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Thursday 21 November 2013

AdSemble Brings Its Digital Billboard Ad Marketplace To Chicago

adsemble digital billboard

After five years in business, an ad-tech company called AdSemble is making its first move beyond the San Francisco Bay Area.


CEO Matthew Olivieri said the company, which offers online tools for businesses to search buy advertising on digital billboards, has reached 235.6 million impressions this year, up from 46.2 million last year (based on an estimate of the number of people who drive by each billboard). It's also cash-flow positive.


Here's the problem that AdSemble is trying to solve: Olivieri told me that that placing an ad on a digital billboard is normally incredibly difficult, due to the fragmentation among all the different networks.


“There are all these individually owned and operated networks,” he said. “If you were Joe the Plumber or anybody like that, you'd have to make like 50,000 phone calls to coordinate [placing an ad]. Every single one of these guys uses a different metric for how they ask for the screen size.”


(ADstruc is another company using the web to buy outdoor advertising, but it's less focused on digital billboards specifically.)


Olivieri said the original concept was to offer a “self-service, AdWords-style marketplace” where advertisers and billboard operators could bid for ad space without any interference. However, he said the market wasn't ready for that (at least not from a small startup), so the company developed a model that's more hands-on.


The site still partners with digital billboard networks to make their inventory searchable, but if you want to advertise, you have to actually work with AdSemble to make it happen. (Ultimately, Olivieri said he's hoping to go back to that self-serve model.) Still, it seems to be something advertisers are looking for, wich AdSemble's clients including Samsung, Dice, Five Guys, and New Relic.


The company says it also sells space on mall screens, sports jumbotrons, and fuel top screens - eventually, Olivieri said customers might use AdSemble to buy ads on any digital screen, though he's starting with the ones that have the biggest audience.


Olivieri argued that advertiser interest in digital billboards is growing due to the decreasing cost of LED screens and the fact that they can bring in more revenue (by showing ads from multiple companies) than a static billboard. (I've asked him if he has any data to back that up and will update this post if I hear back.)


And he suggested that Chicago, which is where AdSemble is expanding, is becoming the “mecca” for this type of advertising, not just because more billboards are going up, but because another contender, Los Angeles, is currently seeing a legal battle over these billboards.








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Belkin's usage-tracking WeMo Insight Switch ships today for 60 bucks



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Verizon Charges $5 Daily for New Tablet Data Plan



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OUYA's revamped interface now available through 'Abominable Snowman' update



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What Is This Bizarre-Looking Flying Machine Doing Near Google HQ?

Samsung Galaxy Mega coming to MetroPCS on November 25th, for $399 at launch



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Minecraft's Twitch livestreaming arrives on Windows and Mac, documents block-by-block world building



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61 nuevos CubeSats en órbita en una semana

Dnepr lanzado desde Dombarovsky

Este Dnepr lanzado desde Dombarovsky ha puesto en órbita 29 CubeSats


Esta semana han sido puestos en órbita ni más ni menos que un total de 61 CubeSats, cuatro de ellos desde la Estación Espacial Internacional y el resto en dos lanzamientos distintos, uno de los cuales ha establecido un récord en cuanto al número de cargas distintas puestas en órbita por un sólo cohete.


Humsat-D

EL Humsat-D es el segundo CubeSat de la Universidad de Vigo


Lo he contado para RTVE.es en La semana de los satélites en miniatura .


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Pinterest intros Place Pins so you can map out all the places you'll go



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​A Brief History of Buildings That Look Like Vaginas

Feds Say Silk Road Kingpin Ordered Six Murders for $730,000

FCC reportedly proposing that passengers can use cellular service in mid-flight



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Apple v. Samsung lawsuit inches closer to a conclusion, jury revises total damages due Apple to $888 million



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Carnegie Mellon computer learns common sense through pictures, shows what it's thinking



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WSJ: The FCC Is Considering Letting You Use Your Phone On Planes

Wordpress Strikes Back Against DMCA Censorship Trolls

The Engadget Podcast is live at 3:30PM ET!



