One of the themes emerging at OMMA Global is growing support for HTML5 as a standard for mobile development, signaling a potential end to the dominance of native apps on devices. Denise Warren, SVP & chief advertising officer, The New York Times Media Group, said the company is placing a big bet on HTML5, using the programming language to build its core mobile products. Both the NY Times and Time provide HTML5 support for video in their iPad apps, via Brightcove. In a separate talk, Evan Neufeld of mobile research firm Ground Truth looked ahead to the blurring of lines between the …

Leading off the afternoon keynotes at OMMA Global, is Dermot McCormack, EVP, Digital Media, MTV Networks. McCormack laid out his 3 pillars for the evolving future of creating content for new platforms: building authority, curate and provide context to what you do. Given the array of media options online—31 million video streams, 200 million tweets per day—it's critical for publishers to establish themselves as an authority in a given area. MTV has long been a hub for music, but how does it remain relevant on the Web? McCormack said the network has updated or reinvented assets including the VMAs …

A New York federal judge has denied research company TRA's request for a preliminary injunction barring Kantar Media from proceeding with its RapidView media planning tool. TRA was hoping for an injunction at least until its law suit against Kantar, alleging patent infringement is resolved. WPP and Kantar actually filed suit first, alleging breach of contract with a request for a ruling that it did not infringe on TRA patents. Both services match consumer purchase data with TV audience figures. TRA has had a service in the marketplace for the several years, with WPP and Kantar as …

Will all due respect to socially-overwhelmed consumers, Cult of Mac's Mike Elgan says Apple needs its own social network. Sure, many consumers think Google+ already pushes the envelope of social saturation, but Elgan insists that Apple can't keep its edge without a social strategy of its own. Why? With the debut of its vast content-sharing strategy, "Facebook is now more directly threatening to Apple's business model than Microsoft, Google and Sony combined," according to Elgan. "In a single week, Facebook has become not just a competitor to Apple, but the Mother of All Apple Competitors." While not a forgone …

To scale its operations, trendy blogging platform Tumblr has secured a fresh $85 million in funding, led by Greylock Partners and Insight Venture Partners, along with participation from Chernin Group, Richard Branson, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Sequoia Capital. The new money "allows us to continue to scale our business and give real focus to the further development of Tumblr," founder David Karp said in a statement. "Karp said that Tumblr's growth has exploded in the past year," The New York Times' Bits blog notes. "It's attracted popular musicians such as Lady Gaga and traffic leapt to 13 …

In other big streaming deals, Amazon this weekend announced a partnership with Fox Broadcasting Company. Per a blog post by CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon said Prime subscribers will now have unlimited access to thousands more hours of movies and TV shows, TechCrunch reports. "These are huge titles, too: "The X-Files," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "24," "Arrested Development," and "The Wonder Years," it notes. "Yep, you can now stream the adventurers of Kevin Arnold through Amazon's Prime Instant Video." As Bezos boasted, "We now have deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner Bros, and adding Fox will bring the total …

How's this for a marketing pitch? Facebook -- in an effort to lure small businesses and their devoted patrons -- reportedly plans to give away $10 million in free advertising. "The initiative is being launched in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business group," The Wall Street Journal reports. "It is intended to educate small businesses on how to promote themselves on the social-networking site, like buying display ads targeted to specific markets, but also through cost-free measures to engage more with customers." The program is expected to kick off next …

Even Neufeld of mobile research firm Ground Truth quickly ran down what he called The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of mobile marketing at OMMA Global. Among the key points he made was that the lines between the PC and mobile are eroding as smartphones spread and more people go on the mobile Web. But as the use of HTML5 expands for creating mobile sites, use of apps will be geared more toward certain uses including games, social media and maps. And even though mobile phones are ubiquitous, it will still be some time before having the latest …

A bombshell from futurist Faith Popcorn: pornography is generating incredible interest on the Internet. Um, isn't that how the whole Internet thing got started? Popcorn brought up porn on a morning panel focusing on the empowered consumer. Her broader point was that the hyperconnected-ness of the Internet has led to an unprecedented level of transparency for companies, which they have to be mindful of in terms of marketing. The ability to quickly look up the demographic make-up of a large company's board via a handheld device could make the difference between buying one of their products or not for …

Donovan Data Systems and MediaBank, the two dominant and fiercely competitive suppliers of advertising and media-buying processing systems to Madison Avenue, have agreed to merge into a new company called MediaOcean, which will be led by Donovan founder Michael Donovan MediaBank CEO Bill Wise, who will serve as executive chairman and CEO of the new company. The merger, if approved by regulators, would dramatically consolidate the marketplace for ad agency data processing systems, leaving Comcast-owned Strata as the next biggest player. Though Donovan and MediaBank spent much of the past several years badmouthing each other's products and services, …