ContextWeb, Inc. is proud to announce that it has developed and implemented “next generation” algorithms that have resulted in deeper, niche classification of the millions of Web pages that are part of the ADSDAQ Exchange. The new algorithms, developed and tested by in-house ADSDAQ mathematicians and software engineers, have produced the following achievements:

1. Automatically discovers additional keywords for existing exchange content categories, which increases the number of keywords for categorization by tenfold. This enables the ADSDAQ exchange to be able to discern niche subcategories more efficiently.
2. Automatically discovers keywords to define new categories chosen specifically by advertisers as those content topics become relevant. This will allow advertisers to use hot topics to continually target their audience for maximum engagement.
3. Provides a platform that is language-independent; allowing the discovery of keywords and phrases in real time across content in every language.

With the new approach, the system can learn to categorize automatically with no human management. Results of new algorithm performance across the more than 7,000 sites on the ADSDAQ exchange show huge gains in category refinement.

Our new algorithms open up millions of pages of additional ad inventory in very targeted, niche categories. This is great news for brand advertisers who want assurance that their ads will appear in appropriate context and on brand-safe content that supports their messages. For performance advertisers, getting their offers in front of the right audience allows them to meet their performance metrics. This will also help publishers to more effectively monetize Web pages deep within their sites.

Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about “Web 2.0,” on July 23rd, ibreakfast held the “Media Buying 2.0” event. With over 50 attendees, the event was held at the CresaPartners building in Midtown Manhattan. The panel focused on how emerging technologies are evolving online marketing and advertising strategies.

We’ve posted video clips from the event as well as a copy of Adam Broitman’s (Morpheus Media) and Robert Davidson’s (EarthQuake Media) presentations that focused on how media agencies are using technology to promote their client’s messaging in new and innovative ways. Check out photos of the event.

The event featured:

• Adam Broitman, Director of Emerging and Creative Strategy, Morpheus Media
• Rebecca Coleman, SVP Client Services, WhittmanHart
• Robert Davidman , Chairman & CEO, EarthQuake Media
• Ben Ezrick, Senior Strategist of Digital Innovation, Ogilvy
• Jay Sears, EVP Strategic Products & Business Development, ContextWeb , Inc.

The panel discussion provided insights on how agencies can utilize new Web technologies and develop successful online marketing and advertising campaigns. Attendees were able to ask questions and network with the panelists and sponsors. Just a few of the highlights included: Adam Broitman, Morpheus Media, focused his discussion on audience engagement and the creativity required to produce effective online marketing campaigns. During his presentation, he said, “There are more tools of engagement than even before and devising ways to use thses tools effectively requires creative thinking, not just quantitative strategy.” Robert Davidson, EarthQuake Media, focused his presentation on mobile marketing and conveyed that ads on mobile devices, such as the iPhone, should be integrated into the applications hosting them. View Adam Broitman’s (Morpheus Media) and Robert Davidman’s (EarthQuake Media) presentations.

ContextWeb’s Jay Sears kicked the panel off. He discussed media fragmentation and other current industry trends. View Jay Sears’s presentation.

Watch the video footage of the event and the Q&A with the panel.
(more…)

Packed with over 150 attendees from some of the hottest interactive companies, ContextWeb hosted a panel discussion on “The Next Big Thing: How Publishers are Taking Back Control of Their Brands with Scalable and Profitable Online Strategies” on Wednesday July 9th at The Yale Club in Manhattan.

We have posted video and audio from the event as well as a copy of Bill Morrison’s (ThinkPanmure) presentation that kicked off the event and an offer from Bill to be added to his Internet research distribution list. View our photos from the event or just subscribe to ContextWeb’s blog.

The event featured:

• Moderator:Randall Rothenberg, President, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)
• William Morrison,Partner, Senior Internet Analyst, ThinkPanmure
• Wenda Harris Millard, Co-CEO and President of Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
• Ari Brandt,General Manager - Digital Media, Conde Nast Business Media Group and Portfolio.com
• Sean Muzzy, Senior Partner, Media Director, Neo@Ogilvy

The panel discussion provided insights on how publishers can utilize their brand equity to capitalize on the significant growth expected in display online advertising.

Topics covered included: comparison between ad networks and exchanges, the economics of launching a branded network, how to create reach for your advertisers, topics specific to ad delivery, media fragmentation and how to reach Long-Tail content, how to make sure your content is brand-safe and much more. Attendees were able to ask questions and network with the panelists and other leading media executive attendees. Listen the panel discussion, view Bill Morrison’s Introductory Presentation and view the research report Bill mentioned on ad networks and exchanges from ThinkPanmure. If you want to be added to Bill’s internet research distribution list, email your request to wmorrison (AT) thinkpanmure.com.

Here’s the first installment of AdvertisingAge’s clip of “The Next Big Thing.” The second and third installments are also now available.

Watch the entire event on video:
(more…)

Jay Sears, SVP of Strategic Products and Business Development at ContextWeb, is this week’s guest on the Advertising Show with hosts Ray Schilens and Brad Forsythe.

Jay discusses the ADSDAQ online ad exchange and the fragmenting online advertising industry among other topics.

Click here to download the entire show in MP3 format.

Tonight, John Pavley and Derek Brinkman will be presenting at Scott Heiferman’s New York Tech Meetup where area technology companies demo their new technology. John and Derek will demonstrate the new self-service publisher portal for the ADSDAQ Exchange.

On Thursday, April 3, Jay Sears will be presenting to the Boston Interactive Marketing Association on Media Fragmentation.

