Yes... its true..

The Shirt and the media jumper are one piece...

Toby Harwood - Full MediaUnit

e-Type Parent Company launching a vertical network?

Came across Platform V today. Doesnt offer much information.. which means I'll have to guess what it does... so here goes.

Seems to be that they are building an Adify type vertical network business... I could be wrong.

UK Temps.co.uk

Its been a while since Ive come across something simple but bloody powerful.. as we grow, we seem to need temps all the time at AdJug. Uktemps is the one id swear by any day... Great service, great website and works a treat everytime.

Retaggr rocks...

Try it here... if you do, then you probably wont have to read the rest of this post because it will be abundantly obvious that this is a genius tool.

Every person has a matrix of relationships & interaction... My business contacts are on linkedin, my mates are on facebook, my uni mates are on Bebo & there are a few idiots id rather not know on hi5 on something derelict like that. Anyhow... Retaggr allows you to interact/view/broadcast to these relationships wherever they are on the web... thats the way i choose to explain it but believe me its a lot cooler than that.

Besides the guys behind it are good friends and the team is absolutely solid. So if your business plan in any way involves taking them on in some shape... then you'll thank me for this piece of advice - Don't!

Theyre going onto my wall of cool ideas.

Cant blog... wont blog..

Its a joke trying to maintain this blog. Oddly, a few people Google me and this is the first place they come to... Its also serves as a test site for AdJug page loading times, etc.. So whats been happening.

We raised a some money from some very nice people. I got to see my name in German newsprint.. which was uber cool...

I went to AdTech San Fran - did a lot of business and a lot of partying. Got to see just how bad this recession in the US really is.. Did not see a single person who was trying to sell brand advertising... CPA this & CPA that.

Everyone asks about the Microsoft-Yahoo! thing. I think the whole thing is nuts. Google owns the internet... no really... they do. The sooner everyone accepts that.. the better. Im tired of people who say "well, Yahoo mail as more users than Gmail".. who gives a shit. I go to Google everyday and so does everyone else. No one goes to Yahoo to search - because its really not all that good... is it? Like everyone else who works online.. I keep willing Yahoo to do something amazing and steal the march... but they never seem to do it. Anyway..if it does happen.. it will be bad for any start-up business, as it reduces the number of acquirers in the market. Yahoo has got a bad ass display business on its hands though.

I tried Twitter.. i didnt get it... i must be the only one...

We did half a billion impressions through AdJug last month. Not bad... not great, Id say.

CBS just bought CNET for $1.75 billion.... wow.

Phorm

or the lack of it, it would seem... have dropped sharply in share price. Down by nearly a third...They say that they have no idea what it is. I have to say... I cant think of anything either that could cause the market to react this way.

There obviously is something. Time will tell, I suppose

The 300

No... not the movie... its the monthly impression count we hit today.. 300mm.. not much for an ad network where you pile-them-high-and-sell-them-cheap but thats a lot for a marketplace where we sell it totally transparently.

Adconion just raised Eur 40M - thats alot of exit signs to drive past before you leave the motorway, no? In all fairness to Adconion, they have been going for around 3 years & I will say have very good tech - behavioural, contextual, retargeting.. you name it - they do it & do it really well. Well done to the team.. its nice to see a European business punching.

Google stock appears to be in freefall. Have they finally annoyed just about everyone they could annoy in the business community? From being a search engine, they've now challenged phone companies, cable businesses, wireless operators, radio stations to TV studios. They'll rise again for sure.. but I wont believe that no one is enjoying watching it drop.

This is going to be real scary if it works..

So... its taken the best part of 2 years, near enough a few million quid and 22 people (all of whom have worked in the online ad industry) for between 2-10 years to get us this far...

Well... someone is set to finish off all that work for $750... so..375 quid. umm.. on the one hand, I should wish them well (karma and all that) - on the other hand - ummm.. if you want to call me.. Ill be happy to tell you a few things for 375 quid.. like - I hear that "search engines" are a big business idea.. for just a little more.. maybe £450, you might be able to get yourself a clone of Google.com - I have to concede that they have a better biz model.

Imitation being the best form of flattery and all... I have to say... it made my day.

Quick update

Im going to do the usual lazy blogger thing and do a quick list.. its just too busy being the start of the year and all.

So,

a. Yahoo will probably acquire Bebo & JumpTap, Medio or another mobile ad player. They want to go social this year and Im not sure the Inbox 2.0 is going to do much more than annoy people.

b. Yahoo will start to move aggressively on becoming the dominant force in display advertising this year. That is not going to be easy because Google & MSN have invested so much is DoubleClick & Atlas respectively.

c. The monetisation rate between Yahoo Search and Google Search is set to widen even further - sorry to state the obvious.

d. Microsoft acquired FAST for $1.2 billion. Less likely to make anyone at Google lose any sleep. I think we all know that catching up with Google cant just be done by putting more "bums on seats".

e. Great blog post from Fred Destin at Atlas venture.

f. Quote of 2007 goes to Rupert Murdoch - "The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow".

g. MCHX had their worst year... turns out Domain monetisation is not as high yielding as we all would have thought it is - all eyes on Demand Media to show some lead in this sector.

h. Is Kelkoo finished?

Nice little surprise....

You know that thing that Google does when you type a website name & it shows you the site but also a bunch of links from that site. It almost feels like you've just been recognised by them as a legit operation... well... all i can say is that it sure feels nice...

Phorm - Behavioural & Contextual Targetting

I spoke to Phorm (formerly 121Media) a couple of years ago and they were doing pop-under/interstitial style inventory employing a contextual system. I had just started Nixxie at the time was amazed that a UK company was worth £13m on an AIM listing.

Funnily enough, Nixxie and Phorm are in the same office building now.... except Ive just taken a look at the Phorm Market Cap... wait for it!

£295 Million Sterling!

Good on em... they've got some big hitters on board... but looking at their results, I'm left wondering where the market cap is coming from.