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Scant Brain Power Behind Massive DDoS Attack April 01, 2013 One of the largest denial of service attacks in the history of the Internet didn't take rocket science to execute. The offensive was conducted over several days last week after the anti-spam group Spamhaus placed a Dutch hosting service, located in a former NATO bunker, on a blacklist reserved for spammers.

New Media Metrix Service Counts Eyeballs Across Platforms March 28, 2013 Global digital measurement company comScore this week launched its new Media Metrix Multi-Platform reporting service, which will give publishers and advertisers better insight into how their content is viewed on a wider variety of devices. The new data set builds on the widely used Media Metrix, Mobile Metrix and Video Metrix services from comScore's Audience Analytics suite.

Marin Software Rocks Wall Street March 25, 2013 As initial public offerings go, Marin Software couldn't have asked for much better than its Friday debut on the New York Stock Exchange. Late Thursday, it priced its stock at $14 per unit, higher than the anticipated range of $11-$13. Then it sold 7.5 million shares -- half a million more than originally expected -- raising about $105 million.

Brands Wasting Their Digital Ad Dollars, Study Finds March 21, 2013 Brands may be shifting more money to digital advertising and social media marketing efforts, but so far that's not buying them a lot of trust from consumers, according to a new report from Forrester Research. Seventy percent of more than 57,000 U.S. consumers surveyed trust brand or product recommendations from family and friends, while digital ad formats all rank below 20 percent.

Seoul: Use of China Server in Cyberattack Fits Pyongyang M.O. March 21, 2013 North Korea is the suspected perpetrator of a hacking attack that knocked out a trio of South Korean broadcasters and two major banks on Wednesday. South Korean officials in the capital of Seoul traced the attack to a server in China, something that meshes with previous attacks by North Korea.

Digital Advertisers and Mozilla Fight Over Cookies March 14, 2013 Proposed changes to the popular Mozilla Firefox browser that would block third-party cookies from websurfers' computers have sparked the ire of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which claims the move will damage how small businesses use ads to attract customers. Mozilla's proposal will require its browser users to give their permission for the installation of cookies,

FTC Puts a Damper on Freewheeling Digital Advertising March 13, 2013 The Federal Trade Commission released its updated Dot Com Disclosures guidance on Tuesday, emphasizing the requirements for advertisers targeting mobile devices. In short, the rules that apply to ads in newspapers, radio and television also apply to mobile devices and social media. The update is the first since the guidelines were released in 2000 -- an era when smartphones and tablets were far, far less ubiquitous.

Facebook's Rejiggered News Feed: The Ads Have It March 09, 2013 Facebook unveiled its new look this week, providing bigger photos and more links in users' News Feeds, along with additional ways to view specialized streams based on topics of interest, such as music. This is apparently an attempt to corral all the random musings and disjointed pictures users are accustomed to sorting through. Facebook's move seems geared toward bringing order to the chaos.

Facebook Denies Promoted Post Hanky-Panky March 05, 2013 Facebook has flatly denied the suggestion by a New York Times columnist that it might be gaming its own system -- that is, that the way it pumps up views of fee-based promoted posts could be by limiting the sharing of ordinary posts. "This is not true," Facebook says in a post labeled "Fact Check."

Demandbase Tech Targeting Trims B2B Marketing Waste March 04, 2013 Demandbase has incorporated a new filter in its Demandbase Company-Targeted Advertising platform. The filter, called "Technology Targeting," lets users target and personalize display ads based on the technology they use. In other words, users can now include the specific criteria of 'technologies used' as part of their campaign targeting requirements with the Demandbase platform.

Facebook's New Ad Tool Targets You Online and Off February 28, 2013 Facebook users will soon see ads in their feeds that are more specifically targeted to what they like and where they've shopped -- both online and offline -- thanks to a series of agreements with data companies announced Wednesday. The agreements expand the social network's Custom Audiences program released last September, which was designed to allow advertisers to target their existing customers via Facebook.

A Little Extra Digital Spend in the Online/TV Ad Mix Goes a Long Way February 26, 2013 For the past several years, the money spent on online advertising has grown at the expense of other media platforms. That trend will probably continue, suggests a new report released Monday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau suggests; it finds that brands will benefit from a 15 percent shift from the TV ad spend to online video.

HootSuite for Twitter Gives Advertisers a Souped-Up Dashboard February 22, 2013 HootSuite has incorporated paid advertising into its dashboard for the first time with the rollout of HootSuite Promoted Products integration for Twitter. It allows users to buy Promoted Tweets and manage their accounts on the HootSuite dashboard. This is a significant step for HootSuite's users, said Greg Gunn, VP of business development.

Microsoft Shoots for New Outlook.com Users by Targeting Less February 20, 2013 Microsoft has made its new Outlook.com email service generally available, following six months of receiving and incorporating user feedback. The service is ready to scale to a billion people, the company said, and Hotmail users will be shifted over to form the core of that base.

Facebook Hopes Friends Will Let Friends Promote Posts February 15, 2013 Facebook is allowing users with a little extra money to promote the status updates, photos or videos of a friend on the social network, according to multiple media reports. The world's largest social network uses certain algorithms to determine which posts get the most traction on Facebook.

Yahoo, Google Buddy Up for Display-Ad Deal February 08, 2013 Yahoo and Google on Wednesday announced a nonexclusive agreement to display ads on various Yahoo properties and certain cobranded sites using Google's AdSense for Content and its AdMob services. Because the agreement is nonexclusive, Yahoo will continue to display ads from other providers, including Microsoft's Bing.

No Easy Explanation for Racial Bias Found in Google Ads February 07, 2013 Google ads appear to have a racial bias, according to a study conducted by a Harvard professor. Google AdSense ads relating to the word "arrest" tend to appear more often in the search results for names commonly identified with black people than for those more often associated with white people, Latanya Sweeney found.

Wall Street Gives Facebook the Skunk Eye February 01, 2013 Facebook's rise in overall ad revenue helped the company beat Wall Street expectations on its quarterly earnings, but promises from the company to continue spending heavily in hiring and new initiatives kept investors from sending the stock price soaring.

Online Warm-ups: Super Bowl Advertisers' New Game Plan February 01, 2013 As the U.S. prepares for kick-off of Sunday's Super Bowl, advertisers already have their plays in motion. Many of the commercials are already viewable online, and ads get support from online components. Over the past few years, the brands who buy air time for the Super Bowl have begun posting their commercials online in advance.

Is the Time Ripe for BlackBerry? February 01, 2013 BlackBerry 10 may have had its thunder stolen by "BlackBerry" -- that is, the announcement that "Research In Motion" has been deep-sixed, and the company name is now the same as its iconic brand. The rebranding is an effort to put more juice behind the launch of the highly anticipated new BB10 operating system and compatible handsets, propelling a potential turnaround.