Month: January 2014

A Big Day For Federated, and the Birth of Sovrn Holdings

LINFMSOVRNToday marks a big milestone for Federated Media, the company we launched way back in 2005. As you can read here, LIN Media is acquiring Federated Media’s brand and content marketing business, and a new company, sovrn Holdings, Inc. (“sovrn”), has been born. Sovrn will continue to build on what was FM’s programmatic publisher platform, a business based on our acquisition of Lijit Networks back in 2011.

When I returned as FM’s CEO in early 2013 after a two-year absence, it was my job to assess where we stood, and how we could most successfully invest our resources. At the time, FM had two distinct business lines: Its pioneering content marketing practice, and its burgeoning programmatic exchange. As readers of this site know well, I’m bullish on both.  I love our legacy as one of the creators of modern content marketing and defender of premium independent publishing, and I’m extremely proud of our massive exchange, which is growing like crazy (more than 90% topline growth y/y, and profitable). Both businesses have strong partners, strong people, and great futures.

So why split them up? Well, the truth is LIN Media offered us a deal that just made sense. LIN, a public company, is focused on building a world-class digital media offering, and has the resources and people that can take Federated’s business to the next level. It’s incredibly important to me personally that something I was instrumental in building finds a home that respects and appreciates its history, while at the same time desiring to invest in its future. That’s exactly what LIN is committed to doing. Now that it is part of LIN, the Federated Media brand can grow faster – and that means more revenue and opportunities for the partners who have made FM what it is.

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else 1.27: “Humans are pretty good at deceiving themselves”

This week we read about reverse engineering algorithms for dates, anticipatory algorithms, and more social weirdness with Google Glass. As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS. And tweet us links!

Gartner Says by 2017, Mobile Users Will Provide Personalized Data Streams to More Than 100 Apps and Services Every Day — Gartner
Gartner offers some estimates on apps, wearables, internet of things, and other interfaces that are becoming data.

OfficeMax Blames Data Broker For ‘Daughter Killed in Car Crash’ Letter — Forbes
The extent of data brokers’ overreach into the sensitive details of our personal lives is revealed in uncanny misfires such as this.

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Note to Interwebs: Pinterest Can’t Be, And Won’t Be, Only About Images.

pinterstPinterest is an interesting service – built entirely on the curation and sharing of images, and valued at billions of dollars. But when it comes time to lean into a business model, every service has to find and leverage its core DNA – and for Pinterest, it’s clear it can’t be images. That bus left a while ago (and Facebook was driving it, with Instagram riding shotgun and Snapchat….oh, never mind).

Anyway, two bits of news today that I think help us understand where Pinterest is going. First, Pinterest’s announcement that it’s getting into recipe search. And second, news that Pinterest is experimenting with GIFs.

To me, the conclusion is this: Pinterest is about collecting, curating, and sharing media objects, regardless of what they are. They can be images, which is how Pinterest got to its first jaw-dropping valuation. Or they can be….anything. Recipes? Sure. GIFs? Uh-huh. Web pages? Why not? Videos? Sure! Ummmm…files? Well, yeah, of course.

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else 1.20: “The future is much simpler than you think.”

This week we thought about the data in our homes, connecting the Internet of Things, and what’s next for the openness of the internet. As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS. And tweet us links!

 

Nest thermostat acquisition is Google’s home invasion — New Scientist
Google’s $3.2B acquisition of Nest is all about staking a claim as the data interface into the home.

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Google Buys Nest

nestToday comes the news that Google is buying Nest, a move that, upon reflection, should have been obvious (the price tag of more than $3 billion, not so obvious!). If the company is truly executing its mission of helping us organize the world’s information and make it available, it makes sense to have a major play in the Internet of Things, in particular, those things that consumers view as extremely valuable. Nest, a company that has rethought the previously unsexy world of home control devices, is a perfect platform for launching computing devices that feed on valuable data, and tie seamlessly to Google’s other platforms, like Android, Nexus, Search/Knowledge, and more.

My first thought upon hearing this news was of Apple – if ever there was an Apple-like company, it’s Nest. Founded by an ex-Apple employee, Nest devices do for thermostats and smoke alarms what the Mac did for PCs – made them relevant and far more valuable. And Nest was in essence a design driven company – just like Apple. But it’s a sign of how sprawling Google’s ambitions are when compared to Apple, which I can’t imagine ever getting into home control systems, much less autonomous cars or robotics.

Google is proving itself willing to make huge bets in markets it believes will become drivers of tomorrow’s data ecosystem. Draped in that light, Nest seems an inevitable move. So what might be next? To answer that question, start with those things we view as super-valuable, but are not yet widely lit with computable information. Clothing? Cars? Healthcare? Food?! Well…why not?

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else 1.13: “Keep the instrument in its place”

This week, we look at more applications machine learning, new wearables from CES, and some visions for the coming year. As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS. And tweet us links!

How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View  — MIT Technology Review
Interesting details into the development of the neural network  that’s helping to identify distorted street numbers picked up by Street View images.

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The Four Phases of CES: I, Consumer, Am Electronic

CESCES is a huge event, one that almost everybody in our industry has been to at least once, if not multiple times. I’ve been going for the better part of 25 years, so I’ve seen a lot of change. And after my first day here, the biggest takeaway I’m getting is a sense of deja vu.

Back in the early days, CES was mostly about exciting new televisions, clock radios, and stereo components. Call that the first incarnation of CES – literally, electronics for consumers. Stuff you plugged in, stuff that “electrified” your life with sound and video.

But starting in the mid to late 1908s, a brash new industry was starting to take over the “buzz” on the show floor – personal computers. PCs were becoming a “consumer electronic” and for the next decade or so, PCs were the “it” industry at CES. The PC era of CES was its second incarnation, and it brought our industry onto the show floor in a big way.

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else 1.6: “Ghosts in the machine”

Back from the holiday break, we look at data’s influence on culture; glass, both as a material for transmitting bits, and as a wearable interface; and the (im)permanence of data.

As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS. And tweet us links!

 

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Predictions 2014: A Difficult Year To See

1-nostradamusThis post marks the 10th edition of my annual predictions – it’s quite possibly the only thing I’ve consistently done for a decade in my life (besides this site, of course, which is going into its 12th year).

But gazing into 2014 has been the hardest of the bunch – and not because the industry is getting so complicated. I’ve been mulling these predictions for months, yet one overwhelming storm cloud has been obscuring my otherwise consistent forecasting abilities. The subject of this cloud has nothing – directly – to do with digital media, marketing, technology or platform ecosystems – the places where I focus much of my writing. But while the topic is orthogonal at best, it’s weighing heavily on me.

So what’s making it harder than usual to predict what might happen over the coming year? In a phrase, it’s global warming. I know, that’s not remotely the topic of this site, nor is it in any way a subject I can claim even a modicum of expertise. But as I bend to the work of a new year in our industry, I can’t help but wonder if our efforts to create a better world through technology are made rather small when compared to the environmental alarm bells going off around the globe.

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