Monday December 4, 2023

ByteDance is pulling back from its video games business, a move that will reportedly result in the loss of about 1000 jobs. “We regularly review our businesses and make adjustments to center on long-term strategic growth areas,” said a spokesperson for the Chinese tech company and TikTok owner. “Following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to restructure our gaming business.”

At AWS re:Invent event, Amazon Web Services announced Amazon One Enterprise, a palm-based identity service offering a contactless experience for employees and other authorized users to gain access to physical locations, as well as digital assets such as restricted software resources. “Amazon One Enterprise’s palm recognition technology is designed to deliver a highly accurate identification service that increases an organization’s overall security, while offering seamless authentication management with lower operational overhead,” said Dilip Kumar, VP of AWS Applications. “With Amazon One Enterprise, security administrators also have a centralized view of all user authentications across the organization, taking the stress out of managing multiple access control solutions. Businesses appreciate the privacy and convenience for their users, who can access physical locations and software assets with just a hover of their palm.”

At the event, Amazon also unveiled Amazon Neptune Analytics, combining graph and vector databases. “Since both graph analytics and vectors are all about uncovering the hidden relationships across our data, we thought to ourselves: ‘What if we combined vector search with the ability to analyze massive amounts of graph data in just seconds,’ and today, we are doing just that,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of data and machine learning at AWS.

Vizrt, focused on real-time graphics and live production solutions for content creators, announced a second TriCaster Flex control panel to its line-up: the TriCaster Flex Dual. “Adding to the TriCaster Flex line of control panels was a natural next step for Vizrt and by bringing to life the Flex Dual – we are aligning our control panel offering to match the depth and breadth of the ever expanding and evolving TriCaster line,” said Chris McLendon, Senior Product Manager, Vizrt. “The TriCaster Flex Dual is an excellent way of demonstrating how products from across the Vizrt portfolio can work together seamlessly to tell stories, beautifully.”

Kidas, a technology solutions company developing anti-cyberbullying and predator protection software for online gaming platforms, has launched the ProtectMe Bot. The ProtectMe Bot utilizes algorithms to detect and protect against a wide range of online threats, empowering server administrators and managers with the ability to monitor toxic gaming behaviors. 

Documentary streaming platform MagellanTV unveiled Magellan Voice Works, a new translation and dubbing technology developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services cloud provider and generative AI leader Mission Cloud. Magellan Voice Works will allow MagellanTV to output its library of documentaries in most major languages at a fraction of the cost of traditional dubbing. The announcement was made at AWS re-Invent in Las Vegas.

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The City of Lake Forest, Illinois, is teaming with AI-automated video and data solution provider Pixellot to become the US’ first Smart Sports City. Lake Forest implemented Pixellot’s cutting-edge AI sports cameras in its new athletic facilities and will livestream youth sports league games to a new OTT viewing app. “Our end-to-end technology solution for forward-thinking municipalities is bringing city-owned athletic facilities into the future for the benefit of the citizens and the communities,” said David Shapiro President North America, Pixellot. “By producing all major sports and launching new OTT platforms for live and on-demand viewing, Pixellot develops a comprehensive technological infrastructure for sports departments of municipalities of all sizes, bringing a new level of service and engagement.”

Veritone, designer of AI solutions, announced a content licensing agreement with Orchard Clips, a division of UK-based OR Media Group and a source of Middle Eastern content. Orchard Clips will leverage Veritone’s network of buyers to enhance content licensing opportunities in the Americas. “We see tremendous potential in our partnership with Veritone,” said Luke Smedley, Head of Orchard Clips. “Not only does it allow us to highlight the depth and diversity of Middle Eastern content to a much broader audience, but it also presents an extraordinary revenue-generating opportunity through content licensing partnerships with Veritone in North and South America, opening doors for content creators seeking high-quality Middle Eastern content as well as global stock footage and images.”

