A who’s who of technology and media heavyweights, including Ashton Kutcher, Bill Gates, Twitter co-founder Ev William and entrepreneur Richard Branson, have joined a $25m (£16m) funding round in the social activism platform Change.org.
Hachette Book Group will start selling books straight from tweets, though it can’t be labeled more than an experiment for now: The publisher has partnered with digital distributor Gumroad to sell three gifty print books “for a limited time and in limited quantities” via the books’ authors’ tweets. For the full story read GIGAOM
CRM shop MRM//McCann, part of McCann Worldgroup, has acquired Optaros, a digital eCommerce services/solutions provider
Judging by the share price, you’d assume exhibition organiser ITE was in crisis. In fact it’s just reported a record (adjusted) profit. The company is weathering a geopolitical storm, but it’s faced challenges like this before
Axel Springer, Europe’s biggest newspaper publisher by circulation, is taking full control of its digital classifieds joint venture for €446m in cash and an equity stake
Advertisers in Europe continue to increase their use of programmatic ad technology when buying and selling media
According to an ANA (Association of National Advertisers survey),“programmatic” was voted the word of the year.
Founded in 2000, Heyday is one of New Zealand’s most comprehensive and respected digital agencies
Alda Holding B.V. is an Amsterdam-based company that is a leader in developing, producing and promoting dance music events and experiences around the world. ALDA Events will continue to operate as an independent company under its current CEO Allan Hardenberg and will become responsible for the touring division of SFX
Promedica will form part of Cello Health, and will work closely with Cello Health Insight in London, New York and Chicago to continue the development of the offer to the large number of global clients of Cello Health
Upper Street Events Ltd has today announced a management buyout with private equity company, Living Bridge
Global ad spend is projected to grow 4.9% to $545 billion in 2015, according to ZenithOptimedia’s (ZO) Advertising Expenditure Forecast, although this is slightly below 2014’s 5.1% due to tough year-on-year comparisons from the Winter Olympics, World Cup, and the U.S. midterm election
Colin Morrison’s latest blog looks at Tom Bureau and Immediate Media
Terms weren’t disclosed, though the NY Post reports Rockbridge paid $60 million for a majority stake
Dentsu Aegis Network has reached an agreement in principal to acquire Tempero, the UK-based social media management agency
Sky, which will retain an equity stake of 20% and a seat on the board of the business, said the sale will allow the business to focus on its newly-expanded pan-European pay-TV operation
According to a forecast by eMarketeer the UK operations of Google and Facebook will make a combined £4.1bn in 2015, a 50.8% share of the total expected to be spent on ads on websites, smartphones, online video and social media next year
Welcome to the world of sponsored content, in which advertisers pay to have their messages integrated with editorial content on a publisher’s site
In a RNS today WPP announces that its wholly-owned company, POSSIBLE, the global creative digital agency that is part of WPP Digital, has acquired The Swift Collective, Inc. (“Swift”) in the United States
Advertising spending in measured media in the U.K. is expected to show a 6.3% increase this year, the fastest growth of any major, mature consumer economy, and well ahead of the 4% global ad investment growth expected for 2014, according to a new forecast by WPP’s GroupM
