Wednesday, June 2, 2010

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Google Reportedly Acquiring Invite Media For Approximately $70 Million Top
Google is buying advertising technology startup Invite Media in a “$70 million range” deal, reports MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka. We’ve pinged the Mountain View company for confirmation but have not heard back yet. Kafka has confirmed the story with multiple sources, who also said Google intends to keep Invite Media running as a stand-alone unit. At a later time, it would be integrated into its DoubleClick for Advertisers product, he adds. Invite Media is an ad technology company founded in April, 2007 in Philadelphia out of the University of Pennsylvania. The startup, which is headquartered in New York City, builds and operates what it refers to as a “universal buying platform” for display media, called Bid Manager. This platform allows buyers to optimize online campaigns in real-time across multiple inventory sources, including Yahoo's Right Media Exchange and Google's DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Additional features include the ability to access third party data providers directly through the same central interface, gain reporting and analytics on key metrics, and build an internal "exchange practice" around a fully self-service platform. Since February , its platform supports full real-time bidding and self-service integrations with ad networks AdBrite, AdMeld and PubMatic. The company claims Bid Manager gives media buyers access to over 12 billion highly-targeted impressions per day through a single central interface. Invite Media raised money from investors such as First Round Capital, Genacast Ventures, and strategic angels, but it’s unclear exactly how much. Watch for updates. CrunchBase Information Invite Media Google Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Image Space Media Launches Self-Service Ad Creation Tool Top
TechCrunch50 demopit company Image Space Media (formerly Picad Media ) is launching AdStart, a self-service product that allows marketers to create targeted in-image ads. The ads can then be served on Image Space Media’s in-image ad network of more than 4,000 publishers. ISM’s ad network, which recently launched an analytics offering , helps publishers monetize images on their websites with ad overlays. Its proprietary technology allows for audience targeting and matches ads to the most appropriate images available. With AdStart, advertisers can now create text based ads on both a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand (CPM) impression level. Once the advertiser creates their text-based ad campaign, they set their bid price and fund their account using a credit card or PayPal with a minimum of $5.00 for prepaid accounts. The ads immediately begin running as overlays on contextually relevant images across the Image Space Media Network. ISM says that beta testing results have been relatively successful. The CTR on the ISM AdStart campaign for The Intuitive Learning Company was more than 7 times higher than a Google Adwords campaign for the same product. COO Kevin Tung has told us that CTRs for in-image ads are higher than average rates for normal display ads, which he says range from .2 % to .3%. He adds that CTRs depend on size and dimensions of the ad itself. The startup also recently raised $2.9 million in funding from New Atlantic Ventures, Ridgeline Capital, and Michael Gordon and brought on a new CEO last year, Jesse Chenard, who Tung actually met at TechCrunch50 in 2008. Image Space Media faces competition from GumGum and others.
 
Layar's New Augmented Reality Browser Makes For A Strong Location Play Top
Layar is today unveiling the latest iteration of its Reality Browser product (3.5), starting with an Android version with an iPhone 3GS app update scheduled for later. With the new version of the browser, users can now easily discover and experience Augmented Reality without the need to enter a search query or open a specific layer. This means users can instantly see the most interesting content nearby upon launching the browser, effectively turning it into a potent location-based search and discovery service with an augmented reality element attached to it rather than the other way around.
 
Mobile Payments Startup Boku Launches In-App Billing Library For Android Top
Fresh off an announcement of a strategic investment from VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, mobile payments platform Boku is taking its mobile strategy one step further by launching an in-app mobile billing library for Android. The Boku Payments SDK allows developers to monetize any Android app with in-app purchases via carrier billing. Boku, which just launched last year, doesn't require users to have a credit card or bank account to make a micropayment. Users enter their cell phone number, reply to a text message and then all virtual charges are automatically charged to the user's monthly cell phone bill. Boku’s SDK allows for a one-tap purchase process in more than 60 countries over 200 carriers worldwide without a user login or password needed for purchase. Boku authenticates the transaction and deals with the carrier billing as well. It’s incredibly easy for consumers because they don’t have to deal with the hassle of entering credit card information on their phone. While the iPhone has supported the idea of In-App purchase for a bit over a year now, Android hasn’t adopted this yet. But as the Android platform becomes more heavily used by consumers, payment companies like Boku stand to profit from in-app purchases. PayPal just launched its Mobile Payments Library for Android, which allows consumers to make transactions without ever leaving the app. Of course, the potential obstacle to the adoption of Boku are the high fees that mobile carriers charge to the payment systems (which are then passed on to the publisher or developer). Boku told us last June that different cell phone carriers charge varying fees that range between 10% to 50% of the purchase price, which is a hefty amount in transaction fees. But Boku is steadfast in its commitment to remedy this issue. Ron Hirson, Boku’s marketing chief, says the company is ramping up negotiations with carriers to lower these fees. As I stated above, the barrier for Boku’s system will be the high carrier fees that will be passed on to developers. But if this can be negotiated, the sky’s the limit for mobile payments as an attractive payments platform. Coincidentally, competitor Zong also announced the availability of its payment service for developers this morning. It looks like the two will duke it out for Android developers who want to start monetizing off of their apps. That is, until Google rolls out In-App purchase support for the Android platform CrunchBase Information BOKU Information provided by CrunchBase
 
The Kindle Will Soon Be Available At Target Locations Nationwide Top
This has been a long time coming. The Kindle has slowly been creeping into Target retail outlets but the company just issued a presser stating that the most popular ebook reader on the planet will be available nationwide on June 6th. This officially makes Target Amazon's first brick and mortar retail partner, although Target isn't new to the ebook game.
 
Wikinvest Introduces A Portfolio Tracker Linked To All Your Brokerage Accounts Top
The problem with most portfolio trackers on financial sites like Yahoo Finance is that they are a pain to set up and an even bigger pain to maintain. Typically, you have to enter each stock position by hand, and every time you buy or sell a stock, you need to manually record the change. Wikinvest is introducing its own portfolio tracker today with an obvious improvement: it links directly to all of your brokerage, 401(k) and other stock accounts and tracks positions and changes automatically. At launch, Wikinvest’s portfolio tracker hooks up to about 25 different brokerage accounts, including Schwab, ETrade, Fidelity, Ameritrade, Morgan Stanley, and Zecco. It lets you combine holdings from different accounts and track them as a single portfolio. You can compare the overall performance of your portfolio to the S&P 500 or Dow Jones, and see the average PE, ROA, ROE, and other ratios across your portfolio. Also, when you hover over a headline for a stock, you get a realtime newsfeed for that company. Portfolio tracking is an addictive feature for finance site junkies. Parker Conrad, Wikinvest’s CEO, estimates that less than 3 percent of people who use finance portals actually add a portfolio, but those who do make up 30 percent of the pageviews. So if he can make it easier to set up and track portfolios on Wikinvest, it should help drive more growth. The site is still small, with about 1.2 million unique visitors worldwide, according to comScore, but it is currently going through a growth spurt which kicked off a year ago with a redesign . About 60 percent of its traffic comes from search, with the rest coming either directly or through partnerships. Wikinvest powers the stock charts on Forbes, USA Today , and NPR.com. Wikinvest now needs to make more of those visitors stick around and come back on their own. Hence, the portfolio tracker. CrunchBase Information Wikinvest Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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