ADVERTISING

FreeWheel has partnered with OrkaTV to provide marketers with a new way to buy advertising in FAST sector. Advertisers working with FreeWheel now have access to more than 3,500 FAST channels available through OrkaTV’s streaming TV marketplace. Currently, metadata capabilities allow advertisers bidding on inventory to ensure ads are properly placed. In some instances, however, the metadata is missing or inconsistent. The two companies are addressing this issue through OrkaTV’s value-added tech layer, ensuring consistent video contextual data is available to the ad buyer and can be mapped to corresponding audience segments. Advertisers can then enable buying through FreeWheel to target consistent channel names to reach their clearly defined demographics. “This partnership is a major win for advertisers. OrkaTV provides FreeWheel a new way to reach incremental audiences on television, with the brand awareness TV advertising has always delivered, plus the programmatic targeting offered by FAST channels,” said Mike Woods, Founder and CEO, OrkaTV.

CTV planning tool LightBoxTV announced its latest integration with search intelligence platform Captify to enable media buyers to more effectively plan and manage CTV campaigns. With access to Captify’s extensive Search Intelligence early in the planning stage, media buyers using LightBoxTV will be able to build more impactful, comprehensive CTV campaign plans and better optimize for existing campaigns. “The integration of Captify into our platform marks a significant milestone in our mission to offer top-tier tools for CTV campaign management,” said Mark Giblin, CEO of LightBoxTV. “Access to Captify’s advanced insights at the planning phase enables our clients to make more informed, strategic media decisions.”

LiveLike, technology company dedicated to empowering digital experiences and building fan communities, has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in the category of Digital Customer Experience. “LiveLike is committed to creating communal experiences for our partners, and being an AWS Partner has brought benefits that we have brought to our customers who are looking to grow and engage with their audiences, retain and monetize their user bases using our platform and with that, access to zero-party data,” said Miheer Walavalkar, CEO and co-founder of LiveLike.

The winter update of MAGNA’s “Global Ad Forecast” predicts that global media owners net advertising revenues will reach $853 billion this year, +5.5% above the 2022 level, and will grow by +7.2% in 2024. Other takeaways include:
· Traditional media owners from the TV, Audio, Publishing and OOH industries, are typically vulnerable during this slow, uncertain macro-economic climate, causing 2023 TMO ad revenues to shrink by -4% to $266bn.
· TV advertising revenues are shrinking by -6% this year to $158bn while Publishing ad sales drop -5%, Audio Media drops -2%, and Out-of-Home keeps growing +7% to reach $32bn (back to pre-COVID market size).
· Digital Pure-Play media owners (DPP) ad revenue, on the other end, grew by +9.4% to $587bn (69% of total ad sales). DPP ad sales are driven by organic growth factors incl. the rise of ecommerce, retail media.
· Keyword Search remains the most popular ad format, approaching the $300bn milestone this year (+9% to $298 billion). Social Media owners (e.g., Meta, TikTok) re-accelerate (+15% to $182bn), while short-form pure-play video platforms (e.g., YouTube, Twitch) grow by +9% to $70bn.

C-suite marketing leaders and CEOs feel significantly more prepared for the phase-out of third-party tracking cookies than their junior employees, according to a report from Fyllo, a provider of contextual targeting solutions combined with progressive audience data. Fyllo’s study found that 88% of the C-Suite and 78% of CEOs feel their current targeting solutions are prepared to operate without cookies, compared to 62% of VP/Director level executives. “The results suggest that the industry widely acknowledges the seismic shifts that are coming to the digital ad market from the demise of behavioral targeting, and while they’re preparing for the future, senior leadership might be more optimistic about the transition than their managers in the trenches,” said Jeff Ragovin, President of Fyllo. “Contextual targeting will almost certainly prove to be the dominant alternative to behavioral targeting, and such widespread experimentation suggests that advertisers of all descriptions are looking to future-proof their digital strategies.”

Cynopsis Team