Cameron Yuill

This is not news. At least it shouldn’t be.  However it still amazes me that many marketers and publishers don’t get it: if you have use flash it ain’t gonna work on a iPad!

If you are happy with a default jpeg being served in place of your slick flash creative or even a blank space where an ad should be – yes, I have seen that as recently as last month with a large German auto company on a major news publication – then keep doing what you are doing. Note to large German auto company: I bet you paid for that blank ad serve and I know you paid for all the default jpegs served to tablet users. Ask your agency about this strategy.

Infamously rejected by Apple in 2010, Flash has been overshadowed as HTML5 has swooped to the rescue of tablet and mobile-based advertising and web design. Publish once, publish to all. Yes, I know HTML5 is not all there yet but it will get be soon. In the meantime it works well enough today for you to adopt it now.

All that said, there are many ads still built around Flash out there. This is fine, but buyer beware—you are not maximizing your company’s tablet advertising possibilities means you’re losing out on a large growing corner of the market. Sales of tablets continue to soar all over the world. Go where your customers are going. Go where they are now.

Some stats: according to a new report from online advertising network Chitika , 20% of web traffic in North America now comes from mobile browsers, including phones and tablets, and 5.6% of overall browsing is from tablets*. It is also worthwhile noting that a huge percentage of tablet based mobile web traffic (ahem—a whopping 95%), and smart phone based mobile traffic (72%) comes from the Apple iPad and iPhone, respectively.

All this is to say, AdGent Digital’s HTML5-based platforms have been designed with the greatest reach and flexibility in mind. Don’t waste your opportunity to reach a quickly growing tablet audience.  Start building in HTML5 – dare I say it – quick as a flash!

TV viewing isn't what it used to be, and one of the things that is changing the experience even more is the growing popularity of tablets. All the data we have seen suggests it is not necessarily an either/or experience," said AdGent Digital founder Cameron Yuill. "Rather, consumers are viewing TV and using their tablets at the same time."

The adoption of tablets has reached critical mass in the U.S., according to comScore. In fact, one in every four smartphone owners also used a tablet during the three-month period ending April 2012.

What stands out most about this particular study, though, is the link it makes between TV and online video content and the growth of tablets. Tablet users were nearly three times more likely to watch video on their device, compared to smartphone users, and one in every 10 viewed video content on their tablets almost daily, the study found. Of those viewing video at least once during the month, one in four paid to watch content.

In short, tablets are poised to disrupt the way people engage with the digital world, both in mobile mode and in the home, the report concluded.

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We see you, plucking daisy petals and ruminating about whether your latest ad campaign will stir up some attention. “Will they like me, will they like me not?” Junior, put the flower down! AdGent Digital’s D:30 now has a social media button feature that will help you increase audience engagement and track it too.

Imagine this message popping up in your inbox: “Your video has 10,000 Likes on Facebook”. For those who’ve created the ultimate, hilarious, attention-grabbing, poignant video or ad, and then seen the Interweb’s interest in it fizzle and fade, it’s time to think about how social media plays a part in generating popularity and sales. With AdGent Digital’s D:30 capabilities, we bet you can attain those 10,000 Likes and then some!

The D:30 video platform inserts a 15-30 second television ad between Web site page loads.  D:30 has some amazing and useful features, including its ability to target audiences so that your video is relevant to the search term or pages visited. Branding spots utilizing the D:30 are measureable in terms of reach and engagement. And social media links can be added to your video.

Some may hesitate to stick social media buttons all over their ads. Implementing the ubiquitous “Like” button of Facebook may seem, like, so overdone. However, traffic numbers don’t lie. The increased traffic thanks to social networking Web sites can be game changing for a brand.

SearchEngineLand.com published an article featuring data from Facebook on the results of implementing the “Like” button. Yes, Facebook is self-reporting, but other sources can back up findings like these: “The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300% increase in referral traffic.” According to Facebook, “Levi’s saw a 40 times increase in referral traffic from Facebook after implementing the Like button in April 2010,” and Giantnerd.com, Amercan Eagle, ShoeDazzle all report similarly incredible success rates. Ticketmaster and Eventbrite report that links to events shared on Facebook are directly tied to a rise in specific dollar amounts in ticket sales.

