Google is testing a new feature that allows marketers, media companies, politicians and other organizations publish content directly to Google and have it appear instantly in search results, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Google said it began testing the feature in January and has since opened it up to some small businesses, media companies and political candidates. Fox News has worked with Google to post content related to political debates, for example, while People.com published posts related to the Oscars in February. Earlier this week, HBO published “news” articles related to fictitious characters in its popular …

Writing in Forbes, AppNexus CEO Brian O'Kelley shares his view that the age of "programmatic" is dead. "We’re moving from the 'Programmatic Age' of its infancy to the “Programmable Age” of its future. The programmatic internet was built for the one-channel world of desktop web browsers and email; it automated the delivery of information, allowing you to post (to a web page) or send (via email) text and images, but little else. The programmatic internet was better than nothing, but it was clunky, inefficient, slow, and limited. The programmable internet is the very opposite: seamless, efficient, quick, hyper-intelligent, and infinite …

LiveRail, once a dominant video supply-side platform and ad server focused solely on publishers, is now a shell of its former self, AdExchanger reports. It's been nearly two years since Facebook bought the company for more than $400 million. In the the last six to nine months Facebook has shuttered major pieces of it and transferred some employees to other projects. Now Facebook is preparing to eliminate at least 40 more positions at LiveRail. The roles consist mostly of account managers and sales reps. Sources close to the company confirmed the layoffs to AdExchanger, noting Facebook had experienced “overlap” between …

AdExchanger explores AppNexus' brand-facing business and poses the question as to whether it can hold the line on managed services. "CEO Brian O'Kelley has historically been adamant about his company's pure technology focus. Are his 114 service and training support staffers a momentary concession to marketers who need help onboarding the DSP, or a sign of more hires to come?," AdExchanger reports. CRO Marcus Startzel says: "We're definitely not moving off of the vision to be a technology provider... As we take this technology closer to [marketers], we are going to have to help folks onboard. With any SaaS product, you've …

Facebook added 60 million more users in the first three months of the year, according to its first-quarter earnings statement, Adweek reports. It now has 1.65 billion monthly active users, which represents a 15% increase over the first quarter of 2015. Not bad. Mobile users account for 1.51 billion of the total, or a 21% year-over-year increase. And mobile revenue accounted for 82% of all ad sales, up from 73% in the first quarter of 2015. Facebook's advertising revenue in the first three months of 2016 totaled $5.2 billion, a 57% increase over the same period last year, the company …

Now, as Yahoo sits on the block and with Verizon/AOL likely to acquire it, Vanity Fair offers some color on Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer's first impressions of AOL chief Tim Armstrong, who she felt superior to. A sale to Verizon would be real "humble pie" for Mayer, according to a former Yahoo executive. The piece also details Mayer's distaste for dealing with Madison Ave. "Mayer’s actions seemed to reveal a lack of interest in the commercial underbelly of the technology business. She 'hated sitting down with ad agency executives,' this former executive told me. 'She felt they were beneath …

Facebook reported Q1 2016 revenue grew 57% year-over-year to $5.4 billion vs. $3.5 billion the same time last year. Of that $5.4 billion in revenue, $5.2 billion of it came from advertising. And of that ad revenue, 82% came from mobile, compared to 73% in Q1 2015, according to AdExchanger's report. Monthly active users (MAUs) grew 15% year over year to 1.65 billion. Mobile MAUs were 1.51 billion, up 21% year over year. Facebook's earnings showed that revenue is growing much faster than user growth which can be related to time spent by …

Earlier this month, Ghostery revealed that it is "in discussions with leading ISPs (internet service providers) and mobile carriers" to make its service available at a network level. MediaPost's Daily Online Examiner first reported this last week. Ghostery claims that millions of people use its browser extension tool to find out about the companies that are tracking them online and block certain companies from collecting their data. Ghostery imagines a world where consumers could set which sites and apps can collect their data and then sync those preferences across their devices via their ISP at a network level. Speaking to Business …

Contrary to popular opinion, based on Q1 2016 research from Luma Partners, merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the martech space is off to a strong start. In Q1, Lumma saw 72% M&A events among ad tech, marketing tech and digital content firms which rely on martech. That represents the second highest quarter for M&A activity since early 2015. The  research found that companies in the digital content sector saw the most number of deals, as well as the biggest number of transactions over $100 million.

B2B brands have so much data in their arsenals but they need to know how to use it. Predictive marketing uses machine learning to deliver more accurate insights across the sales funnel to encourage sales from existing and new customers, according to eMarketer. Predictive marketing is "rooted in forward-looking analysis," Rolf Olsen, chief data officer at Mindshare North America told eMarketer. The goals for predictive analytics vary: A VB Insight Study found at 33% of U.S. marketers polled cited customer acquisition as most important with 17% each for measuring customer behavior and audience insights; ad/campaign effectiveness; calculating and improving customer …