In This Update:
• Behavioral Targeter AdKnowledge Buys Online Ad Network Media Run
• Google to Launch In-Game Ad Network This Month
• Forbes Buys Clipmarks; Takes Stake in RealClearPolitics
• Quigo Investor Sees Mobile Ad Firms as Next targets
• Migration of Ad Dollars to Internet Accelerates
• Google Maps Find Their Way to Gas Pumps
• TechTarget Buys KnowledgeStorm For $58 Million
• Mobile Gaming Revenue Seen Down
• LookSmart Q3 Loss Widens; to Sell FindArticles.com for $20.5MM
• MerchantCircle Closes $12 Million Series B For Local Net Marketing
• Frame Media Gets $2 Million for Digital Frame Image Delivery
• EyeWonder Enables Long Form Video Ads
• The Orchard Plays Madison Avenue Card, Spins Branding Division
• Report: More Visits to Social Networks than Webmail Services in the UK in Oct
• Study: Google Organizing Less Than 0.02% of the World’s Information

Behavioral Targeter AdKnowledge Buys Online Ad Network Media Run
PAIDCONTENT
Adknowledge, a Kansas City, MO-based behavioral targeter, has acquired the UK and Australian divisions of online ad network Media Run for an undisclosed sum. In those areas, Media Run will operate as AdKnowledge, while remaining under its original name in Italy and Asia. Overall, the company claims 3-plus billion ad impressions per month. AdKnowledge has been trying to position itself against Google and Yahoo as a cheaper alternative for advertisers.
Source>

Google to Launch In-Game Ad Network This Month
GIGAOM
Google’s long-rumored, game-focused advertising initiative is going to come to life later this month, according to sources familiar with the Mountain View, Calif-based company’s plans. Google, which bought in-gaming advertising company, AdScape, earlier this year for about $23 million, will unveil its game-focused strategy in two steps. First, Google will launch a beta test with Redwood City, Calif.-based casual gaming startup Bunchball Games. The second step in Google’s game-focused advertising strategy will take place in December, when the company will offer an ad-supported version of the PC game Psychonauts. This will be a downloadable game and will have 30-second pre- and mid-roll video ads.
Source>

Forbes Buys Clipmarks; Takes Stake in RealClearPolitics
DIGITALMEDIAWIRE
Forbes Media, the corporate parent of Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, on Wednesday announced that it has acquired Clipmarks, a privately held, New York-based service that allows people to clip and share text and other content from Web pages. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Clipmarks’ free browser add-on application lets people clip text, images and videos from Web pages, and then save, blog, e-mail and print what they clip. Additionally, Forbes Media said it has taken a 51% stake in RealClearPolitics, a site that aggregates political commentary, news, polling data and links to sources of information on politics.
Source>

Quigo Investor Sees Mobile Ad Firms as Next targets
REUTERS
Companies that specialize in advertising on cell phones are likely to be the next industry acquisition targets as a nearly $11 billion buying spree of online ad companies comes to a close, a leading Web investor said on Wednesday. Bob Davis, managing general partner at venture firm Highland Capital Partners, said the rapid consolidation of companies that serve and track Web ads had mostly ended with the acquisition of Quigo by Time Warner Inc.’s AOL. Highland Capital was the lead investor in the company, which specializes in targeted advertising that appears as sponsored listings on Web pages. Davis previously served as chief executive of Internet company Lycos Inc.
Source>

Migration of Ad Dollars to Internet Accelerates
MEDIAPOST
Market research firm eMarketer has trimmed its U.S. online ad forecast to $21.4 million from $21.7 million for 2008 because of the credit market turmoil and a shift toward unpaid marketing online. Despite the slowdown, the migration of ad dollars from traditional media to the Internet continues to accelerate as even the largest advertisers increase online spending, according to a new eMarketer report released Wednesday. The study cited research from TNS Media Intelligence showing that the top 100 advertisers spent $230 million less in 2006 than 2005 on the top four traditional media categories–television, radio, magazines and newspapers. At the same time, they increased online spending by $558 million. (The TNS figures exclude search marketing, which accounts for 40% of Internet ad revenue.)
Source>

Google Maps Find Their Way to Gas Pumps
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Lost drivers soon will be able to Google for help at the pump. As part of a partnership to be announced today, the online search leader will dispense driving directions at thousands of gasoline pumps across the U.S. beginning in early December. The pumps, made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root Inc., include an Internet connection and will display Google’s mapping service in color on a small screen. Motorists will be able to scroll through several categories to find local landmarks, hotels, restaurants and hospitals selected by the gas station’s owner. After the driver selects a destination, the pump will print out directions. Eventually, Gilbarco hopes to make it possible to type in a specific address and get directions.
Source>

TechTarget Buys KnowledgeStorm For $58 Million
PAIDCONTENT
TechTarget, the tech media B2B company, has reported its Q3 results and an acquisition. It has bought KnowledgeStorm, the online IT white paper and lead gen site, for $58 million, with about $52 million in cash and 359,820 shares of unregistered common stock of TechTarget. TTGT already owns KnowledgeStorm competitor BitPipe, which it bought for about $40 million in late 2004. According to the company, KnowledgeStorm will contribute revenues of $12 – $14 million and adjusted EBITDA of $4.5 – $5.5 million during the first twelve months post-integration (expected to close in Q208).
Source>

