Tag Archives: Millennial Media

Publishers Pierce Google's Armor, Snapping Up Mobile Display Share

By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool

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There are two main types of digital advertisers: ad networks like Google and Apple‘s iAd, and publishers like Pandora , Twitter, and Facebook . Though publishers still lag ad networks on PCs, they’re dominating mobile display ads, according to a report released by IDC on Tuesday. As shipments of Internet-connected mobile devices soar and their capabilities continue to increase, these disruptive publishers seem to have the upper hand.

Disruptive technologies reveal Google’s weakness
Google has definitely seen its share of significant success on mobile; the company captured 54.5% of all mobile ad spending in the U.S. in 2012, according to a study by Pew Research Center. Though Google may boast volume of digital ad revenue, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, and even The Weather Channel have outpaced Google in mobile adoption of digital display ads by a long shot.

A recent report from IDC provided some perspective.

Facebook, Pandora, Twitter, and The Weather Channel all registered strong sales in 2012 and all (with the exception of Pandora) popped onto the scene from zero sales in 2011. As a result, publishers controlled 52% of U.S. mobile display ad spending in 2012, compared to the 39% they received in 2011.

“Mobile ad networks are losing market share to publishers, and we expect them to lose even more going forward,” explained Karsten Weide, IDC‘s vice president of media & entertainment.

Mobile display advertising itself is the fastest growing sub-segment within mobile advertising, which increased its market share of total mobile display advertising from 31% to 39% from 2011 to 2012. Mobile search ads, at 61%, still hold sway over the market, which obviously works in Google’s favor, but the power has already shifted to publishers in mobile display ads.

Mobile display advertising in 2012

Rank Company Gross Revenue Type
1 Google $243 million Ad network
2 Facebook $234 million Publisher
3 Pandora $229 million Publisher
4 Millennial Media $151 million Ad network
5 Apple $125 million Ad network
6 Twitter $117 million Publisher
7 Jumptap $90 million Publisher

Valuation matters
Valuation, however, brings expectations down to earth. Google should continue to lose significant mobile display advertising market share to Facebook, Pandora, and Twitter, but the overall growth of the mobile advertising market, which grew by 88% in 2012, should still drive significant growth for Google within investors’ expectations for the stock.

Facebook, for instance, trades at a whopping 11.7 times sales, more than twice Google’s price-to-sales ratio of 5. In other words, investors have already priced significant growth into Facebook’s stock. Pandora is the exception here, trading at just 5.3 times sales, despite its blazing 53% year-over-year revenue growth in the company’s most recent quarter.

Pandora’s seemingly conservative valuation, of course, has its reasons. First, the company is only flirting with profitability. Second, the company is still relatively small compared to the other tech companies with a significant sway of the digital music market. Investors are worried that Pandora could face increasing competition from bigger players.

Betting on mobile
While Pandora’s position isn’t secure enough for me to

From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/publishers-pierce-googles-armor-snapping-up-mobile/

What's Good For Facebook and Pandora Is Bad for Google and Apple

By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

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In the age of mobile ads, the heavyweights are losing the upper hand. According to a recent report from IDC, the mobile display ad market is being taken over by publishers like Facebook , Pandora Media , and Twitter. That’s good news for those companies, and bad news for incumbent ad networks from Google , Millennial Media , and Apple .

Overall mobile ad spending continues to rise, jumping 88% in 2012 to $4.5 billion. IDC pegs Facebook as the top mobile display ad seller with $234 million in gross revenue. Pandora follows that with $229 million, with Twitter ranking third at $117 million.

Facebook had zero mobile ad sales in 2011, but made a big push into mobile ads in 2012 starting with Sponsored Stories. Anyone paying attention to the social network’s enormous IPO is likely well aware of the criticisms at the time that Facebook lacked a mobile monetization strategy. That’s changed by now, and Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission to dispel the myth that Facebook can’t navigate the mobile transition.

Pandora’s free ad-supported service has been around a long time, but only recently did the online radio streamer go public. However, Pandora’s costs scale up alongside revenue, making it much more difficult for it to put up a profit compared to the social network.

Within the ad network market, Google remains top dog with an estimated $243 million in revenue last year. Millennial Media, who also went public in 2012, overtook Apple for second place. Millennial generated $151 million in sales, topping Apple’s $125 million.

Google naturally still owns the mobile search ad market, with $2.2 billion in revenue and a 79% market share, but none of the aforementioned rivals meaningfully competes in search.

However, Apple doesn’t care too much about its iAd network relative to its core device business. The Mac maker made it clear from the beginning that iAd’s whole purpose was to help developers offer free apps by providing an alternative method of monetization.

The new guys on the mobile ad block are chipping away at the incumbent heavyweights.

