Monday March 8, 2021

Apple released the third iOS 14.5 beta to developers last week. Among the tweaks: When requesting music playback via Siri on beta 3, users will get the response, “I’m learning how to choose the right audio apps for you. Which one do you want to use to listen to this?”; the Apple Watch unlock notification includes a glyph of the Apple Watch, with Solo Loop watch band; the splash screen on Find My app was updated to outline what’s new; and the Item Safety Alerts within the Me tab of the Find My app will notify users whenever an unknown item being tracked via the Find My app is found moving with them.

MyHeritage introduced an animation feature, “Deep Nostalgia,” that maps facial features from a photo to create a “live portrait.” As MyHeritage went viral, startup Rosebud stepped in to showcase its TokkingHeads app, which not only makes video game avatars and funny videos, but can produce animations like those on MyHeritage.

Parler dropped its lawsuit against AWS demanding its cloud hosting services be reinstated, but launched a new suit accusing Amazon of defamation, negligence and breach of contract. The right-wing social media site claims being booted by AWS after the January 6 attack on the Capitol cost it “hundreds of millions” in revenue.

Instagram launched “Live Rooms,” doubling the number of people who livestream together from two to four. “We hope that doubling up on Live will open up more creative opportunities — start a talk show, host a jam session or co-create with other artists, host more engaging Q&As or tutorials with your following, or just hang out with more of your friends,” said the company in a blog post.

Google introduced an upgrade to Flutter that expands it from a mobile framework to a portable framework. Flutter 2 enables developers to ship native apps across iOS, Android, Windows, Linux and macOS, cars and TVs.

DoubleVerify uncovered the first server-side ad insertion scheme known to hijack real CTV device sessions. At its peak, the scheme spoofed over 2 million devices each day and could have cost unprotected advertisers more than $5 million per month, based on an average $20 CPM across CTV. SneakyTerra operates by purchasing a real impression and then inserting impression trackers from multiple ads, obtained through spoofed SSAI calls, into one creative response. When an actual CTV device receives this response, pixels fire for all the impression trackers, so while only one ad is seen, impressions for multiple ads are generated.

With individualized tracking coming under increased scrutiny, Google said next year, it plans to stop ad sales based on users’ browsing history, and will not build or use new tools to track users across the web. “We’re making explicit that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products,” said David Temkin, Google’s Director of Product Management, Ads, Privacy and Trust, in a blog post on Wednesday. Which is a rejection of alternative solutions to third-party cookies, like Unified ID 2.0. “This is a strong statement from Google, and shines the light on the need for the industry to come together and balance concepts of privacy and optionality,” Michael Zacharski, CEO, Engine Media Exchange, tells Cynopsis. “We need to consider both the short and long term impacts of changes to the open web and walls being built on previously open gardens.”

In an industry first, passengers in Jeep’s upcoming Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer will be able to stream TV shows and movies, thanks to an integration with Amazon Fire TV for Auto. The vehicles will be unveiled on March 11.

Facebook said it is lifting its ban on political, electoral and social issue ads, instituted to “avoid confusion or abuse” around the 2020 election. “We plan to use the coming months to take a closer look at how these ads work on our service to see where further changes may be merited,” said the company in a blog post.

Gracenote, a Nielsen company has launched Personalized Imagery to help video services increase engagement by presenting the most appealing program images to viewers in their user interfaces, content carousels and program guides. Linear and streaming TV providers and connected device makers can dynamically display program images capturing different aspects of a TV show or movie based on viewer preferences and previous consumption. “Viewers looking for new shows to watch today rely on program guides and UIs to browse available content choices,” said Kamran Lotfi, VP, Product at Gracenote. “But a huge opportunity exists to deliver highly personalized user experiences that highlight content in ways that resonate more with viewers. With Gracenote Personalized Imagery, we are offering TV providers a proven way to increase engagement with their content and maximize viewership on their platforms.”

Enterprise software platform MadHive is launching an Audience Forecaster tool to address issues like frequency control and transparency for OTT, CTV. The feature set integrates into MadHive’s full stack offering that currently powers local reach extensions efforts for broadcast networks like FOX, Scripps and TEGNA. “The concept of delivery guarantees is a longstanding tradition in the world of linear, but delivery can be difficult to predict in the programmatic landscape,” said Adam Helfgott, CEO at MadHive. “Developing an accurate forecasting methodology involves building a robust technical infrastructure capable of ingesting, organizing, and optimizing billions of signals.”