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Palette embraces the buttons, dials and sliders that touchscreens forgot



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Wikipedia accuses PR firm of posting biased entries for cash



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Haiku Deck Launches, Brings Upstart Software To Us, On All Our Desktops

Haiku Deck Web App 1 - Image Search

Presentation software startup Haiku Deck had a very specific aim at launch: build an app for creating slide decks on mobile that didn't suck. Now, the company has amassed 800,000 downloads since its launch a little over a year ago, plus added requested features like chart and graph creation, and it's looking to address other user requests. The number one request, which it's tackling in beta beginning today, is desktop editing.


I spoke to Haiku Deck CEO and founder Adam Tratt, who said that desktop editing was by far the thing asked for most by people who downloaded and love the mobile version. Haiku Deck's primary mission at launch was to address a gap it saw in the market specifically in mobile presentation tools, however, so tackling that experience was the first priority of the small team employed at the startup.


“The difference between what we're delivering and what everyone else is delivering is we have this intense focus on simplicity and beauty of output,” he said. “We're basically telling to help people try to tell stories that resonates in the context of how people communicate on social media, how people communicate on blogs, how people communicate on Twitter, and all of these social tools that are so important today.”



Tratt says there's a growing emphasis on the visual across the social web, from Twitter to Facebook to Pinterest and other emerging brands. Haiku Deck is designed to ride that wave, by providing an easy, eminently visual medium for communication that's easily shared across them all. Many of those companies mentioned above began life on the desktop and moved to mobile later, but Haiku Deck is taking the opposite tack, in order to better compete with the reigning giants in the market.


Those giants include Apple (iWork now offers Keynote on the web), Google Docs and Microsoft, with PowerPoint and Office 365. Tratt says that in terms of really significant usage numbers, PowerPoint is still by far the dominant force on the desktop, however. Still, he believes HaikuDeck has a chance to eat away at the behemoth thanks to its focus on simplicity and sharing.


At this beta stage, the Haiku Deck offers most of the functionality of its mobile counterpart, minus creation of charts and graphs, which are coming soon. There's also an update to the HaikuDeck iOS app today that allows users to create presentations on mobile and edit them on the web, or vice versa. Haiku Deck is solid software on mobile, and it's great to see it making the leap to desktop, which should help it push traction even further.








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Sony's SmartWig patent is a real head-scratcher



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Google Translate for Android has a new look for smoother conversations and supports more languages



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Lovely, The Apartment Rentals Site, Raises More Funding And Buys Rentmatic To Add Payments

for rent sign

Lovely, the site that aggregates home rental listings, is today moving up from studio to duplex status. The startup is announcing its first acquisition, Rentmatic, so that those finding apartments on its site will soon be able to set up their monthly rent payments on Lovely after they move in. And it is gearing up for more growth: it has also closed a Series A round of funding.


Blake Pierson, CEO and founder at Lovely, tells me the company is not disclosing the value of the Rentmatic deal, nor the amount of funding that Lovely is getting. In addition to giving the company funds to continue its U.S. expansion, the Series A brings on some important investors. They include Mark Stevens, formerly of Sequoia and now running S Cubed Capital; Walter Kortschak of Summit Partners; John Foster of Broadreach Capital Partners and Kevin Taweel, the co-founder of Asurion.


Lovely first grew its audience as one of the many services that people could use as a better way of searching apartment listings on Craigslist, which has been slow to evolve its basic services even as it has become a go-to platform for many looking for new places to rent. As Craigslist has become a lot more proactively litigious, against so-called data scrapers, many of those third-party sites have shut down. But not Lovely. Seeing the traction it was getting for its services, Lovely moved off CL listings and began to incorporate and aggregate other data sources. Pierson - who comes from a real estate family - tells me that today those other data sources number at over 100. Lovely has also built out a platform for people to post on its site directly.


