Our first full year in business is winding to a close and it seemed only appropriate that our final video update of ‘08 focus on our customers and partners. This time round we rallied some of the Rubicon Project troops and gave them an opportunity to step in front of the camera and share some stories.  Some highlights:

• Frank Addante, CEO and Founder, discusses the company’s platform servicing of 13,000 websites, and what he sees for 2009;
• Mark Douglas, vice president of engineering, highlights technology-driven product innovations in ad quality and scaling to optimize ads for 290M unique users around the globe;
• JT Batson, vice president of publishers, details how the Rubicon Project helped a large media company shift resources from ad network management to direct sales, adding to the publisher’s bottom line;
• Raleigh Harbour, vice president of ad network development, talks about the Web’s largest virtual ad sales force for publishers;
• Success stories from Salon.com, New York Daily News and more.

Check out the video here and read the related press release here.

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It is my favorite time of the quarter again! One of our company values is community. We believe strongly in taking the time, every quarter, to give back to a local program that is making a difference. This time around, we took all 65 of our team members from the LA office and headed out to Hope Gardens, a Los Angeles based shelter for abandoned women and children, part of the Union Rescue Mission. The Rubicon army descended on the transitional housing center, ready to be put to work! We spent the morning and early afternoon gardening, doing site maintenance and clean up, organizing donations, decorating for the holidays, and repainting. At the end of the day, we were exhausted but beaming from the good vibes we got for donating our time to such a worthwhile cause. Not only is the community service aspect of the event important, it allows us all to get out of the office (in this case, a half day) to bond around a cause that is greater than ourselves. The drive and willpower that our team members put into these events never ceases to amaze me, and the memory stays with us permanently, as do the people in need that we encounter. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes in relation to what we did yesterday, “it is easy to make a buck. It is hard to make a difference!”

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Last week, the IAB published data on Q308 online ad spending, and found that spending was up 11% ($5.9 BILLION) over the same quarter last year. Big advertisers get this medium – they know online advertising is the most effective way to manage budgets, reach precise audiences, and track real delivery, quality and response. As Joanne Bradford, Yahoo!’s senior vice president of U.S. revenue and market development told Adweek last week, the “Web is miles ahead of print and TV when it comes to proving its worth, which should help it win during a recession. ‘Just ‘impressions delivered’ is far better than what any other media has.’”

Advertisers are recognizing the benefits of online advertising even beyond efficiency and reach, however. As Collective Media’s recent survey of more than 200 online media planners shows, advertisers understand that campaigns fulfilled by ad networks aren’t just direct response “filler” – networks have become a recognized, effective channel for high-value campaign delivery. As Joe Apprendi, CEO of Collective Media notes in his blog, “…the market now values audience targeting…and inventory quality…far more than gross reach and efficiency as benefits of working with ad networks. I think this is largely due to the fact that brand advertisers are now selectively buying ad networks where they were never a material component of the average media buy in the past.”

Collective’s survey reveals that more than 90% of brand advertisers feel that networks are “safe” for brand advertisers. Measures like our Rubicon Certified Inventory™ program are helping networks connect with brand advertisers they couldn’t reach before. In fact, not only do 75% of survey respondents say they plan to spend more with networks in 2008 than 2007, but 40% said they “plan to increase spend on ad networks by 10% or more this year.”

In sum – ad networks (and we) are doing a better job of educating advertisers about the benefits of monetizing unsold ad space through ad networks; advertisers generally get, and are more focused than ever, on the deliverability and measurement offered by online advertising, and growth remains strong. There’s no doubt that the marketplace is amidst real change, but the change in our industry is more positive than not.

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Late last month, we sent an email to our publisher and network partners, letting them know about our plans to “take Manhattan.” We presented, sponsored and/or participated at IAB’s Ad Ops, ad:tech, and OMMA’s AdNets events.

Well, we connected with so many new customers, met so many other companies working as we are to automate the fragmented online advertising industry, and generally had so much fun we decided to stick around, so I am proud to share this news:

the Rubicon Project has opened its New York office!

It’s no surprise, really - after all, New York is the nation’s headquarters for many of the world’s largest premium publishers, many already Rubicon Project customers. And after establishing our headquarters here in LA, and a presence in San Francisco earlier this year, it was natural that we continue to expand our presence to be closer to current and potential customers. Expect to see us continue to grow in 2009, better servicing our customers and partners in the U.S. and beyond.

Josh Wexler, our esteemed Director of Strategic Publisher Acquisition, will run the New York office. A seasoned entrepreneur and business leader with considerable experience in the advertising industry, Josh is responsible for activating major web publishers and media companies at the Rubicon Project. Josh is a media/technology entrepreneur, joining us from SWMX  (SoftWave Media Exchange) where he was the CEO and co-founder. He’s spoken at industry events like the UBS Media Conference, Local Ad World, Ad 2.0, and OMMA Expo.

Located in Chelsea, the Rubicon Project’s New York office is growing quickly. Positions in several areas, including publisher acquisition, account management and ad network partnerships, are listed on the company’s website at http://rubiconproject.com/about-us/hiring. (Please indicate when you apply whether you’re interested in a position in LA, San Francisco or New York).

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Our CEO and Co-Founder, Frank Addante, is an internet advertising veteran and is often called upon for commentary about pressing industry issues.  The Google-Yahoo-Microsoft hullbaloo the past several months has been no exception.  Much discussion has been had around the larger implications of partnerships and mergers.  This past week at Adtech NY, Frank sat down with David Kaplan from paidContent.org and shared his two cents about the potential Yahoo-Google arrangement and what it could mean for Microsoft.

“…If you look at Yahoo and Google as web publishers and not just ad servers, why shouldn’t they be able to access ad dollars on each others’ respective sites and channels, argues Frank Addante, CEO of the Rubicon Project. “Yahoo has an enormous amount of inventory that’s trying to reach advertisers from its portal. Google’s AdSense has an great number of advertisers who are trying to extend their reach.” The downside of that increased reach from an advertiser perspective is different, as it would mean that Google has more control over pricing and could drive advertisers to other ad servers, such as Microsoft. But Addante thinks that Microsoft should do a similar test with Google, allowing all three mutual benefits. Addante: “Stock brokers at different companies purchase securities from each other all the time, why shouldn’t different ad networks do the same? Microsoft has space it needs to monetize. They could do better by working together in their various publisher/ad net roles and yet still compete at the same time.”

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