NEP Group, the outsourced technical production partner for producers of live sports and entertainment, has acquired Vista Worldlink, provider of centralized broadcast solutions. The acquisition supports NEP’s strategic goal of becoming the worldwide leader in Centralized (Remote) Production.

Video tech vendor MobiTV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. According to FTI Consulting, the restructuring is aimed at addressing MobiTV’s debt obligations so it can be sold.

Altice USA has agreed to purchase high-speed data, video and voice services provider Morris Broadband. “Morris is a perfect fit for Altice as we are accelerating our network expansion with increased investment in edge outs, upgrades of underdeveloped systems and FTTH deployment to drive customer, revenue and cash flow growth,” said Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei. “We look forward to providing our high-quality broadband, video, mobile, and news offerings to thousands of additional homes and businesses, with a great opportunity to further penetrate Morris’ existing homes passed and by expanding more into adjacent areas.”

Roku has entered into an agreement to acquire Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising business, which includes Nielsen’s video automatic content recognition and dynamic ad insertion technologies. The companies are also entering into a strategic partnership to integrate complementary Nielsen ad and content measurement products into the Roku platform and further advance Nielsen ONE, the company’s cross-media measurement solution. “Tens of billions of dollars continue to be spent annually on traditional TV advertising,” said Louqman Parampath, VP of Product Management at Roku. “Combining Nielsen’s AVA technology with Roku’s innovative ad tech and scale will enable us to deliver the benefits of TV streaming advertising to traditional TV. Roku will bring the promise of DAI to the market for the first time ever at scale — providing better targeting and measurement for advertisers, creating easy integration and additional revenue opportunities for programmers’ ad sales teams, and improving the TV experience for viewers.”

Consumer insights platform DISQO and Research Results announced a programming partnership to help clients maximize the benefits of DISQO’s first party consumer panel. Research Results will serve as a preferred partner supporting project design, coding, and data processing. “DISQO’s huge, 100% first-party audience consistently delivers the data accuracy and quality our clients deserve, and this fits with our mission to solve researchers’ problems with maximum efficiency,” said John Zarrella, President, Research Results.

Rohde & Schwarz announced the introduction of the R&S SpycerNode SC, targeting the storage requirements of broadcast and post production workflows. SpycerNode SC is designed to fulfill the requirements of modern post production teams; based on the latest HPC technology, SpycerNode SC is capable of delivering a data rate of up to 22GB/s within a single device.

www.cynopsis.com/resource-center

StitcherAds, a platform for ad solutions and shopping experiences, announced the launch of Digital Circulars and Catalogs. The customizable solution lets retailers automatically surface customers personalized product selections, with prices and sales, from their nearest store in ad units on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. “Many retailers still rely on print circulars,” said Declan Kennedy, Co-Founder and CEO at StitcherAds. “It’s an ideal way to target specific markets with localized offers and deals. However, circulation has declined for years and is now at its lowest level since 1940. Meanwhile, as scale has fallen, the cost of print has increased. We’re solving these problems by making it easy to transform localized print circulars into digital, personalized experiences on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Retailers will also benefit by being able to bring digital’s targeting and measurability to circulars.”

Marketing and media technology company Sightly announced the launch of its Brand Mentality platform, combining emotional and cultural intelligence to empower brands and agencies to anticipate threats and opportunities and respond at speed and scale across multiple publishers and contexts. “We’ve been dealing with brand suitability and safety for years now,” said Sightly Chief Revenue Officer and General Manager, Adam Katz. “And with everything going on in the world today, we realized that you have to establish a mentality before you can truly deal with suitability and safety. There are too many gray areas. You have to know how you want to act in market before you can determine what is suitable and safe. Then you can move with speed to drive outcomes and respond to events that are happening in real time.”

Blockgraph, owned by Comcas/Charter Communications and ViacomCBS, and TransUnion are partnering to deliver privacy-focused addressable advertising solutions to the cross-channel video marketplace. The partnership aims to facilitate the application of authenticated data to target, reach and measure households across convergent TV platforms.

Disney hosted a show for media buyers that showcased technology aimed at helping marketers take better advantage of Disney’s diverse assets. A new data offering, DRAX, enables real-time programmatic bidding; Disney Select allows marketers to select desired audiences based on buyer behavior, household characteristics and psychographics; and transactional ad format GatewayGo pairs Hulu’s traditional ads with interactive prompts and personalized offers.