It has paid off. Lovely now processes over 1.5 million rental listings every month; 500,000 people find new homes on its site each month; its iOS mobile app has had nearly 250,000 downloads (with Android soon to come). Some 5,000 property owners, meanwhile, have signed on to Lovely Pro, a free selection of professional tools for owners, managers and leasing agents to organise their property listings.


As part of that, Lovely has also moved beyond simple listings to include credit vetting for those renting out apartments, via a partnership with Experian (its first with a rentals site) and the ability for people seeking places to apply directly through Lovely.


This is where the Rentmatic acquisition will fit, as another service to fill out the full lifecycle for landlords and renters. Rentmatic, which was founded in 2006 and bootstrapped, has customers in every market in the U.S. and will continue to serve them, as it also migrates its platform to Lovely to work with its listings directly. Justin Shreve, the founder who is joining Lovely, says that it is currently processing some $25 million annually in rent.


Filling out a basic listings site with more features is quickly becoming table stakes for those in this field. Very well capitalised Urban Compass, based out of New York, all provides an all-in-one service, and has even moved into services for residents after they've moved in (for example in areas like furniture sales). End-to-end is also what other players like Apartment List (which just raised a $15 million Series A) are also aiming to achieve.


Lovely thinks that there is room for a number of strong players in the rentals space. “I don't view Urban Compass as a competitor because they are focused on broker dominated markets,” Pierson told me in an interview. “That works very well in some markets like New York City or Boston, but brokers don't play a huge role outside of those markets. Those don't scale nationwide.” Others whose business models are closer to Lovely's, he says, are the likes of Cozy and Trulia, “but if I'm being honest we don't look around too much. We tend to look forward to how this space should look and what it will take for us to get this industry there.”


Image: Flickr








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Samsung and HTC phones go head-to-head in an 'uncheatable' benchmark test



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Android engineer explains why you shouldn't force over-the-air Nexus KitKat updates



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Your future OLED TV could be created with an inkjet printer



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This New Li-On Battery Packs More Power and Is Way Safer, Too

Google's Project Link fiber backbones increase internet speed in Uganda (video)



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18 Insanely Addictive Font Games



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Acer's next CEO steps down before even starting, as retired founder takes over



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Keep Calm aunque te venga el enemigo con mala leche

Scroogled-Keep-Calm-1


No sé si le fastidiará más a Google que estas tazas estén a la venta por 8 dólares, que la gente tenga que comprarlas en la tienda de Microsoft (creadores de la irónica campaña) o que además estén agotadas: Scroogled Keep Calm Mug .


(Vía Taxi.)


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Appear Here, The UK Pop-Up Shop And Short-Term Retail Space Marketplace, Raises £1 Million

Appear Here

The high street is dead. Long live the high street. Appear Here, the UK online marketplace for short-term retail space and so-called pop-up shops, has raised £1 million in new funding.


Leading the round are Howzat Partners, MMC Ventures, and Forward Investment Partners. Also participating are Meyer Bergman, Playfair Capital, Ballpark Ventures, Marc Hazan (of Spotify), and Miroma Ventures.


That's a pretty long list of backers for a relatively small investment, which follows earlier undisclosed backing last December from Forward Investment Partners, Ballpark Ventures, and various unnamed angel investors. It's my understanding that Appear Here actually came out of Forward Labs, the startup foundry of Forward Internet Group.


Appear Here says it will use the new capital to “scale up its operations” to meet what it claims is increasing demand, and to continue strengthening its technology team. The company currently employs 12 people, according to CrunchBase.


Founded last year by 21-year-old Ross Bailey, based on experience he gained opening his own “pop-up” shop in London, Appear Here connects commercial landlords who have space, with brands, retailers and entrepreneurs who want to hire retail space for short-term projects such as pop-up shops, product launches and brand showcases.


It's a classic online marketplace play, aiming to significantly reduce the friction involved for both the commercial landlords wishing to fill unsold inventory, and the short term commercial tenant wanting to expand their bricks ‘n' mortar presence in a cost-effective and viable way. The startup's elevator pitch is to make the process of renting short-term retail space as easy as booking a hotel room.


