I-COM worldmeasurementnews

I-COM Global Summits 2012 Rome Announcements

The 4th edition of the I-COM Global Summits will be held on October 14-18th, 2012 in Rome, Italy.

Final Call-for-Speakers and Earlybird Pricing for the I-COM Global Summit

The I-COM Global Summit Conference is entitled 'Big Data: Game Changing Strategies that drive your Brand'. The I-COM Programme Board has finalised a list of topics and we're entering the homestretch on our Call-for-Speakers.

 

Announcing Call-For-Speakers for the I-COM Emerging Market Regions Summit

This Summit preceeds the Global Summit at the same venue on Oct 14-15th.  The I-COM Emerging Market Regions Summit from Oct 14-15th, 2012 focuses on the common Digital Data & Measurement challenges of the four emerging market regions: APAC (Asia Pacific), CEE (Central & Eastern Europe), Ibero-America (Iberia, LATAM & US Hispanics) & MEA (Middle East Africa). Supported by the leading associations from around those regions, intiial topics have been posted on our Call-for-Speakers page

 

Announcing Call-For-Entries for the I-COM Data Creativity Awards

The I-COM is launching the first ever Data Creativity Awards to acknowledge the individuals, teams and companies who have been the most creative & innovative in leveraging value from data to create new insights that drive efficiency & opportunity. The Award Winners will be announced at a special Gala Dinner to be held as part of the I-COM Global Summits on October 16th, 2012 at the Hotel Grand Plaza in Rome.

 

Brazil, India, China To Outpace U.S. Mobile Ad Growth

Mark Walsh at Media Post writes:  The U.S.’s place at the forefront of mobile advertising is quickly coming to a close as Brazil, China, and India (the BRIC nations minus Russia) prepare to take center stage.

That's the conclusion of a new Yankee Group study projecting that mobile ad spending across the three countries will grow sixfold to more than $6 billion by 2016, while the U.S. total flattens to about half that amount in four years. Europe will see even less expansion, with mobile ad revenue expected to rise little from the estimated $1 billion total this year.  More...

In Germany, Moviepilot Raises $7 Million in Series B Funding Round

The Fan Site and Collector of Marketing Data Will Use The Money to Expand Into The U.S.

May 10, 2012 - Featured at The Hollywood Reporter: Moviepilot, a company based in Germany that targets fans who wish to track film projects from as early as the rumor stage, said Thursday that it has raised $7 million in a Series B funding round that it will use for its expansion into the U.S.

"The campaigns we have already run on behalf of the world's biggest studios have given us a fantastic base to further develop our brand of social marketing services for movies," said CEO Tobi Bauckhage [pictured, left], who co-founded Moviepilot with Jon Handschin and Benjamin Krause.

The funding round was led by DFJ Esprit and includes participation from existing investors Grazia Equity, C Fund Creative Industries Berlin and T-Venture.  Moviepilot, said DFJ Esprit's Krishna Visvanathan [pictured, right], "leverages the social graph to build film fans' anticipation and to target film studios' promotional activities at the right fans ahead of, and around, box office weekend." More...

In US, 87% of Digital Marketers View Tag Management as Key to Online Success, says Tealium & Econsultancy Study

Study Cites Huge Gains in Marketing Efficiency, Cost Savings and Web Site Performance Due to Tag Management Systems

San Diego, CA, and New York City, NY (May 16, 2012) - As digital technology grows increasingly complex, a large percentage of digital marketers believe that tag management is a key to their online success, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind user study by Tealium and Econsultancy called “The ROI of Tag Management.” The study, released today, is free and available for download at www.tealium.com/roi.

“Technologies often promise to improve results and make life simpler for marketers, but they rarely deliver. Tag management appears to be an exception,” said Stefan Tornquist [pictured], Vice President, Research for Econsultancy. “These solutions streamline vital processes that are otherwise time consuming and complicated.” More…

In US, VivaKi Nerve Center and BlueKai Unveil Audience Insights Data Platform

May 22, 2012. VivaKi Nerve Center President Kurt Unkel [pictured, left] and BlueKai CEO Omar Tawakol [pictured, right] revealed an unprecedented data platform, called Audience Insights, today during the 2012 iMedia Agency Summit in Colorado Springs, CO. Audience Insights is a new data platform developed by VivaKi’s R&D arm, the Nerve Center, and BlueKai, the world’s most connected customer data cloud for data management, analysis, and activation.

“It has been very rewarding to see this initiative turn into an industry offering that can scale,” said Unkel. “This was a collaborative effort in which BlueKai and the Nerve Center brought forth ideas and technology that could truly make this a game-changing offering.”