Mobile Gaming Revenue Seen Down
REUTERS
Worldwide mobile phone gaming revenue slid 9 percent during the three months ended in June, sparking concern about slowing demand in the category, research firm iSuppli said on Wednesday. Analyst David Carnevale of iSuppli said the quarterly decline, which was caused by weak subscriptions for games, was “a significant blow” to momentum the category has had in recent quarters. By contrast, in this year’s first three months, mobile game revenue rose 11 percent globally, the research firm said. Top mobile game publishers include Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Namco Bandai and Glu Mobile.
Source>

LookSmart Q3 Loss Widens; to Sell FindArticles.com for $20.5MM
REUTERS
LookSmart Ltd, an online media and technology company, reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, hurt by continued volatility in ad spend among its larger volume advertisers, and impairment charges. The company also said it will sell its FindArticles.com property to CNET Networks Inc for about $20.5 million in cash. LookSmart posted a third-quarter loss of 19 cents a share, on revenue of $12.6 million. This compares with a loss of 17 cents per share on revenue of $12.2 million.
Source>

MerchantCircle Closes $12 Million Series B For Local Net Marketing
ALARM:CLOCK
MerchantCircle has raised $12MM Series B from previous investors Rustic Canyon, Scale Venture, Steamboat Ventures, and new firms IAC and Square 1 Bank. The funding validates MerchantCircle success at drawing more than 250K local merchants since launching in 2006. Los Altos based MerchantCircle sells its customers a platform that includes a landing page, applications for blogging and an email newsletter, buzz tracking tools, electronic coupons, and work on your search engine placement.
Source>

Frame Media Gets $2 Million for Digital Frame Image Delivery
MASHABLE
Frame Media, the company behind the recently launched FrameChannel, has raised $2 million in series A funding. The round was led by CommonAngels and Longworth Venture Partners. FrameChannel is a tool that connects your images from across networks to whatever distribution channel you see fit, from digital picture frames to desktop widgets, and even screen savers. With the funding, Frame Media is looking to further push its web-based platform for managing and delivering images to wireless digital picture frames.
Source>

EyeWonder Enables Long Form Video Ads
ONLINE MEDIA DAILY
Rich media provider EyeWonder has launched a feature-length format for video ads. This enables advertisers and agencies to develop and deploy interactive digital ads which can stream long-form video and audio within rich media and video ad units. Leveraging Adobe’s Flash Media Server, EpicWonder provides agencies and advertisers with streaming media capabilities like short buffer time and content protection plus a flexible development environment for creating and delivering interactive media applications.
Source>

The Orchard Plays Madison Avenue Card, Spins Branding Division
DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS
The Orchard is now jumping into the branding and advertising arena, a growing area of importance for the music industry. The digital distributor unveiled its Branding & Agency division this week, and outlined plans to thread music and technology into advertising campaigns. “This group’s mantra is, ‘Engage Customers Through Music,’” explained Orchard president and chief executive Greg Scholl. “We help our clients give their consumers the music these customers want, while developing and retaining brand awareness for the product or service the customer provides.”
Source>

Report: More Visits to Social Networks than Webmail Services in the UK in Oct
HITWISE
For the fist time last month, UK Internet visits to social networks overtook visits to web-based email services. the top 25 social networks, which includes Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, accounted for 5.17% of all UK Internet visits, compared to 4.98% for Computers and Internet – Email Services, which includes Hotmail; Yahoo! Mail and Gmail, amongst others. This confirms that social networks are starting to eat into the web-based email providers’ dominance of the internet messaging market. A growing proportion of the UK online population is choosing to communicate with friends via social networks rather than email.
Source>

Study: Google Organizing Less Than 0.02% of the World’s Information
KNOWLEDGEBID
Berkeley’s School of Information Management Systems calculated how much unique information was produced in 1999 and again in 2002. The study estimated that between 3,416,281 TB and 5,609,121 TB were produced n 2002, so there was a ~19% annual growth rate between ‘99 and ‘02. Assuming the same growth rate to present, somewhere between 6,869,341 TB and 11,278,629 TB of new information were produced in 2006. In November of 2006, Google released a paper called “Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data” which discussed Google’s proprietary distributed storage system designed to scale to petabytes of data across thousands of commodity servers. The paper also mentioned that Google’s web index at the time was 800 TB and Bigtable as a whole was ~1085 TB. If you take the SIMS numbers as valid, in 2006 Google had organized the equivalent of 0.02% of the unique information produced in that year alone.
Source>

Tags: AdKnowledge, Adobe, AOL, Blogging, Brand, Clipmarks, EyeWonder, Facebook, Forbes, GMail, Google, IAC, Intel, ISP, Local, LookSmart, MerchantCircle, Music, MySpace, RealClearPolitics, RIM, Series A, TechTarget, The Orchard, Time Warner, Video, Yahoo