As one of the most dominant Internet companies ever, Google has made a habit of driving strong returns for its shareholders. However, like many other web companies, it’s also struggling to adapt to an increasingly mobile world. Despite gaining an enviable lead with its Android operating system, the market isn’t sold. That’s why it’s more important than ever to understand each piece of Google’s sprawling empire. In The Motley Fool’s new premium research report on Google, we break down the risks and potential rewards for Google investors. Simply click here now to unlock your copy of this invaluable resource.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Mobile Display Advertising Shifting to Facebook, Pandora and Twitter from Ad Networks such as Google, Millennial Media and Apple

By Chuck Jones, Contributor IDC estimates that publishers such as Facebook, Pandora and Twitter now control a majority of mobile display ad spending at 52% in 2012 vs. 39% in 2011.  It estimates that $1.7 billion was spent on mobile display ads compared to $0.7 billion in 2011. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Millennial Media Closes Acquisition

By Eric Volkman, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Millennial Media has added a strategic asset. The company announced it completed the acquisition of Metaresolver, a mobile media buying service headquartered in San Francisco. The purchase, first announced in late February, was effected by an all-cash transaction. Neither the price nor the terms have been disclosed.

According to Millennial, Metaresolver’s service “harnesses and analyzes volumes of data to deliver efficient programmatic mobile media buying for advertisers.”

Following the closing of the acquisition, Millennial is to integrate Metaresolver executives Seamus McAteer, Mike Rowehl, and Cindy Mesaros into its top management team.

The article Millennial Media Closes Acquisition originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Eric Volkman has no position in Millennial Media. The Motley Fool has no position in Millennial Media. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Millennial Media Closes Acquisition of Metaresolver and Strengthens Executive Management Team

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Millennial Media Closes Acquisition of Metaresolver and Strengthens Executive Management Team

Company to Report 2013 First Quarter Results on May 8, 2013

BALTIMORE–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Millennial Media Inc., the mobile advertising and data platform, has closed its acquisition of Metaresolver – a mobile media buying and targeting platform. Metaresolver was founded by industry veterans, Seamus McAteer, Mike Rowehl and Cindy Mesaros, each of whom are pioneers who have shaped mobile media intelligence, mobile advertising and mobile content. The addition of this talented and experienced team, along with a programmatic mobile ad-tech platform, will enable Millennial to strengthen its leadership position in the fast moving mobile market.

Upon closing the acquisition, Millennial Media will streamline the combined company’s leadership team. In the new structure, reporting to Paul Palmieri, Chairman and CEO, Mollie Spilman will become EVP, Global Sales & Marketing, Matt Gillis will become EVP, Global Product & Platform, and Michael Avon, the company’s CFO & EVP, will add Corporate Strategy and Human Resources to his organization. Seamus McAteer, Mike Rowehl and Cindy Mesaros from Metaresolver will join the leadership team and lead Insights, Programmatic Platform and Global Marketing efforts for Millennial respectively. Marcus Startzel, formerly GM, North America, will report to Spilman as Global Chief Revenue Officer and Carl Wartzack will report to Spilman as SVP Global Operations. As a result of this combination and leadership restructuring, Chris Brandenburg, CTO, and Steven Root, EVP, will be leaving the company.

Paul Palmieri said, “I am thrilled to have the Metaresolver team and platform as a part of Millennial Media. We are entering the company’s next phase of growth and the Metaresolver acquisition of people and technology, along with a streamlined executive team, will help us continue to expand our leadership position in the exciting market of mobile advertising.”

Millennial Media also today announced that it will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss its 2013 first quarter financial results on Wednesday, May 8, 2013, at 5:00 p.m. ET. Chief Executive Officer Paul Palmieri and Chief Financial Officer Michael Avon will host the call. Millennial Media will release its 2013 first quarter financial results that day after the market close.

To access the conference call, please dial 877-703-6108 (U.S.) or 857-244-7307 (international) using passcode 19120374. The conference call will also be available via live webcast under the Investor Relations section of Millennial Media‘s website at http://investors.millennialmedia.com.

If …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Nuance Unveils Voice Ads: A Game Changer in Interactive Advertising

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Nuance Unveils Voice Ads: A Game Changer in Interactive Advertising


Nuance Turns One-Way Mobile Advertising into an Intelligent and Engaging Two-Way Conversation

BURLINGTON, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Nuance Communications (NAS: NUAN) today unveiled Voice Ads, an innovative new mobile advertising format that lets people have a two-way conversation with the brands they love. By integrating Nuance’s powerful voice technology, Nuance Voice Ads transforms traditional mobile advertising into an engaging and entertaining conversational experience, and finally gives consumers a say in the way brands advertise to them – literally.

Mobile advertising is one of the fastest growing segments of digital advertising landscape. According to eMarketer, mobile ad spending around the world more than doubled in 2012 from $4 billion in 2011 to $8.41 billion, and anticipates that spending will approach $37 billion by 2016. Despite the explosive growth, mobile ad revenue still lags behind the larger-screened PC and Internet TV experiences. The billion-dollar question in all these billions – how can advertisers create a more engaging experience that compels the consumer to act? The way we see it, nothing is more engaging or natural than a conversation.

Nuance Voice Ads gives mobile advertisers and creative agencies an opportunity to go beyond the limitations of the four-inch mobile device screen and create a conversation with consumers through the power of voice recognition. Voice Ads finally creates an opportunity for brands to deepen the relationship with their consumers, with targeted interactive ads that deeply engage their core audience – much in the way that the world’s most popular mobile personal assistants have deepened consumers’ relationship with their mobile phones.

