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Facebook will also cut off fake news sites from ad money
Facebook has followed Google's example and finally banned fake news sites from using its ad network to generate revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal. Fake news websites now fall under the "misleading, illegal and deceptive sites" category, which are already prohibited from using the company's Audience Network. Facebook's Audience Network shows its customers' advertisements not just on the social network itself, but also on other mobile apps and websites.
Twitter reportedly planning targeted ad network for apps and websites
Now that Twitter is almost a publicly traded company, it's under pressure to find meaningful new sources of revenue. That may include advertising outside of users' social streams, according to a new report from the Financial Times. Its sources claim that Twitter is developing an ad network for apps and websites that would target visitors based on what users tweet and who they follow. It wouldn't resemble Facebook's login-based advertising, however, as much of Twitter's data is public. The network would reportedly launch soon after the firm completes its recent acquisition of MoPub, a mobile ad exchange. Twitter isn't commenting on the rumor, but such a move is logical -- it would let the company improve its bottom line without intruding any further into our conversations.
Facebook outlines its ad targeting strategy on one handy page, presents a complex privacy picture
To say that Facebook has to tread lightly around privacy issues is an understatement, especially with a targeted ad push underway. Rather than navigate that minefield once more, the social network hopes to skip it entirely by posting an overview of how the ad system tracks habits while retaining our anonymity. For the most part, Facebook walks the fine line carefully. Its Facebook Exchange auction system relies on a unique, untraceable browser ID to target ads to specific people without ever getting their identity; both a mechanism targeting ads beyond Facebook and a Datalogix deal to track the ad conversion rate use anonymous e-mail address hashes that keep advertisers happy without making the addresses readable to prying eyes. The initiative sounds like it's on the right course, although there's caveats at work. Opting out of any Facebook Exchange ads requires tracking down individual ad providers, which isn't likely to result in many of us leaving the ad revenue stream. Likewise, those who'd object even to the completely anonymous ad profiling don't have a say in the matter. With those concerns in mind, it's doubtful there will be many significant objections in the future -- Facebook knows its advertising money train can only keep churning if its members are comfortable enough to come along for the ride.
Facebook's new mobile ad network goes into beta, serves advertisements on third party sites and apps
Facebook already sports advertisements baked into its own website and mobile apps, and now it'll begin serving ads on other handset-optimized websites and smartphone applications. TechCrunch reports that the firm has begun testing a new ad network that leverages user data to display hyper-relevant ads on third party turf. Instead of relying on vanilla tracking cookies to gain insight into visitor interests, the platform accesses information including age, gender, likes, location, which apps friends have used and other data points when users are logged into a site or application with Facebook credentials. Zuckerberg and Co.'s solution lets advertisers bid on certain demographics and uses existing networks such as iAds and AdMob to serve appropriate ads based on anonymous ID's tied to Facebook accounts. For now, Menlo Park's new program is limited to the all-important mobile market, but don't be surprised if the service finds its way to the desktop.
Townsquare Media buys what's left of MOG
Beats' acquisition of MOG ultimately carved the company into two pieces, if not quite evenly: it left both the blog content as well as a music-oriented ad network that's popular, if without nearly as much cachet for the technology crowd as the streaming audio. Entertainment outlet Townsquare Media must have seen a bargain in the making given that it just swept in to buy MOG's remaining parts. The deal, which AllThingsD understands is worth $10 million, will see the MOG name wiped for good as the ad network and sites slip into Townsquare's collection. While anti-climactic, it still marks the formal end to a significant chapter in cloud music -- MOG at one point was going toe-to-toe with the likes of Rdio and Rhapsody, and it now exists only as a memory.
