Advertising and marketing

Tech firms may balk at California push for citizen data access

The European Union has long championed its citizens' right to submit requests for data that companies hold on them in order to ensure the information is up to date and correct. In recent years, an Austrian law student brought this "habeas data" right into the public spotlight by demanding his Facebook data from the social network.

Americans don't have this right -- and generally, relative to the EU, they have little legal protection from the state or federal government against data theft, unauthorized disclosures, and other privacy-related matters.

Though the EU and the U.S. have never … Read more

Nielsen takes online ad-tracking tool overseas

Nielsen Holdings, the company best known for tracking TV viewership, is taking its new online advertising measurement tool international.

The company said today that it plans to expand its service of measuring online advertising to countries outside the U.S., including Australia, Italy, Germany, and Canada, according to a statement sent to Bloomberg News.

The new tool will allow marketers to compare online advertising campaigns with TV commercials. Nielsen has been using the tool in the U.S. market for about 18 months.

The purpose of the new tool is to help online marketers better understand the effectiveness of their … Read more

Facebook tweaks tool to give ad buyers better feedback

Facebook is updating its Ads Manager campaign-tracking tool to provide advertisers with a bit more awareness of how their ads are performing against stated goals.

The refreshed Ads Manager tool, rolling out over the next few weeks, lets marketers identify their most important campaign goal, such as Page likes or app installs, to better determine the cost for that specific action.

The tool is also designed to help buyers calculate the return on their investment (ROI). The ROI changes encompass additional insight into the value of ads that link out to third-party landing pages and Web sites. Advertisers employing conversion … Read more

Facebook makes risky bet on News Feed ads that track you

Forget the fluffy promise of increased engagement. Facebook knows the quickest way to make more money is to give advertisers what they really want: immediate results. The social network is doing just that by opening up its News Feed to retargeted ads, eerily aware messages that marketers love and members won't be able to miss.

Facebook announced Tuesday that it had started a small test to let advertisers and agencies use Facebook Exchange (FBX) to serve retargeted ads -- specifically called "Page post link ads" -- to your News Feed, which, of course, is Facebook's prime … Read more

Facebook helps app makers hawk to Android, iOS audiences

Facebook today improved mobile app install ads -- its developer-friendly mobile advertising product -- to help iOS and Android applications reach smartphone owners based on their operating system or network connection.

The social network said that developers can now target their Facebook ads, which are designed to drive mobile application downloads, to people running specific versions of Android or iOS operating systems. They also can target devices on Wi-Fi connections.

"This is helpful if, for example, you are interested in connecting with iPad users that only have Wi-Fi access or prefer using Wi-Fi for data usage," software engineer … Read more

Twitter ad revenue should near $1B next year, researcher says

Twitter's ad revenue is soaring, and a big reason for that is mobile, a market research firm said today.

eMarketer estimates Twitter will earn $582.8 million in global ad revenue this year, $950 million next year, and $1.33 billion in 2015. According to its boosted forecast, more than half of Twitter's ad revenue -- about 53 percent -- will come from mobile advertising this year, up from virtually no ad revenue from mobile in 2011.

And mobile is where Twitter will see the most growth over the next two years, eMarketer said. By 2015, more than … Read more

Y Combinator's first nonprofit aims to crowdfund health care

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Though it is the undisputed king of incubators, many Y Combinator alumns have failed to make a profit over the years. But now, Watsi, which is hoping to bring a Kickstarter crowdfunding model to health care, is aiming to be its first (intentional) not-for-profit venture.

At Y Combinator's 16th Demo Day here today, Watsi showed off its platform, which is trying to be the first global crowdfunding platform for health care.

Rather than graduating from the Y Combinator program and seeking investment from tech-savvy venture capitalists, Watsi is soliciting donations from the tech community.

The … Read more

Are Yahoo, Mayer building an 'interest graph'?

If you haven't noticed, the Marissa Mayer-led Yahoo has been on a bit of an acquisition roll lately, buying up a number of small startups as it drives toward relevance. At least, that's the plan.

The latest? Summly, a mobile news reader startup helmed by someone young enough to not know a world that Yahoo did not inhabit. Sobering.

(The others: mobile interest tracker Stamped, news clipper Snip.it, restaurant recommendation app Alike, culture recommendation app Jybe, and video chat platform OnTheAir.)

What's the bigger strategy, exactly? Writing for Fast Company, Sarah Kessler takes a stab at it. … Read more

ComScore: Google claims top spot for desktop and mobile hits

Google hasn't budged from the No. 1 spot when it comes to its desktop and mobile audience, according to ComScore's latest rankings, but the companies with the most mobile growth are ones that have been struggling to keep investors happy.

Groupon, Zynga, and Pandora's mobile users grew more than twice as much as their numbers for desktop users, according to ComScore's February measurement for the top 50 digital media companies. Of course, the three companies -- which have seen their share of management shakeups and disappointing earnings this past year -- had much smaller numbers to … Read more

Klout looks to score points with brands

Online influence-tracking startup Klout today launched Klout for Business to flip its scoring system for the benefit of brands.

Founded in 2008, Klout measures influence by scoring a person's activity and relationships across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other sites. The San Francisco-based company has primarily used its scientific formula on status to show people how they measure up against their peers. Klout says it's scored more than 100 million people, and claims to analyze 2.7 billion pieces of content and connections each day.

Klout does bring in some money -- likely low double-digit millions this year, according … Read more