Nuance has partnered with many of the leading companies in the mobile advertising ecosystem to ensure broad reach and distribution for Voice Ads – a completely new format for mobile advertising. Creative advertising agencies include Digitas, OMD and Leo Burnett, while mobile advertising companies such as Millennial Media, Jumptap and Opera Mediaworks (AdMarvel, Mobile Theory, and 4th Screen), will provide distribution to more than 100,000 app publishers and hundreds of millions of consumers globally. In addition, mobile rich media ad servers such as Celtra are providing tools for rich media production and analytics on mobile devices.

How Nuance Voice Ads Works

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

5 Stocks That May Be Bottoming Out

By Rick Munarriz, Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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The market may have hit all-time highs last week, but there are still too many companies staring at the floor instead of the ceiling these days.

There were 93 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange that hit fresh 52-week lows last week. Another 52 Nasdaq-listed companies hit new lows.

Bucking the bullish trend over the past year is well earned in most — but not all — cases.

Let me go over five names that clocked in with new lows last week that I think may be ready to turn the corner.

 Company

Last Week’s Low

52-Week High

Intuitive Surgical

$455.18

$594.89

Millennial Media

$7.89

$27.90

Baidu

$84.88

$154.15

Boingo Wireless

$5.35

$13.25

EZchip Semiconductor

$21.80

$46.79

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Tennis balls bounce back, even though eggs don’t
Let’s start at the top with Intuitive Surgical.

The company behind the da Vinci robotic arm was trading within 2% of its all-time high just last month, and now it’s smacking a 52-week low.

The turning point came late last month, when the FDA launched a safety probe by surveying surgeons at some hospitals using da Vinci machines. There were an unusually high number of adverse incident reports at key hospitals and the regulatory agency wanted to take a closer look.

The investigation is ongoing, but investors don’t like uncertainty.

Intuitive Surgical has been a market darling, and the platform using a surgeon-guided robotic arm for surgical incisions on certain procedures has historically been seen as a win-win-win scenario. Surgeons don’t suffer as much fatigue. Patient recovery times are quicker. Hospitals can perform more surgeries in any given day. The only thing holding Intuitive Surgical from being in more hospitals was the high cost of the machines, but now there are real concerns about the platform itself until this cloud passes.

The dark cloud will pass.

Millennial Media has fallen ever harder.

The mobile advertising speedster went public at $13 last March, traded as high as $27.90 on its first day, and now has fallen all the way down to the single digits.

Millennial Media is still growing, serving up display advertising in many of the most popular apps. Millennial is the largest player in mobile advertising that isn’t tethered to a single mobile operating system, and those platform-agnostic ways are compelling to developers.

Revenue climbed 71% last year, and Millennial Media‘s guidance calls for a still impressive 52% to 58% top-line pop this year. Red ink used to be a problem, but the company is coming off of back-to-back profitable quarters.

Baidu is China‘s leading search engine, commanding roughly two thirds of the search queries in China.

Investors have been hesitant to pile into Chinese Internet stocks, but that’s a big mistake when it comes to Baidu. The stock has never been this cheap. The dot-com speedster is trading for less than 13 times next year’s projected earnings, but it’s growing a lot faster than that.

There is one upstart challenging its market share, and China‘s not …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

5 Surprising Stocks Hitting New Lows

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz

Apple stocks falls

Filed under: , , ,

(Getty Images)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new all-time high last week, but not every stock went along for the ride.

In fact, a whopping 221 stocks hit fresh 52-week lows on the NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges.
Let’s go over some of the surprising names on the list of underachievers.

Last Week’s Low 52-week High
Apple (AAPL) $419.00 $705.07
Skullcandy (SKUL) $5.06 $17.76
Millennial Media (MM) $7.99 $27.90
Select Comfort (SCSS) $16.62 $35.60
The Fresh Market(TFM) $36.51 $65.69

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Motley Fool contributor Rick Munarriz owns shares of Millennial Media. The Motley Fool recommends Apple, Google, The Fresh Market, and Whole Foods Market. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Google, SKULLCANDY INC, and Whole Foods Market. Try any of our newsletter services free for 30 days. – gallery

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Millennial Media Falls 37% On Weak Q4; Morgan Cuts Rating

By Eric Savitz, Forbes Staff

It’s a grim day for investors in mobile advertising play Millennial Media, as the stock swoons following a disappointing Q4 financial report. Adding to the pressure, Morgan Stanley analyst Jordan Monahan cut his rating on the stock today to Equal Weight from Overweight, asserting that competition in the mobile ad space has emerged sooner than previously expected. Note that Morgan Stanley was the lead underwriter on the Millennial IPO last March. The company launched at $13 a share, and closed the first day of trading at $25; today the stock has dropped to an all-time low. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Millennial Media Plunges 26% On Q4 Miss; Buys Metaresolver

By Eric Savitz, Forbes Staff

Shares of the mobile advertising firm Millennial Media were clobbered in after hours trading Tuesday after the company posted disappointing results for the fourth quarter, citing both a decision not to pursue low-end business and the loss of a few larder deals late in the quarter. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest