The CFO of Google today announced an additional investment of over $1 billion in capital improvements to establish a new campus in New York, called Google Hudson Square. Earlier this year, Google announced the purchase of the Manhattan Chelsea Market ($2.4 billion) and shared plans to lease additional space at Pier 57.

Ruth Porat, SVP and CFO of Google and Alphabet, wrote that “Google came to New York City almost two decades ago, it was Google’s first office outside of California. It’s now home to more than 7,000 employees, speaking 50 languages, working on a broad range of teams including Search, Ads, Maps, YouTube, Cloud, Technical Infrastructure, Sales, Partnerships and Research.”

Google hopes to start moving into the two Hudson Street buildings by 2020, followed by 550 Washington Street in 2022 once the building is complete. Google Hudson Square will be the primary location for Google’s New York-based Global Business Organization.

With the investments in Chelsea and in Hudson Square, Google will have the capacity to more than double the number of employees in New York over the next 10 years, the CFO stated.

Cloudflare last week began the early access for Traffic Acceleration, available for developers using Cloudflare Mobile SDK.

Cloudflare Mobile SDK supports iOS and Android and uses novel transport algorithms built into the SDK to accelerate apps beyond the performance they would see with TCP, reducing latency, driving down network timeouts, and improving the user experience.

According to Cloudflare, TCP is the dominant transport protocol for most applications and it’s over 40 years old. Cloudflare Mobile SDK aims to replace the transport protocol implemented on top of UDP, which the SDK can then speak with the Cloudflare edge.

Cloudflare says that a transportation company enabled acceleration in their iOS app. Their users immediately saw a 7% decrease in network response time and a 13.8% drop in network timeouts. This directly translates to an increase in conversions: purchases per user increased 3% with Acceleration enabled.

3 advantages of replacing TCP with a custom UDP transport protocol

* Performance tuning, bug fixes, and incremental updates to the protocol itself can be done without any downtime or coordination with the kernel. This is not the case with TCP.* Middle-boxes’ (eg. corporate proxies, etc) assumptions on how TCP works have made improving TCP very difficult. UDP based protocols don’t suffer from the same middle-box ossification.* Having tight control and coordination between the send-side Cloudflare edge and receive-side Mobile SDK makes optimizing individual connections possible, even over very dissimilar mobile networks.

RhythmOne partnered with Placed to offer clients access to a new measurement solution that quantifies the impact of digital and linear TV campaigns in driving consumers to retail stores.

RhythmOne’s solution integrates Placed’s TV measurement solution, Placed Attribution for TV, which leverages in-store attribution data to match linear TV ad exposure with desktop, mobile, and connected TV (CTV) ad exposures.

“As we move into the holidays, it’s the season for attribution as retailers with physical locations seek to justify media investments with in-store traffic and sales impact data. By integrating the Placed Attribution for TV with our platform, we have the advantage of offering clients consolidated, easy-to-interpret reports that clearly prove whether their marketing efforts have moved the needle. As TV and digital buyers transition to video activation teams with combined media budgets, it’s vital that we offer solutions that bridge the gap between linear TV and digital with unique reach measurement across all screens.”
Jorg Nowak, Senior Vice President of Global Sales, RhythmOne

Placed Attribution for TV delivers actionable data to RhythmOne’s media buying platform by providing a common currency for omni-channel attribution across TV, digital, search, and out-of-home advertising.

Twilio last week announced that David Parry-Jones joined the company as the regional vice president of EMEA sales reporting to Twilio’s SVP of sales Marc Boroditsky.

Parry-Jones brings more than 25 years of experience in the software industry and will oversee business growth and expansion across EMEA; he will be based in the company’s London office.

Prior to joining Twilio, Parry-Jones spent nearly seven years at VMware, most recently serving as the company’s regional vice president for Northern Europe. Prior to VMware, Parry-Jones has held the UK, EMEA wide and global sales leadership roles with start-ups and leading organizations such as Lotus/IBM and Microsoft.

“Twilio’s experiencing phenomenal traction with developers and enterprises for our cloud communications solutions in EMEA. With the addition of David, a seasoned go-to-market leader, we’re confident we will accelerate our growth with enterprises and as developers’ first choice for cloud communications, expanding our European community, which is nearly a million developers strong.”
Marc Boroditsky, Twilio’s senior vice president of sales

Parry-Jones holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Bangor University. He has also completed leadership programs at the Center for Creative Leadership Colorado Springs and at Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

David currently sits on the boards of The Princes Trust in Wales and The Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership. He’s also a champion for mental health awareness and is the non-executive director of Transforming Systems, a healthcare startup that helps the National Health Service and social services use real-time information to make data-driven decisions.

Nielsen this month released a report with the media consumption in the USA. On the graph is possible to see the media fragmentation, per hour. The hours with more minutes spend on media consumption are at 8 pm and 9 pm.

The Q2 2018 Nielsen Total Audience Report highlights that adults spend more time on media from 9 p.m.-10 p.m. than any other hour throughout the day. Nearly 38 out of a possible 60 minutes are spent across live + time-shifted TV, TV-connected devices, radio and digital (computer, smartphone, tablet) during that time. The 9 p.m. hour is also peak viewing time for both TV and TV-connected device usage. Because of that, prime time is still relevant in this era of device fragmentation, says Nielsen.

According to report, radio is more closely tied to traditional business hours. Listening time peaks at 12 p.m. but radio’s share of total media time spent per hour is consistently at its highest between 7 am and 5 pm.

Digital usage is also consistent for an even longer period of time throughout the day. There is less than a one-minute fluctuation in time spent from 9 a.m.-9 p.m.

IDOOH International has expanded to Africa through a partnership with Nigeria’s Abercairn Digital to deploy 1,000 in-vehicle media screens with ride-hail drivers in Lagos. IDOOH says media screens will provide passengers with an entertaining and interactive passenger experience.

Drivers will benefit from the additional income and brands can access a comprehensive digital out-of-home (DOOH) branding platform. Interested drivers in Nigeria can Whatsapp Abercairn Digital at: +234 81 8849 4167.

IDOOH says the fully interactive 10-inch IDOOH display tablets will offer passengers with a selection of high-quality lifestyle, news, entertainment and e-commerce function. IDOOH uses proprietary in-vehicle technologies like geo-fencing and day-parting to create a customised in-vehicle experience.

The technologies offer content based on factors such as location, weather and traffic conditions, presenting passengers with a new OOH entertainment experience and brands with a new digital platform to engage with their audiences.

“As part of our global expansion strategy, we are thrilled to expand into Africa through a partnership with Nigeria’s DOOH innovator Abercairn Digital. Nigeria’s young demographic and populous country presents a vast opportunity for us to rapidly scale our network of in-vehicle screens from Asi Pacific to Africa. We look forward to working with them to transform the commute experience and provide brands with an opportunity to reach young, connected Africans through our interactive media technology and big data analytics.
IDOOH Group CEO Mark Forsyth

IDOOH has a worldwide inventory of 14,000 screens across diverse platforms including ride-sharing cars and taxis.

HG Data last week announced the release of its new HG Data Audience segments for digital advertisers using Facebook, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Twitter, Salesforce DMP, and dozens of other leading marketing platforms.

HG Data says this is the result of its partnership with LiveRamp, the identity platform, which allows HG Data Audience segments to be used across a broad range of digital advertising, data management, and demand-side platforms.

The availability of HG Data Audience segments via the LiveRamp IdentityLinkTM Data Store allows B2B advertisers to hyper-target customers or entire market categories based on the installed technologies (technographics) and other attributes tracked by HG Data. Advertisers can also create custom account-based marketing (ABM)-driven segments comprised of the companies and decision makers they most want to reach.

“The LiveRamp Data Store makes it easy for our customers to select our digital audience segments to precisely target their ads by specific installed technologies, job title, industry, or a growing range of other specialized company criteria that help them be more precise and relevant in their interactive display campaigns. It also makes our data available on most of the leading DMPs and DSPs in the market so that advertisers can keep their existing workflows.”
John Connell, Executive Vice President of Digital for HG Data

The Trade Desk this month announced that Rob Perdue, Chief Operating Officer, plans to step down after a transition period in the first half of 2019. Rob Perdue has served in the COO role since joining The Trade Desk in 2013, leading the company through its IPO in 2016.

“Since joining The Trade Desk in 2013, Rob has built an amazing operational team and has been instrumental in helping to build the special culture we have here,” said Jeff Green, Founder, and CEO of The Trade Desk. “I’m grateful to Rob for everything he’s done for The Trade Desk, and for his leadership and friendship over the years.”

Green added, “We have begun a search for an incoming COO to ensure a seamless transition as The Trade Desk continues to deliver strong momentum and global growth.”

“I am grateful for the six incredible years at The Trade Desk, and I am very proud of all of our achievements,” Perdue said. “After a conversation with Jeff, we agreed that with The Trade Desk’s strong operational foundation and solid growth plans for the future, this is the right time for me to move on to the next phase of my life. It’s been an honor to work with such exceptionally talented people and help grow and scale our business globally. Personally, I look forward to my next chapter and to spend more time with my family.”

Snap this week announced the hiring of Julie Henderson as Chief Communications Officer. Julie Henderson will report to Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, and lead communications globally.

Julie Henderson is currently Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for 21st Century Fox. She will assume her new role at Snap immediately following the completion of the sale of certain 21st Century Fox assets to The Walt Disney Company.

Prior to her current post at 21st Century Fox, Ms. Henderson was the Company’s Senior Vice President of Communications and Corporate Strategy, where she led communications and developed company-wide marketing and distribution strategies.

“Julie will be an outstanding addition to our team. She brings incredible experience, talent, and integrity, as well as the respect of the tech, media and finance communities. We are excited to have Julie play a key leadership role in the next chapter of the Snap story.”
Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap

Julie Henderson will take over the responsibilities of Mary Ritti, Vice President of Communications. Ritti, who joined Snap in 2013, announced her decision to leave the company last summer.

Sovrn this week announced the acquisition of VigLink. VigLink delivers revenue to publishers through content-driven commerce products that capitalize on consumer interest and intent.

Sovrn says this acquisition complements the Sovrn suite of products and services, offering content creators more revenue-generating tools.

“Sovrn and VigLink share a commitment to developing products and services that help publishers do more, learn more, and earn more. Publishers drive billions of dollars in purchasing behavior annually, yet much of their revenue comes largely from advertising. This acquisition brings another important and fast-growing revenue stream to publishers of all shapes and sizes, enabling them to capitalize on the consumer interest and intent they’ve created. Furthermore, marketers will be able to reach the customers they want at every step of the purchasing journey.”Walter Knapp, CEO, Sovrn

According to Sovrn, VigLink’s acquisition will create one of the largest and most influential portfolios of publishers on the internet:

* More than 50,000 independent sites* Reach more than 250M daily active consumers* More than $1B in annual consumer purchase behavior

“VigLink was founded on the realization that the value publishers deliver to audiences and advertisers is not adequately recognized. In Sovrn we’ve found a partner that shares our view that publishers deserve better, and with the right tools they can do better. Together, we’ll be able to bring more resources and more impact to that fight.”
Oliver Roup, Founder and CEO, VigLink