New iPad already five percent of iPad web traffic
According to mobile ad network Chitika, Apple's new iPad, which has already sold millions of units despite being available for less than a week, is already blowing up in network usage. The latest numbers from the ad network say that more than five percent of the total iPad traffic is from just the new iPad. Five percent isn't a huge number overall, but considering that's the dent Apple has made with a new unit in just five days, that's pretty huge. The company has actually set up an "iPad tracker" where you can see what percentage of the ad network traffic over the last 24 hours the new iPad is currently responsible for. As you can see there, these numbers are for iPad traffic only; the five percent figure is only being compared to the traffic used by the iPad 1, 2, and 3 (the new iPad). Still, the other two models have been out for much longer, so it's fair to say that the Retina Display and all of the new iPad's other selling features are really lighting a fire in consumers for this product. [via BGR]
Millennial: Android beats iOS in ad impressions, Apple top manufacturer
Millennial Media is a mobile ad network that has tracked mobile ad impressions for the last few years. The company released its Q2 2010 statistics which is its 50th overall report. To commemorate this achievement, Millennial compared quarterly statistics with a look back at the mobile industry since 2009. Similar to other metrics, Millennial's ad impressions in June 2011 show that Android is the top platform with 54% of total ad impressions. iOS is in second place with 26% of ad impressions and RIM slides into third place with 15%. This is a reversal from March 2010 when iOS was leader with 70% of ad impressions and Android had a mere 6%. Regardless of whether you like Android or not, that is a huge swing in Android's favor in little over a year. On a manufacturer basis, Apple is the leader with 30% of ad impressions. Samsung is in second place with a 14.9% share, and RIM is in third with 11.7%. These numbers are much different from 2009 when Samsung held a commanding lead with 21.6% of ads. LG was second with 12.5% and Apple was third with 11.3%. For individual devices, the iPhone was the leading device in 2009 with 5.8% of ad impressions and it retains its title in 2011 with 16.1%. Surprisingly, the BlackBerry Curve is #2 in 2011 (it was #3 in 2009). The remaining 2011 handsets are dominated by Android with the Motorola DROID (2.95%) and the Nexus S (2.71%) as the reigning Android champs. Another little snippet shows that the iPod touch and the iPad are the top two connected devices on the mobile ad network. The Galaxy Tab is #3. Touchscreen devices are also growing in popularity, rising from 33% of all devices on the ad network in 2009 to 60% in 2011. [Via TechCrunch]
Apple to announce iAd / AdKit 'mobile advertising system' on April 7th?
Since Apple's acquisition of Quattro Wireless in January, both parties have been keeping mum on plans for Madison Avenue domination, but now MediaPost claims to know a thing or two about the newlyweds. According to the report, Apple will apparently unveil "a new personalized, mobile advertising system" which will go by the underwhelming name of "iAd" on April 7th. The article speculates that the service could be heavily focused on location-aware advertising, though that angle could hit some snags as apparently coffee-partner / arch nemesis Eric Schmidt and a little company called Google hold patents on said functionality. Of course, something that drives a wedge between these two players wouldn't exactly be a surprise at this point -- and we'd be happy if Apple doesn't cash in on those ad-supported OS ideas it's recently had. Really, we're not surprised to hear this may be coming, as a tipster just pinged us with info that an "AdKit" reference has shown up in a special file on Apple's public "Phobos" server. This file, which is called StoreBag, provides a public XML interface into iTunes. That interface describes how applications and web browsers can "call home" to either retrieve iTunes information pages or to request that iTunes jump to a given product listing. What you see here is a key-value pair from that file. The URL string that follows after the "adkit-product-url" key suggests that Apple is about to introduce a way to link ads with product URLs. How will this URL work exactly? It's hard to say without any further details, which are regrettably sparse on the ground, but it suggests that ad sourced product links can be used in a similar way to affiliate-driven links. <key>adkit-product-url</key> <string>http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/adkitProduct</string> Not much else is known about Apple's first venture into the ad business at this stage, but Steve Jobs has allegedly told some executives that this will be "revolutionary" and "our next big thing." Frankly, we're starting to get a little concerned with just how often the folks in Cupertino are bandying around the word "revolutionary" -- but we'll hold our judgments until after this announcement happens (if it happens at all).
Apple makes it official, acquires Quattro Wireless
Following up on last evening's rumor, Apple has pulled the trigger and made its acquisition of mobile ad network Quattro Wireless official. A sale price wasn't disclosed -- $275 million is the popular number being thrown around -- but the company's CEO Andy Miller has been immediately elevated to Apple's newly-minted VP of Mobile Advertising position. In a news post on Quattro's site, Miller says that its products and services won't change "for now" -- but considering that it offers tailored advertising across a huge bounty of devices and platforms, we have to imagine Apple's long-term strategy is going to involve making this framework more of an App Store value-add for developers. Time will tell, but one thing's for sure: this is good news if (and only if) it either makes life easier on devs that want to offer awesome free apps or finally ushers in the era of free, non-carrier-subsidized, ad-supported smartphones that don't suck.