This June, stop picking your neighbor’s daisies and playing existential games with yourself. Turn your attentions elsewhere and consider launching your ads utilizing our D:30  video platform. And don’t forget to add those social media buttons! They pay off. Like, for real.

It’s summertime, and the kids have taken their play outdoors. You might hear the ever-popular warning, “Don’t touch me!” amongst arguing tots as you traipse around the neighborhood. As adults, we know about this cardinal rule. Touching is a no-no. Well, listen up: AdGent Digital officially declares “Don’t touch me!” has been turned on its head. With our AdTouch techonology, it’s time to get a little more touchy-feely.

Stop it pervert, we’re talking about tablets!

AdGent Digital’s tablet-based advertising platform, AdTouch, serves touchable, non-intrusive, rich media ads to your consumers. We’ve already partnered with dozens of other leading publishers to produce engaging, exciting ads on our platform for the tablet.

We’ve also got an interactive feature called +Slide. This gives visitors the ability to slide the ad from side to side on their screen without interrupting the content on the page that they’re browsing.

So why focus on creating tablet-specific ads?

Studies show that tablets’ share of website activity is growing at an astonishing rate of 300% per year—spurting in growth at a much faster rate than the smartphone did. With its introduction in 2010, the iPad reached the same percentage of web traffic in 1 year that it took the iPhone to reach in 3 years. By the end of 2013, “tablet visits will account for more than 10 percent of Web site visits”, predicts a study by Adobe Digital Index (ADI). 

Put simply, tablets is where it's at.

Why this giant growth? The fact is the tablet is more engaging for Web browsing than the smartphone or the laptop. Who’s using tablets? They are most popular with media consumers and financial service consumers. According to a study released by Facebook, ownership has increased fastest among “young adults ages 18 to 29, Hispanics, those with the highest incomes, and people who had attended some college. “

It’s about time to rethink your company’s advertising strategies. No longer can you simply build ads for display; you’ve got to create stellar ads especially for tablets. With the rapidly growing adoption of HTML5, it is easier than ever to create tablet-specific advertisements.

If you haven’t heard the news, Yahoo!’s got a new CEO—kind of. Scott Thompson stepped down after a rather embarrassing inconsistency (read 'lie') was discovered in his corporate bio, and he’s been replaced by Interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

Thompson’s padded resume (he claimed to have a degree in computer science) was outed by Daniel Loeb, hedge fund manager atThird Point LLC, Yahoo!'s single largest shareholder at nearly 6% of its stock.

There are many who are bearish about the future of Yahoo! A public company did not do a thorough background check on hiring a CEO. Add to this that Yahoo! has been struggling over the last few years next to the growing giants that are Google and Facebook.

However, I'm pretty excited. I'm hoping "Interim" CEO Ross Levinsohn is here to stay. Levinsohn’s has what Yahoo! needs – a dynamic background in media. Because that is what Yahoo! is - a media company.

And not to mention, Levinsohn has got the support, with the backing of activist investor Loeb’s Third Point LLC.

Despite many believing Yahoo! is a former dynasty whose glory days are long gone, Levinsohn is skeptical, and I am too. It's worth remembering Yahoo! sees 700 million users around the world every month, and makes $4 billion in annual revenue. Not chump change in anyone's language.

The Board is getting a much-needed shake-up, as Daniel Loeb and the Third Point LLC fund have gained three seats under the settlement agreement. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson and Michael J. Wolf joined the Yahoo! Board as of May 16.  Fred Amoroso, who has been leading the investigation into Thomson’s background, was appointed board chairman. A more engaged and self-interested (these guys are shareholders) Board can only mean good things.

Yahoo!’s hopes also lie in its “Asian assets”. It holds 41% stake in Chinese Internet Group Alibaba, as well as a valuable stake in Yahoo! Japan. These assets are worth more than Yahoo! on its own. And Alibaba Group just repurchased a 20% stake from Yahoo! for a minimum purchase price of $7.1 billion, one of the largest Internet transactions of all time.

Interim CEO Ross Levinsohn is bridging technology and media. He has already announced plans to send 25 journalists to cover the Summer Olympics this year, as well as to work on deepening a relationship with ABC News through a weekly online digital series hosted by Katie Couric. He's acting like a classic media company – make content which you can sell advertising against.