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AOL snaps up advertising company Buysight

AOL upped its advertising cache today by announcing that it bought Buysight, an ad company that focuses on retargeted and intent-based targeted advertising.

Buysight will be folded into AOL's Advertising.com Group. This group works on ad technology for desktop, mobile, tablets, and Internet connected televisions.

"We strongly believe that both brand and performance display, as well as mobile and video campaigns benefit from dynamic, targeted creatives and messaging," Advertising.com Group CEO Ned Brody said in a statement. "The acquisition of Buysight brings proven Dynamic Creative Optimization and machine learning capabilities which will further enhance … Read more

Facebook wins preliminary OK of 'Sponsored Stories' settlement

Facebook has won preliminary approval of a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed over the social network's use of members' names and images in advertising.

Under the settlement's terms, Facebook agreed to pay $10 to each user who objected to being included in the social network's "Sponsored Stories" advertisements, as well to initiate user controls that allow people to be excluded from the program.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg said today that the settlement "has no obvious deficiencies" and "appears to be the product of serious" negotiations between lawyers … Read more

Apple tops on mobile ad network, but Samsung catching up

Apple has long reigned as the top device maker based on traffic to Millennial Media's mobile network. But its reign could be challenged by its archrival.

Apple scooped up 31 percent of all ad impressions during the third quarter, according to the ad network's latest Mobile Mix report. That level was virtually unchanged from the second quarter.

In comparison, Samsung captured almost 25 percent of all impressions for the third quarter. That number was up from just under 22 pecent the previous quarter.

Among the top 20 mobile phones, the iPhone was the leader with 16 percent of … Read more

Kill mobile ads with Adblock Plus for Android

Released yesterday, Adblock Plus for Android offers a no-nonsense way to completely remove ads from your mobile computing experience. Simply download and install the app, and let it run behind the scenes. From there, you should notice that display ads, video ads, push notifications, and even many in-app ads are no more.

So far, I've seen AdBlock Plus kill ads on several Web sites, including Google, and within the ad-supported Pandora app. According to its developers, though, AdBlock Plus does not work when browsing with Firefox for Android, since Firefox does not support Android's system proxy settings.

Adblock … Read more

Google makes more money from ads than print media combined

Google makes more money from advertising than all U.S. print publications combined, according to a new study from German statistics company Statista.

The company found Google generated $20.8 billion in ad revenue in the first six months of 2012, while the whole U.S. print media industry -- newspapers and magazines -- made only $19.2 billion.

Statista did note, however, that the comparison is "obviously unfair" and shouldn't be judged scientifically. Google operates globally, while the company only looked at print media in the U.S.

Still, it's a pretty interesting indication of … Read more

iPad Mini ads play up tablet as e-book reader and photo viewer

The iPad Mini is the star of two new TV ads that also promote Apple's iBooks and iPhoto apps.

Both ads speak nary a word and rely just on visuals and music to convey their message.

With a piano jauntily playing in the background, the first spot displays a Mini and a full-sized iPad side-by-side as someone taps and swipes through iBooks to scour the bookshelves, open various books, and page through one of the books.

Accompanied by a jazzy rendition of "Two of a Kind" by Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer, the second ad features a person browsing a library of photos … Read more

Judge denies injunction against Dish's ad-skipping feature

A federal judge today denied Fox Broadcasting's attempt to block Dish Network's AutoHop feature, which allows customers to skip commercials at the touch of a button.

Fox filed a lawsuit in May to block Dish's transmission of the network's programs in such a way that allows viewers to watch them without commercial interruptions, claiming copyright infringement and breach of contract. Broadcasters worry the technology could destroy the industry since program owners need the advertising revenue to help cover the cost of producing their shows.

However, Judge Dolly Gee for the U.S. District Court for California'… Read more

Rumor says Facebook may create classified ads -- again

Rumor has it that Facebook is on the verge of creating a new classifieds listings, which could put it in direct competition with Craigslist.

According to The Daily's Matt Hickey, two anonymous sources within the social network revealed information on the project and said that it's likely to be finished sooner rather than later.

The service would reportedly let users create ads to show up in friends' news feeds. These would essentially offer the same sorts of things Craigslist posts do -- jobs, apartment rentals, and items for sale -- but would only target users who meet specific … Read more

Twitter predicts users' gender for targeted advertising

Twitter is trying to suss out which of its users are male and which are female. And so far, it's gotten its prediction science down to a 90 percent accuracy rate.

But, let me back up. Why in the world would the social network want to figure out the gender of its individual users?

Why for advertising, of course.

According to Twitter, the fairer sex might like to see a promoted tweet featuring cosmetics, while men would most likely ignore such advertising. All of this apparently matters when trying to generate ad revenue and monetize the site.

Unlike some … Read more