safari browser had blocked third-party cookies by default. Last week's release of Firefox 22 to its developer's channel also came with the feature, indicating that the option will soon make it to all Firefox users.

Firefox 22 Aurora (download for Windows, for Mac, and for Linux) blocks third-party cookies by default, putting the ad industry on notice that browsers are about to start looking askance at them. While Safari has had the feature for a long time, no other major browser has supported it until now.

Mozilla first announced in February that … Read more