“We are thrilled to partner with VivaKi to bring this best-in-class platform to the marketplace. Put simply, this partnership is furthering our mission to enable the ecosystem to not only have access to good data, but to also have the ability to drive ROI, make it actionable and integrate data in every platform,” said Tawakol. More...

Thinking Radically: Interview with Timo Elliott, SAP’s Technology Evangelist

Jorge Garcia, Research Analyst at Technology Evaluation Centers posted on TEC Blog: In this installment of my Thinking Radically interview series, I had the pleasure to speak with Timo Elliott [pictured], a prominent personality in the BI space.

Mr. Elliott was one of the first employees of the original French company Business Objects, which SAP acquired in 2007. With vast experience in the BI arena, Mr. Elliott is now part of SAP’s elite squad of “technology evangelists.”More…

Nielsen Unveiling Suite Of Next-Generation TV Meters

Posted at Media Post News: In what is likely the most significant change in the methods Nielsen uses to measure TV -- and potentially all forms of video content -- the ratings company this week quietly began informing clients of a major initiative to develop a suite of new audience meters and digital tracking codes that could begin replacing its current meters as soon as 2014.  Dubbed “GTAM,” which stands for Global Television Audience Metering, the initiative includes the development of four new audience metering technologies designed to deal with all of the conceivable challenges involved in measuring the viewing behavior of contemporary consumer households. More...

In US, Qualtrics Raises $70 Million in Funding from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital

Largest-Ever Joint Investment Will Help Drive Product Development and Company Expansion

PROVO, Utah – May 15, 2012 – Qualtrics, the company that makes sophisticated research simple, today announced it has partnered with Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital in the two firms’ largest-ever joint investment. Accel and Sequoia will provide a range of services and $70 million to help Qualtrics expand its SaaS product offerings beyond market research and accelerate its global growth, beginning with the hiring of another 250 employees in the next year alone.

“Today most research and data collection is outsourced at great expense, or done internally with tools that are either too basic or much too complex,” said Ryan Smith [pictured], CEO and co-founder, Qualtrics. “We offer end users the do-it-yourself tools and rich analytics they need to be responsive to a fast-changing market, with security and collaboration across the enterprise.” Download full report

In US, Oracle Buys Vitrue

Adds Leading Social Marketing and Engagement Platform to the Oracle Cloud

Redwood Shores, CA – May 23, 2012 - Oracle announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Vitrue, a leading cloud-based social marketing and engagement platform that enables marketers to centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on their social marketing campaigns and activities on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

“The proliferation of social media and an increased demand by consumers to engage with brands across multiple social channels is driving chief marketing officers to look for an integrated social marketing platform,” said Thomas Kurian [pictured, left], executive vice president, Oracle Development. “Vitrue’s leading social marketing and engagement platform coupled with Oracle’s leading sales, service, and commerce products offers a complete social experience solution to our customers.”

“The world’s greatest brands have been built by creating meaningful relationships between organizations and their customers," said Reggie Bradford [pictured, right], founder and chief executive officer, Vitrue. “As a part of Oracle, we can help our customers ensure that consistent high-touch social engagement is delivered across marketing, sales and service interactions.” More...

Mark Walsh at Media Post adds: Indeed, the deal signals continuing consolidation in the social-media marketing space as bigger players like Oracle scoop up specialty firms to offer Fortune 500 clients instant expertise in social media strategy and operations. Vitrue competitor Context Optional was acquired late last year by Adobe, while social media monitoring firm Radian6 was snapped up last March by Salesforce.com for $326 million.  More...

In US, Mobile Is Key to Lotame’s Unifying Data Management Platform

NEW YORK, May 24, 2012--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Data-driven leader Lotame today announced the launch of a Unifying Data Management Platform for publishers and marketers. This Unifying DMP transforms Lotame’s flagship Data Management Platform, Crowd Control, into an enterprise engine that collects, organizes and activates all kinds of data, including data from increasingly popular mobile devices.

“Lotame has built a top-notch central audience dashboard that can move audience data to and from other technology platforms, including content management, inventory management, order management, yield management and the like,” said Lotame CEO Andy Monfried [pictured]. “Our customers want to be able to facilitate content optimization and personalization, and our Unifying DMP will work with their Content Management Systems to do that smoothly.”  More...

Seed Funds for Visual Analytics Firm Curalate

May 15 2012. Posted on mrweb: US-based Curalate, which offers a monitoring and analytics platform for socially curated sites, including photo sharing web site Pinterest, has launched with $750k in seed funding. The round was led by NEA, First Round Capital and MentorTech.

For its official launch, the firm emerges from beta with more than 150 brands and agencies on board, showing the importance brands place on making sense of today's socially curated sites, according to CEO and co-founder Apu Gupta [pictured]. More...