Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Image by Jim Cooke/ GMG Blue blazers. Blue checked shirts. Collar open. No tie. Brown shoes. Black shoes. Or Nike shoes. New, new, all new. Soft leather satchels with bold brass zippers. Good cufflinks. Good watches. Better than you know. Hundred dollar haircuts. Straight razored shaves. Shaped cuticles. Manicured nails. Clean, soft, tailored. New. Talking…
Bitcoin, an imaginary kind of computer money made up by a mystery man, is a valuable financial asset. It is being traded daily by educated professionals, based upon rational financial calculations, so you may rest easy knowing that its value is safe, just, please, DON’T READ THE NEWS, EVER. Everything is different now: One of…
(The Information) Prepare yourself for a list of allegations against Uber’s security and competitive intelligence team that resemble the work of an authoritarian government. A letter disclosed in Waymo’s civil trade-secrets-theft case against Uber, written by an ex-Uber security employee, alleges things like: *Unlawfully recording an employee conference call that was supposed to be part…
Dec. 15, 2017 7:59 a.m. ET Good morning. Advertising company holiday e-greeting cards usually make me cringe, so I will admit I was limbering up for a face-stretching grimace when MediaMath’s holiday message landed in my inbox. This year, MediaMath offered up an amusing holiday meditation. “There is no fraud. Your life is not being…
Criteo shares plummeted Thursday after the company said a recent move by Apple Inc. to strengthen its ad tracker prevention is going to negatively affect Criteo’s revenue more than anticipated. Shares were down 26% shortly before 2 p.m. in New York. Criteo had been utilizing a workaround to Apple’s feature called Intelligent Tracking Prevention, which rolled…
The video bubble hasn’t burst quite yet, but it sure has deflated for video makers looking to sell short-form content to streaming platforms. Over the past few months, several high-profile video streaming platforms have either shut down or scaled back their spending on original content. So far this fall, NBCUniversal closed the doors on Seeso, its…
BuzzFeed is laying off about 100 employees — about 6 percent of its workforce — after it failed to hit its 2017 revenue targets. And Greg Coleman, the longtime digital advertising executive who joined the company as its president in 2014, is moving out as well. BuzzFeed is looking for a chief operating officer to…
An ad-tech firm says it has discovered a large and sophisticated advertising-fraud operation in which fake websites and infected computers were used to scam advertisers and publishers out of upward of hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. Denmark-based Adform, identifier of the scheme, named it “Hyphbot” and estimates that it has been going on…
1) VC money is not evil. 2) VC money is not sustainable. Those are not contradictory statements. Venture money in media has its place, especially to help start up a media venture. It also has a place on the growth equity side, after a company reaches certain size and profitability, to build inorganic growth (acquisitions,…
Nov. 17, 2017 5:00 a.m. ET Less than a year after Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei launched the media startup Axios with plans to upend the way news organizations deliver stories and advertising, the company is plotting a major expansion of its newsroom. To fund the expansion, Axios has raised $20 million, according to Axios co-founder…