In spite of the great advances made in the fight against ad fraud, the practice is still costing US digital display advertisers billions of dollars, as explored in a new eMarketer report, “Ad Fraud in the US: How More Sophisticated Methods Are Hurting Mobile, Video and Performance Measurement” (eMarketer PRO customers only). An April 2016 survey from MyersBizNet shows just how top of mind these topics are. Click fraud and bot traffic were some of the most-cited concerns about media planning and buying among US media agencies and brand marketers. Viewability—which marketers are finding is increasingly intertwined with fraud—was also of concern. Despite the industry’s time, attention and resources to combating display ad fraud, its effects are still pervasive. The “Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising” study conducted by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and fraud detection firm White Ops found bot-based fraud levels worldwide relatively unchanged from 2014 to 2015. The study predicted this would cost advertisers $7.2 billion this year. The IAB and fraud investigation and dispute services firm EY estimated that invalid traffic cost the US digital display advertising industry $4.6 billion in 2015—which included both the direct effect of fraudulent parties and the estimated $169 million spent to fight and address invalid traffic. More at eMarketer
Para este ambicioso proyecto, se estima una inversión conjunta de algo asi como unos $300 millones de dolares, pero podría ser mas de lo esperado. El famoso constructor de automóviles de origen sueco Volvo, anunció la semana pasada una alianza estratégica con el muy popular servicio de transportes por internet Uber, para poder ofrecer desplazamientos a sus usuarios en automóviles autónomos, para lo que prevén una fuerte inversión conjunta, la cual se aproxima a los $300 millones de dolares (es decir, unos 265 millones de euros). “Esto implicará que Uber añadirá los sistemas de conducción autónoma que desarrolló él mismo con un vehículo Volvo como base”, indicó la compañía sueca en un comunicado a las medios de prensa. Uber y Volvo ya se habían aliado anteriormente en los Estados Unidos fundando lo que se denominaría como un “lobby” favorable a los automóviles conducidos mediante ordenador, en conjunto con algunos de sus competidores, Lyft sería el caso del primero y Ford en el del segundo, así como también junto al gigante de internet mejor conocido como Google. Más en TecnoMagazine
Slightly more than 4 in 10 adults in the US and Canada profess to choosing a TV show or movie at least sometimes because of the buzz it’s getting on Facebook, Twitter or other social networks. That result comes courtesy of the latest quarterly Video Trends report [download page] from Digitalsmiths, and it marks social’s biggest influence in at least a year. To be fair, social’s impact on TV viewing decisions has grown modestly at best of late: in the year-earlier period (Q2 2015), a similar 38% of adults surveyed reported having watched a show due to social buzz. Still, there’s been an undeniable rise in social’s influence over the years in these Digitalsmiths studies: in Q1 2013, for example, fewer than half the proportion of respondents (18.6%) claimed to have ever made a viewing choice based on social buzz. Similar patterns have been seen with social posts: this past quarter’s 26.2% who at least sometimes post about what they’re watching is only up slightly year-over-year (from 22.5%), but is more than double the share from early 2013. More at Marketing Charts
Uno de los grandes temas del año, uno de los que ha ido creciendo en importancia con el paso de los meses y que se convertirá, sin duda, en uno de los que encabezará todo resumen que se precie de 2016 y de lo que ocurrió durante el año han sido - o, mejor dicho, están siendo - los adblockers. Los adblockers, que existían en el mercado desde hace años, han vivido un elevado crecimiento en los últimos meses y se han metido de lleno en el debate y, sobre todo, en las decisiones de los consumidores. Cada vez son más usuarios quienes emplean este tipo de herramientas y quienes están más dispuestos a bloquear de serie los anuncios. Y esto se ha convertido en un serio problema no solo para los medios que viven de los anuncios sino también para las marcas que los emplean como herramienta para llegar a los consumidores, especialmente entre algunos nichos de población. Como recuerdan desde Wunderman echando mano de un estudio de GlobalWebIndex, el 34% de los millennials asegura que usa los anuncios online para conocer nuevos productos y que esta es la principal vía que usa para ello, pero al mismo tiempo este segmento demográfico es uno de los mayores usuarios de adblockers (el 43% afirma utilizarlos), lo que crea un punto de fricción bastante importante. Más en PuroMarketing