Music video network Vevo announced it has selected iSpot as a TV ad measurement and attribution solution, enabling Vevo to distinguish CTV audiences from those viewing on other platforms to authenticate a campaign’s incremental reach. “Vevo can be bought like TV, and now, measured all the more like TV. However, unlike traditional TV, we provide brands with scaled access to younger, harder-to-reach audiences,” said Bryon Schafer, SVP, Research, Vevo. “Advertisers are increasingly coveting these audiences who are not linear cable subscribers and simply do not watch much ad-supported TV – and running campaigns on Vevo fills that void.”

Crunchyroll introduced a new beta experience for Crunchyroll Premium web users based in the US, including a mobile responsive experience, updated homepage, redesigned browse and watch pages, new search capabilities and the new Crunchylists feature. Within Crunchyroll Beta, the Crunchyroll homepage has a new user interface, redesigned to fit the needs of the anime community.

Video advertising platform SpotX announced a strategic partnership with
Crackle Plus to serve as a primary supply-side platform to power the video monetization of Crackle Plus inventory across both existing and new distribution channels. Crackle Plus is enhancing Crackle and Popcornflix’s VOD experiences, as it expands its marketing activities into FAST channels.

Global programmatic media partner MiQ announced a strategic partnership with Shopify Plus agency BVA. The partnership will give BVA access to MiQ’s Intelligence Hub, custom analytics capabilities, and bespoke integrations into BVA’s proprietary reporting suite to help clients navigate the programmatic advertising landscape.

AT&T’s Xandr is teaming with omnichannel healthcare marketing and analytics platform Lasso, combining Lasso’s identity solution with Xandr’s demand-side programmatic infrastructure to offer programmatic advertising to pharma and health care companies. With Xandr’s Curate, Lasso is able to layer its audience data onto premium inventory and make it available to DSPs integrated within Xadr’s marketplace.

Tremor International announced its expanded creative studio, Tr.ly. “We are excited to offer our clients an even more advanced experience for showcasing their brand stories,” said Les Seifer, VP, Creative, Tremor International. “With our newly combined Tr.ly team, we can now offer our clients cutting-edge creative solutions backed by our own unique, proprietary data and insights.”

Alphonso has rebranded as LG Ads, bringing together LG’s smart TV footprint of over 120 million TVs, with TV advertising technology and analytics leader Alphonso’s technology stack for cross-screen media and measurement. “LG Ads is the marriage of two major TV industry forces that creates a perfect opportunity for advertisers looking to reach LG’s massive and highly affluent audience, while having a direct line of sight into how their customers are responding to their ads,” said Ashish Chordia, CEO of LG Ads. “As pioneers in TV-to-digital retargeting and Video AI, we are now poised to take cross-screen advertising and campaign measurement to new levels, at a time when navigating the TV ecosystem is harder.”

Ad tech company MediaMath and people-based marketing platform LiveIntent announced the full integration of LiveIntent’s nonID into MediaMath’s SOURCE digital media ecosystem. With the integration, MediaMath will enable brands to deliver personalized advertising without third-party cookies within LiveIntent’s email exchange and on the open web using LiveIntent’s identifier, nonID.

STREAMING

ViacomCBS streamer Paramount+ launched March 4, with live sports, breaking news, and “a mountain of entertainment.” The fact that the service is a rebrand is of CBS All Access is a distinct advantage, notes Tal Chalozin, CTO & Co-Founder of Innovid. “They’re not starting with a blank slate, and already have technology for streaming, ad tech, login and user management,” said Chalozin. “They also have their app deployed across devices, which will eliminate the growing pains on an app. So before they even launch, they’re already off to an easier start than others.”

Square is buying a majority stake in Jay-Z’s streaming music platform Tidal for a price tag of $297 million in cash and stock. As part of the deal, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter will join the board of directors of Square, a financial services and payments company launched by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Tidal will operate independently within Square.

Plex has added six AMC Networks channels, including AMC Presents, Absolute Reality by WE tv, All Weddings by WE tv, Rush by AMC, Slightly Off by IFC, and IFC Film Picks. Said Evan Adlman, SVP of Advanced Advertising and Digital Partnerships for AMC Networks, “Partnering with Plex is an important continuation of our strategy to make our popular programming available to users wherever they want to enjoy it, and work with our advertising partners in an easy and efficient way through our AMCN Digital sales effort.”

Eleven of Cinedigm’s streaming services are now live on TCL Channel, on select smart TVs in North America. Among the offerings: Horror destination Bloody Disgusting, family-focused Dove Channel and So…Real, focused on British and Australian lifestyle and reality series.