Apple nabs Adobe’s Todd Teresi to head iAd

More than four months after Apple lost iAd boss Andy Miller, the company has finally appointed a replacement.

Todd Teresi, formerly a vice president of Media Solutions at Adobe, is now steering Apple’s mobile ad ship, Bloomberg reports. More specifically, Teresi will serve as vice president of iAd and report to VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue, according to GigaOm.

The news is a glimmer of hope for iAd, which has had trouble finding clients … Continue Reading

The free ride is over, Facebook to put ads in its mobile apps

Facebook, not content with its sizable chunk of the online display ad pie, could go mobile with its ad platform by the end of March. The company is already projected to take home 20 percent of all online ad revenues next year.

Facebook is mulling the idea of adding Sponsored Stories — the ads the company already runs on the upper right-hand side of its 800 million-member site — to the mobile News Feed, Bloomberg … Continue Reading

MoPub’s Marketplace brings real-time trading to mobile ads

Mobile ad startup MoPub aims to put a fresh spin on mobile ads today with the launch of MoPub Marketplace, a real-time bidding service for mobile ads that lets publishers take full control over the ads on their apps.

Founded by former Google and AdMob employees, MoPub launched late last year with the goal of letting mobile app publishers serve ads directly rather than go through an ad network. Now with MoPub Marketplace, the startup … Continue Reading

Microsoft said to be eyeing Yahoo — but don’t hold your breath

The latest big name interested in buying Yahoo may be Microsoft, according to a Reuters report from last night.

Sources tell Reuters that one camp in Microsoft is excited about the deal because it would give them a strong web portal and destroy AOL as a competitor. But another Microsoft group (lets call them the “realists”) say that the company shouldn’t be spending billions on a property without much growth potential.

No matter how much … Continue Reading

Global ad spending in video games to top $7.2B in 2016

The global market for ads in video games is expected to grow from $3.1 billion in 2010 to $7.2 billion in 2016.

Market researcher DFC Intelligence said that advertisers are spending more money in games via in-game ads, around-game ads, and advergames.

In North America, advertisers spent $1 billion in video game ads in 2010. That number is expected to grow to $2 billion by 2014. An example of the in-game ad was the Obama … Continue Reading

DOJ: Google to pay $500M settlement over illegal online drug ads

Google will pay $500 million to the federal government for allowing ads from Canadian pharmacies to be displayed through its AdWords program, the Department of Justice announced today.

The ads made it easy for US residents to order controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs from Canada, which is illegal. The $500 million fine takes into account the gross revenue Google received through running ads from Canadian pharmacies, as well as the gross revenue made by those … Continue Reading

Apple’s iAd head (and Quattro co-founder) Andy Miller jumps ship

In yet another blow to Apple’s iAd mobile advertising platform, the group is losing iAd boss Andy Miller, All Things Digital reports.

Miller, who co-founded mobile ad company Quattro Wireless, which Apple bought for $275 million in 2010, is leaving Apple to become a general partner at Boston-based Highland Capital. His departure is yet another sign that Apple is struggling to morph into an advertising company. It was recently reported that Apple has lowered its … Continue Reading

Glam Media goes mobile: launches ad platform, mobile site builder

Mobile is the next big step for Glam Media, a female-focused media and advertising company. Glam today is launching its GlamMobile advertising platform and GlamEnable, a platform that lets publishers create websites and apps optimized to run on mobile devices.

Glam CEO Samir Arora tells VentureBeat that he’s interested in mobile because it’s quickly growing in terms of consumer engagement and interest by brand advertisers. Now that Glam has hit $100 million in revenue and … Continue Reading

InMobi nabs Sprout for easy HTML5 ad creation

It’s a match made in advertising heaven: Sprout, developer of an easy-to-use online editor for creating and distributing HTML5 ads, has been acquired by the independent ad network InMobi, the companies announced this morning.

Sprout will remain independent, and CEO Carnet Williams will join InMobi’s executive team to keep Sprout running. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“With InMobi’s global presence we are able to quickly deploy our HTML5 mobile ad creative platform into the … Continue Reading

Google's $500M DOJ fine all about illegal online drug ads

The mysterious $500 million Google set aside in the last quarter for an ongoing Department of Justice probe was finally made clear last night. Google is apparently close to settling a criminal investigation over ads from illegal online pharmacies that have earned the company hundreds of millions, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The half a billion dollar fine would be among the largest paid to the government to settle investigations, the Wall Street Journal notes, … Continue Reading

Skype CEO: We could reach billions of users with Microsoft's help

In a hastily put together press conference this morning with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Skype CEO Tony Bates said the video chat company now has the potential to reach billions of users as a result of Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition.

Skype has 170 million users at the moment, and Microsoft said this morning that it aims to bring the video chat service to the Xbox 360 and Kinect, Windows Phone, and Microsoft’s Office software. Given … Continue Reading

Glam hits $100M revenue, plans to file IPO as early as fall

Glam Media, the media and advertising company focused on women, has hit a run rate of $100 million in annual revenue and plans to file to go public as early as this fall, according to a well-placed source who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Glam is said to be in the early process of hiring bankers to help it with the IPO, but won’t file to go public until after the … Continue Reading

Internet ads finally surpass newspapers

Internet advertising has been gaining on newspaper advertising for a long time, and in 2010 the new media finally surpassed the old media.

The Internet Advertising Bureau reported that full-year 2010 internet ad revenues were $26 billion, up 15 percent from 2009. The report from IAB and PwC also said that internet ad revenue came roaring back from the recession and had a strong fourth quarter. While competition for ad dollars on the internet is … Continue Reading

Online ad network Rocket Fuel launches ahead with $6.6M

Online ad network Rocket Fuel announced today that it has raised $6.6 million in funding.

Founded by former executives from NASA, Yahoo! and DoubleClick, Rocket Fuel uses social, behavioral, contextual, geographical, and search data to target display advertisements to customers. The company says it uses technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistics to figure out the best placement for advertisements.

According to chief executive George John, several other ad optimizers look at user … Continue Reading

Larry Page reorgs Google, ties bonuses to social success

New Google CEO Larry Page, who took up the position on Monday, isn’t wasting any time. He completed a major management reorganization yesterday that put select executives in charge of their business divisions, reports the LA Times. He has also tied 25 percent of employee bonuses to the success of Google’s new social strategy, according to Business Insider.

Both moves have similar goals: Page wants Google to be innovative and hungry again. The management changes … Continue Reading

Legolas Media raises $5M to expand audience marketplace

Legolas Media, a next generation audience marketplace, has raised $5 million in a second round of funding.

The mission of Legolas Media is to provide insights to allow for more precise advertisement targeting. The company does this by providing a marketplace where buyers and sellers of digital advertising space can trade audiences similar to how stock investors trade futures. Companies construct audience segments and target them across a number of publishers.

The funding was led … Continue Reading

Widgetbox becomes "cloud" ad company Flite, raises $12M

It has been a year of big changes at startup Widgetbox, according to chief executive Will Price, and the company just announced a new name to reflect those changes — it’s now called Flite.

The idea is that Widgetbox is no longer focused on providing tools to build online widgets. Instead, it launched an ad-building product a year ago at the DEMO conference co-produced by VentureBeat, and Price said the ad side has been taking … Continue Reading