Event details are here:

BIMA, Roundtable Breakfast Event

• Hotel Nine Zero, 90 Tremont Street
• Boston, MA 02108
• April 3, 2008, 8:00-10:00AM
• http://www.bima.org/

Yesterday, Search Engine Strategies brought together the three main players in the world of online advertising exchanges - ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange, Yahoo!’s RightMedia and Google/DoubleClick’s AdX - for a lively discussion on the origins, current state and future of advertising exchanges.

The “Ad Exchanges Are Changing Everything” panel was moderated by Rebecca Lieb, Vice President & Editor-In-Chief of The ClickZ Network, and she was joined by:

• Ramsey McGrory, Vice President of Exchange Development, Yahoo!
• Jay Sears, Senior Vice President Strategic Products and Business Development, ADSDAQ by ContextWeb
• Scott Spencer, Vice President, Product Management & Strategy, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

The panel came fresh on the heels of ContextWeb’s announcement regarding the ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk as detailed in the Wall Street Journal (PDF here) which Jay touches upon in his presentation at SES.

If you would like to download Jay Sears presentation at SES, please click here.

To view the complete video, click the “Play” button on any video below.

(more…)

What has a parent that is seven years old, siblings all across the US and lives in Covent Garden, London?

As of today, ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange has a footprint in the UK online marketplace. The initial murmurings about the introduction of a highly intuitive, page-level targeting solution that was soon to enter the UK market could be heard in and around St. Albans at the first UK iMedia seminar. One week on and the ripple of activity created at iMedia, and covered by Alan Moore here, now has a physical presence in the form of a UK footprint, the first European office – no doubt with additional markets on the horizon.

I am happy to say that I am enjoying first-hand the experience of this grand opening, albeit a relatively quiet and lonely one given that the office comprises of one . . . for now. With regard to new recruits I hope to be able to double the UK staff level by the end of April, or at least have the new hire and start date in place. What with over 800 contacts from 80+ agencies in the UK, we are hoping to build the team relatively quickly so we can gain a good foothold in the market and provide first-class service to go along with our first-class marketing solution.

(more…)

We have been hard at work.

This morning we announce ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk. It’s a platform that uses ContextWeb’s real-time page level contextual engine to bring actionable insights to an advertiser’s entire media spend and investment.

For the first time, advertisers can look into a specific placement and across an entire campaign and associate performance with context. That advertiser can then BUY more inventory in the context that works and SELL only the context that is performing poorly.

The Wall Street Journal is carrying a Q&A (PDF here) on ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange Agency Trading Desk with our CEO Anand Subramanian (Marketplace, pg B2H) this morning. And I’ll see some of you at Search Engine Strategies this afternoon at 5:30pm for a discussion on Ad Exchanges.

We are pleased to have six stellar agencies participating in our invitation-only beta program including Omnicom’s OMD and WPP’s GroupM.

(more…)

This morning we announced the creation of a new Board of Advisors and added three veterans from Interpublic, Kelly Blue Book and CBS Digital who will provide ContextWeb strategic guidance for ADSDAQ Advertising Exchange.

This news comes on the heels of Wenda Harris Millard of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia joining our board of directors only two weeks ago.

Who are these interactive innovators?

•Ira Carlin, former Chairman-International of Interpublic’s MAGNA Global Worldwide and former Chairman of Universal McCann;
•Robin Cooper, Vice President of Advertising and Business Development for auto publisher Kelley Blue Book;
•Scot McLernon, President of the Upstream Group, Inc. and former head of sales for CBS Digital.

The mission of Context Web’s advisory board is to provide ongoing strategic advice to the company’s management team as it continues to grow the ADSDAQ Advertising Exchange (http://www.ADSDAQ.com), the leading independent platform for online advertisers and publishers, as well as the company’s overall business model. The ADSDAQ Exchange already serves 9 of the top 10 marketing organizations in the United States.

(more…)

Wenda Harris Millard, the chairman of the IAB, President of Media at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and ContextWeb’s newest board member is on her best game here at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Meeting in Phoenix.

Her message: pork bellies (unless Emeril Agassi is cooking them) are not a good thing. And she is right.

After recounting various perils in her welcome keynote Sunday night including global warming, terrorism, the sub-prime mess, rising fuel costs and a devastating retail environment, Millard called our current state “daunting but exhilarating” with 2008 set to be “more hair raising and volatile” than 2007. The tenure of the CMO is a mere 22 months and the “consumer is calling the shots”.

“My space is your space” said Millard with roles changing and overlapping, with Sir Martin’s frenemy notion very alive and well. “Madison Avenue is repaving itself” with Publicis buying Digitas, the emergence of new media labs at the agencies, Denuo, Neo, agencies bringing futurists on staff and an ongoing string of investments including Microsoft buying aQuantive, Google buying DoubleClick, Yahoo! buying RightMedia and WPP buying 24/7–a dramatic example of “strange bedfellows”.

(more…)

It’s a good thing.

We announced this morning that Wenda Harris Millard, President, Media of Martha Stewart Omnimedia and the newly-named Chairman of Randall Rothenberg’s Internet Advertising Bureau, has joined our board of directors. All of us could not be more pleased to have such a media rock star involved with ContextWeb and its ADSDAQ Advertising Exchange.

You’ll have to read the full announcement, but Wenda’s achievements include overseeing the dramatic growth of display advertising at Yahoo! to $6.4 billion in 2006 from $717 million when she joined in 2001. She was also a founding member of DoubleClick and oversaw the operations of DoubleClick Media.

(more…)