In the UK it competes with We Are Pop Up, which in September announced its own further round of funding; £420,000 led by VC firm Arts Alliance with participation from UCL. Or in the U.S. there's the likes of Storefront, which operates an identical model.


Appear Here currently works with leading property companies such as British Land, Legal & General and Capital & Regional. On the tenant front, the brands it works with include majors such as Google, Microsoft, American Apparel and Diageo, as well as smaller independents and entrepreneurs such as Stylist Magazine, Peak-A-Boo Vintage and Candy Kittens.


Since its launch in January this year, the UK startup says it has signed up “over 3000 brands and retailers”, giving them access to a database of 250 spaces nationwide.


Cue statement from Nic Brisbourne, Director of Forward Investment Partners: "What attracted us to Appear Here, and specifically the fresh talent of Ross Bailey, was the company's ability to spot a real gap in the market and then move swiftly to execute, becoming the current leader in the short-term retail space. Appear Here is a great fit with our strategy of backing businesses that support the next revolution in online retail, which is going to see online and offline blurring."








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Vint Cerf: "Privacy May Actually Be an Anomaly"

Evil Controllers goes next-gen with PS4 and Xbox One gamepads, custom controllers en route



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Following the decision of the FAA to allow the use of electronics throughout your flight, Southwest

Southwest Airlines now allows gadget use during takeoff and touchdown, offers WiFi that works gate to gate



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La sonda MOM envía su primera foto de la Tierra

La Tierra vista por la MOM

La Tierra vista por la MOM


La Mars Orbiter Mission , con destino a Marte, es la primera misión interplanenataria de la Agencia India de Investigación Espacial.


Fue colocada en órbita terrestre el 4 de noviembre de 2013 para comprobar el funcionamiento de los sistemas de a bordo y para ir ajustando su órbita de cara a la maniobra para colocarse en la órbita de transferencia hacia Marte.


La MOM dio un pequeño susto a los responsables de la misión cuando el día 11 una de las maniobras destinadas a aumentar el apogeo de su órbita se quedó corta, aunque un encendido adicional del motor a las pocas horas la colocó ya en la órbita, y a estas alturas ya está en una órbita con un apogeo de 192.874, órbita desde la que partirá hacia Marte el 30 de noviembre.


Órbitas de la MOM

Órbitas de la MOM alrededor de la Tierra. La amarilla es la del susto; la verde es la actual y final antes de partir rumbo a Marte


Eso sí, si bien había margen para hacer correcciones durante esta fase inicial de la misión, la maniobra para colocar a la MOM rumbo a Marte es crítica, con un margen de error minúsculo.


Mientras llega el momento, la ISRO acaba de hacer pública una imagen de la Tierra tomada el pasado día 18 desde una distancia de unos 70.000 kilómetros, un poco como ejemplo de lo que la Mars Color Camera Instrument podrá hacer cuando esté en Marte.


Esta imagen, en la que se ve la India y alrededores, tiene una resolución espacial de 3,5 kilómetros por pixel; la ISRO dice que cuando la MOM esté en órbita alrededor de Marte la MCCI capturará imágenes que cubran unos 50 kilómetros cuadrados con una resolución de 25 metros por pixel en la parte de la órbita más próxima al planeta y de 8.000 kilómetros cuadrados en la más lejana.


MCCILa Mars Color Camera Instrument tiene una resolución de 2.000×2.000 pixeles, está dotada de un objetivo con múltiples elementos, y cubre el espectro de la luz visible, en concreto entre los 400 y los 700 nanómetros. Su peso es de unos 1,4 kilogramos.


Además de la cámara la MOM lleva otros instrumentos que le permitirán estudiar la atmósfera de Marte así como la composición de su superficie.


Su llegada a Marte está prevista para septiembre de 2014.


(Vía Spaceflight101).


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