PRACTICALLY EVERY WORD we use to describe a computer is a metaphor. “File,” “window,” even “memory” all stand in for collections of ones and zeros that are themselves representations of an impossibly complex maze of wires, transistors and the electrons moving through them. But when hackers go beyond those abstractions of computer systems and attack their actual underlying physics, the metaphors break. Over the last year and a half, security researchers have been doing exactly that: honing hacking techniques that break through the metaphor to the actual machine, exploiting the unexpected behavior not of operating systems or applications, but of computing hardware itself—in some cases targeting the actual electricity that comprises bits of data in computer memory. And at the Usenix security conference earlier this month, two teams of researchers presented attacks they developed that bring that new kind of hack closer to becoming a practical threat. More at Wired
Let’s be honest, we have our fair share of problems on planet Earth: war, floods, disease, poverty, environmental destruction, Justin Bieber (the list goes on and on, really). But we also have a lot of things going for us: the Alcubierre Warp Drive, invisibility cloaks, the Mars rover missions, the discovery of the Higgs (the list goes on and on, really). How can we weigh all the exciting and inspiring scientific discoveries against all the destruction and chaos? We have an ever expanding list of catastrophes that is coupled with (indeed, that parallels) our unrelenting march towards technological perfection. With such a coupling of unimaginable horrors and magnificent advancements, how can we possibly measure our status as a civilization? One of the easiest ways to answer this question is to form a scale that will allow us to scientifically measure our technological *abilities* against the technological *possibilities.* Or in layman’s terms, something that will allow us to measure our awesomeness against the total possible awesomeness. Fortunately, there are several ways of conducting such measurements. One is “The Kardashev Scale.” More at Futurism
Shopping cart abandonment — when shoppers put items in their online shopping carts, but then leave before completing the purchase — is the bane of the online retail industry. But it's also a huge opportunity: Approximately $4 trillion worth of merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts this year, and about 63% of that is potentially recoverable by savvy online retailers, according to BI Intelligence estimates. In a report from BI Intelligence we explain what leads a shopper to abandon an online purchase and how retailers can begin to combat rising shopping cart abandonment rates. We collected and analyzed data from top e-commerce companies, and spoke with industry experts whose job it is to reduce abandonment rates and boost conversions, to come up with a number of solutions that can help retailers recover lost sales. Approximately $4 trillion worth of merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts this year, and about 63% of that is potentially recoverable by savvy online retailers, according to BI Intelligence estimates. Shopping cart abandonment is increasing, and it will continue to do so as more consumers shift to online and mobile shopping. In 2013, as many as 74% of online shopping carts were abandoned by shoppers, according to data shared with BI Intelligence by e-commerce data company, Barilliance. That abandonment rate is up from 72% in 2012, and 69% in 2011. More at Business Insider
Apple va a presentar su nueva generación de smartphones justo el día en que concluye una de las ferias de tecnología más importantes del mundo, la IFA de Berlín. La firma de Cupertino ha empezado a enviar invitaciones para un evento que tendrá lugar el próximo 7 de septiembre en el Auditorio Bill Graham de Apple va a presentar su nueva generación de smartphones justo el día en que concluye una de las ferias de tecnología más importantes del mundo, la IFA de Berlín. La firma de Cupertino ha empezado a enviar invitaciones para un evento que tendrá lugar el próximo 7 de septiembre en el Auditorio Bill Graham de San Francisco y en el que se espera se muestren los nuevos iPhone 7 y quizás iPhone 7 Plus. A diferencia de en otras ocasiones pocas pistas pueden extraerse de la invitación en sí. La única es la fecha escogida para la cita, el día 7, entendemos que para coincidir con la nomenclatura del terminal. “Nos vemos en el séptimo”, reza el mensaje principal. Puede que esto defraude a algunos fanboys. Muchos esperaban que Apple hiciera una coincidencia aún mayor con sus cifras y se retrasara a 2017 para liberar el iPhone 7. Sería una fecha mágica teniendo en cuenta que es justo una década después del primer iPhone, lanzado en 2007. Más en ITEspresso