By Alex Morrell Two business professors studied the valuations of 116 unicorns, finding that many overstated their value. When they adjusted valuations for special protections provided to VC investors, nearly half of unicorns lost their coveted $1 billion status. Tech...
Inside a Chinese Click-Farm
Inside China's phony 'click farm': Tiny office uses 10,000 handsets to send fake ratings and 'likes' for boosting clients' online popularity Footage has emerged of a giant 'click farm' in which thousands of phones are used to boost product ratings with phony 'likes'....
Internet Ad Revenues Surge, Two Companies Get the Spoils
by Wolf Richter • Apr 26, 2017 The big shift to mobile advertising. It’s not all careening downhill, at least not for everyone – or at least not for the biggest two: Google and Facebook. More on our two heroes in a moment. Internet advertising revenues in the US...
Estimates for Snap’s ad revenue have been cut, and shares just hit a post-debut low
Snapchat maker Snap Inc. is still expected to exponentially grow its ad revenue in 2017, but not quite as much as originally expected. A new report from eMarketer on Tuesday slashed Snap's ad revenue projections from $800 million to $770 million, a $30 million...
Agencies embracing native advertising
By Michael Goldberg Everyone’s talking native. But when it comes to executing, agencies are typically the decision makers when it comes to selecting the advertising strategies they will employ for their clients. As it turns out, they’ll be leveraging native...
Paid social and search ads drive more clicks
Paid ads on search engines and social networks account for a bigger share of e-retail traffic, Hitwise says. That Amazon.com Inc. dominated e-commerce during the recent holiday season will surprise few retailers. But Hitwise traffic data also reveals some less obvious...
The tech industry and the media can share blame for creating Donald Trump
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the article. Three weeks after Donald Trump won a historic victory to become the 45th president of the United States, the media postmortems continue. In particular, the role played by the media and...
After Trump Win, Ad Agencies Are Clueless How To Market To Middle America
Donald Trump's election taught politicians several valuable lessons but politicians aren't the only ones learning valuable lessons from Trump's stunning victory as advertising agencies have also been forced to admit that they have no idea how to market to the...
Entrepreneurship favors the wealthy
Entrepreneurship is often hailed as a cornerstone of American society. From Mom & Pop stores to Silicon Valley start-ups, it has been held up as the key to self-reliance and social mobility. Unfortunately, as American society has become more stratified and social...
Facebook pulls project – too many bots, bad ads
Facebook has confirmed it has pulled its plans to build a demand-side platform (DSP) into its ad server and measurement platform Atlas. Facebook began testing out a buying platform within Atlas last year, allowing a small set of marketers to use the social...