advertising

AOL has continued to shed subscribers but managed to turn a decent profit last quarter thanks mostly to its advertising trade.

The online Internet provider scored a 9 percent increase in global advertising revenue for the first quarter, compared with the year-ago quarter. Global display revenue climbed by 8 percent year over year thanks to 6 percent growth in the U.S. and ongoing double-digit growth abroad.

AOL also saw a 9 percent rise in search revenue due to gains in global queries and higher revenue per search at AOL.com.

"Growth continues at AOL," AOL CEO Tim … Read more

When you're young and observing or experiencing abuse, especially when it involves people close to you, it can be hard to find the strength to talk to someone about it. An innovative new advertisement could help direct children -- without alerting their parents or others who may be threatening them -- that there's a way to seek help.

Spain's ANAR Foundation (Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk) created an anti-abuse ad that uses lenticular printing to display two pictures that differ based on the viewer's height. The group created the ad to reach abuse victims who might be accompanied by their aggressor. … Read more

David Karp, speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, noted that advertising remains Tumblr's biggest challenge, but it's seeing good traction with its efforts.

"Budgets are starting to ratchet up," Karp said. He noted that "some of the best advertisers in the world" are turning to Tumblr.

As Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer continues to work to reformulate the company as a modern mobile-forward search engine with new products and features, she's also thinking about earning revenue the good old-fashioned way -- advertising.

The company launched two new ad features on Monday. One is a new way of introducing ads called Yahoo Stream Ads, and the other is a redesigned Yahoo Billboard.

"As we continue to build products and features that inspire and entertain our users, we're committed to delivering engaging and effective advertising opportunities," Mayer wrote in a blog post Monday. "Over … Read more

Salesforce.com is turning things up a notch for its Marketing Cloud platform with a new product styled similarly to its other cloud-based products: Social.com.

Social.com stems from Salesforce's acquisition of Buddy Media and its subsidiary, the London-based Brighter Option.

Thus, the Marketing Cloud now boils down to three core areas: social media listening (Radian6), publishing content (Buddy Media), and branding (Social.com). The new service is described as a self-serve application for use by agencies, brands, developers, retailers and advertisers in developing, automating, and managing social ad campaigns.

Touting it as the first platform that connects … Read more

Google, which relies on advertising for some 95 percent of its revenue, doesn't want ads on its hotly anticipated Google Glass eyewear.

The blanket prohibition came in the fine print of a policy made public this evening, which says "Glassware" developers may not "serve or include any advertisements" and they "may not charge" users to download apps for the device.

Today's announcement, which coincided with news that Google Glass Explorer Edition prototypes were about to ship, indicates that the Mountain View company is proceeding carefully, even slowly, when allowing third-party developers access … Read more

The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission has reportedly launched an investigation into Samsung on allegations that the phone-maker was paying students to post negative online comments about HTC devices, according to AFP. HTC is one of Samsung's most staunch rivals.

NEW YORK--Hyper-targeted advertising based on your location is coming to mobile phones and could finally bring money into the mobile advertising market, say experts at the All Things D mobile conference here Monday.

In two separate interviews, the CEO of the mapping app Waze and ad executives Jason Spero from Google and Mollie Spilman of Millennial Media talked up the importance of users' GPS location information to help tailor advertising.

Spilman said that this kind of advertising is very powerful to brands.

"Location is important because we know where you are, and when you are doing something," she … Read more

Ever amping up new ways for advertisers to engage with users, Facebook began rolling out a new feature today that doubles down on the social network's use of ad targeting.

Dubbed "partner categories," Facebook's new feature aims to target ads to more categories of people. These categories use data from third parties, such as Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon, to glean information about what users buy on the Web.

Here's more from a Facebook blog post: