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.

Tags: Company news, Entrepreneurship, LA tech scene, Parties by njordan       > No Comments

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!”

Tags: Company news, Fun by mportillo       > No Comments

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.

Tags: Ad networks, Industry Commentary by faddante       > No Comments