Platforms

The Awl is moving three of its four sites from WordPress to Medium, as part of the Medium for Publishers program, which was announced Tuesday. Migrating an entire site onto a platform is the latest example of the rise of platform publishing. The Awl’s publisher, Michael Macher, tells AdExchanger that “indie publishers need to streamline […]

A little less than a year ago, Snapchat was still at the beginning stages of working out its advertising strategy. Its ad sales team felt small, at least from the perspective of some agency execs, and unable to keep up with agency and advertiser demand. But in recent months, Snapchat seems to be taking itself […]

Getting agencies to buy enterprise software is hard, which is why AppNexus quietly killed off its two-year-old product Twixt in December – which included both workflow automation (aka RFP automation) and automated guaranteed functionalities. Ultimately, Twixt was too difficult and expensive to sell. “The level of investment that would have been required to drive penetration, […]

Sizmek has rebuilt most of its ad tech stack into what it describes as a cloud-based modular suite. The rejiggered product is called MDX-NXT. Sizmek hopes the change will strengthen its position against the ad serving monster that is Google’s DoubleClick. (According to Alexa, Sizmek has the second most ad server market share – 9.8% […]

AOL rolled out a programmatic self-serve platform for TV buyers on Monday, and Omnicom Group is the first agency partner to test-drive it. While some competing solutions only enable planning, AOL said its platform also handles execution and reporting. AOL thinks its developing device graph under Verizon gives it a competitive advantage in omnichannel media […]

IBM has nabbed Bob Lord, who formerly served as president of AOL and global CEO at Publicis-owned Razorfish, as its chief digital officer. Lord is one of the few executives with experience running companies in both marketing services and advertising technology, a nexus where IBM has been making large bets lately. An IBM spokesperson said […]

While content recommendation engines used to be a commodity business, that’s no longer the case, said Camilla Cho, executive director of business development and strategy at New York Media. New York Media – owner of the NYMag.com, Vulture, The Cut and Grub Street sites – is looking for partners that share its focus on using […]

Playbuzz, a creation platform for quizzes, polls, trivia, slideshows and videos, raised a $15 million strategic investment Thursday. Saban Ventures, an existing investor in Playbuzz, led the investment, which included participation from Walt Disney Co. Playbuzz’s CEO and co-founder, Shaul Olmert, said the company was looking for “potential partners as well as investors,” but would […]

With the NCAA men’s basketball tournament well underway, digital publishers and broadcasters are clamoring to package “cross-platform” sponsorship deals for big advertisers. The economic implications of sports sponsorships are massive. In the US, global sponsorship revenue reached an estimated $45 billion in 2015, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. That may ebb and flow if the calendar year […]

On Monday, Pandora appointed a new CEO, CFO, COO and CPO. And the company has lately begun evaluating a possible sale. But at least one member of the C-suite is still standing: CRO John Trimble. That may be because while Pandora’s user growth has stalled in the wake of competition from places like Spotify and […]