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Mobile Drives Continued Rise Of Programmatic Digital Display Ads

Mobile is driving programmatic advertising growth, with mobile accounting for more than two-thirds of all programmatic digital display-ad spending this year, says eMarketer in a report on Tuesday. Facebook ( FB ), Alphabet ( GOOGL )‘s Google-owned YouTube, LinkedIn ( LNKD ) and others are helping to drive the trend. Ad sales conducted by machines rather than ad salespeople — so-called programmatic ads — take less time to execute and cost advertisers less, which accounts for their popularity with advertisers though it tends to lower revenue for online-ad platforms. U.S. programmatic digital display-ad spending is projected to rise to $27.4 billion in 2017, up 24%, said eMarketer. But that growth rate is declining from a projected 39% this year and 53% in 2015, the research group said. This year, however, mobile programmatic spending will reach $15.45 billion in the U.S., representing 69% of all programmatic digital display-ad spending. That’s up from 60% in 2015 and 46% in 2014. For programmatic mobile video ads, 2017 is expected to mark a tipping point as mobile surpasses desktop for the first time. By 2017, programmatic mobile video ad spending will reach $3.89 billion, representing just over half of total programmatic ad spending in the U.S. But on desktop, programmatic video-ad spending will reach $3.73 billion next year, falling to 49% of total programmatic digital display-ad spending in the U.S., said eMarketer. Last year, professional social networking site LinkedIn ( LNKD ) reported that its move toward programmatic ad sales had dragged down its revenue growth. Rapid adoption of programmatic ads last year also hit crowdsourced online-review site Yelp ( YELP ) and Web portal Yahoo ( YHOO ). Yahoo, however, points to the long-term potential of such ads and has invested in them heavily, including through its $640 million purchase of BrightRoll, a leading provider of programmatic video ads, in 2014. Yahoo has implemented broad cuts throughout company as it strives to spark growth and mulls selling part of the company, and in January it let go at least five managers who were working on Brightroll , according to the Wall Street Journal. Last month, in a letter charging the current board of Yahoo with failing to deliver results for its shareholders, activist investor Starboard Value announced that it wants to sweep out all of the ailing Web company’s nine directors and replace them with its own slate during Yahoo’s 2016 shareholder meeting. Yahoo stock was down nearly 2% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 36. Facebook stock was flat, while shares of Alphabet, Yelp and LinkedIn were down a fraction. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Google ‘Needs To Look Back To China’ To Boost Growth, Says Edison

Google, which withdrew its Internet search engine from China in 2010 after a disagreement over the country’s censorship rules, “needs to look back to China to bolster its flagging growth,” according to an industry note on Friday from Edison Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor. Edison’s research note comes as Google CEO Sundar Pichai has been on a visit to China involving Google’s AlphaGo artificial intelligence program , according to Chinese media reports. Lacking a search presence in China was initially not a problem because the search giant — now the largest unit within parent company Alphabet ( GOOGL ) — was experiencing quick growth in its core developed markets, said Windsor. With growth in those markets now slowing, “Google needs to look back to China” and that country’s expanding base of Internet users, said Windsor. However, convincing the Chinese government to let Google return will be a tall order, Windsor said, and the tech giant will likely “fail to get any real traction” now that local competitors have come on strong. Baidu ( BIDU ), which was Google’s chief search rival when the U.S. firm was in the Chinese market, is currently China’s largest search provider. “Even if the Chinese authorities let Google back in, they are very likely to place limitations upon Google, such that the home-grown crowd (Baidu, Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ), Alibaba Group ( BABA ), Xiaomi and China Mobile ( CHL )) have the advantage,” Windsor said. “Secondly, the Chinese have been very busy developing their own ecosystems over the last six years or so, and this is no longer the virgin territory that it once was. Edison in fact estimates that 91% of all China ecosystem users are already using Baidu’s services, with 87% also playing games and chatting with Tencent,” he said. Google will have to fight for market share “even to get a toehold outside of Hong Kong (where Google is not blocked),” he said. “The net result is that the Chinese market will be a tough one for Google to crack, even with a level playing field,” Windsor said, adding that “Google is unlikely to get much more than the position in Hong Kong that it already has.” Still, Windsor said, “The good news for Google is that market expectations for its success in China are almost non-existent, and against that backdrop, the short-term outlook is reasonably rosy.” In 2010, Google said that it refused to self-censor content for Chinese services before closing its local search page and directing users to its website in Hong Kong. Other U.S.-based Internet firms, including professional networking leader LinkedIn ( LNKD ), operate in China and must censor their local content. Facebook ( FB ) and other Western social media, including Twitter ( TWTR ), are banned in China. Alphabet stock was up a fraction in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 769, while Tencent stock was also up a fraction, near 21, and LinkedIn stock was up more than 1%, near 116. U.S.-listed Baidu stock was down a fraction, near 190, and Alibaba stock was also down a fraction, near 79.

Twitter Adds New Technology To Bring Images To Visually Impaired

Twitter ( TWTR ) said people using Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) iOS or  Alphabet ‘s ( GOOGL ) Google Android can now add descriptions to images in tweets, a benefit to the visually impaired. The update allowing descriptions — also known as alternative text — empowers “ everyone to ensure content shared on Twitter is accessible to the widest possible audience,” said Twitter engineer Todd Kloots in a blog post Tuesday. . “Photos have been at the center of some of the biggest moments on Twitter,” said Kloots. “ As a core part of the Twitter experience, it’s important that images shared on our platform are accessible to everyone, including those who are visually impaired.” People can use the feature  via the “compose image descriptions” option in the Twitter app’s accessibility setting. When an image is added to a tweet, the user can tap the “add description” button and insert a description of up to 420 characters to the image. Visually impaired people will have access to the description by using assistive technology, such as screen readers and braille displays, Twitter said. Smartphones have other accessibility features, including VoiceOver, the iPhone’s built-in gesture-based app that reads text on a touchscreen aloud, and Google Android’s TalkBack, through which visually impaired users can access anything on their phones. Voice Activation Usage Still Low Voice-activated services, including Apple’s Siri, Amazon.com ‘s ( AMZN ) Alexa, Alphabet’s Google Now, Microsoft ‘s ( MSFT ) Cortana and others, can assist all consumers, including the visually disabled, as people increasingly rely on mobile phones for shopping, communicating and information. But surveys have found those voice-activated services aren’t getting much use. Just 13% of U.S. mobile phone owners use a voice-controlled personal assistant on their device each day, according to a survey last June from 451 Research. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires websites and mobile applications to be accessible. Google announced its Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities last year with a $20 million grant for technology innovators in the nonprofit community who work on technology to make people with disabilities more independent. In addition to Twitter and Microsoft, Adobe Systems ( ADBE ), Dropbox, LinkedIn ( LNKD ), Yahoo ( YHOO ), Facebook ( FB ), Intuit ( INTU ) and others have jointly asked universities  to train computer students in accessibility software design and are requiring new hires to demonstrate some familiarity with it, according to the Mercury News. Besides facing competition from rivals such as Facebook, Twitter is struggling to expand its user base as its user growth has slowed. Twitter has launched programs to reel in “logged out” users who visit Twitter’s site but don’t have accounts of their own, making them less coveted by advertisers. Twitter stock was up 2% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 16. Image provided by Shutterstock .