Mobile rich media ad platform Medialets has launched a London office to serve as headquarters for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region and a base for expanding its international business. Leading the office is James O’Connor, previously director of customer development, EMEA at mobile marketing firm Velti. The move will also help New York-based Medialets to work more closely with Europe-based clients including the BBC, BSkyB, The Financial Times and Thomson Reuters. Earlier this year, Medialets started a private ad exchange aimed at providing publishers more control over selling their mobile inventory. Besides New York and …

The theater The Academy Awards have called its home for 10 years has finally a new company's name to adorn the building: Dolby Laboratories. The Kodak Theater will name be called The Dolby Theater – after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and CIM Group, the real estate company owning the Hollywood and Highland property announced a 20-year deal to keep the Oscars at the same location. Eastman Kodak had been trying to get out of its Academy building naming rights deal since January– after the film company filed for bankruptcy. Reports suggest Dolby’s bid was above the …

UniWorld Group, the multicultural agency founded in 1969 by Byron Lewis, announced Lewis' retirement as CEO and named Monique Nelson its new CEO.

Google continued to build on its lead in the U.S. smartphone market as Android increased its share to 51% in the first quarter, up from 47.3% at the end of 2011. According to the latest comScore data, Apple’s iOS grew its share by 1.1 percentage points to 30.7% while RIM dropped another 3.7 points to 12.3%. Microsoft also continued to lose ground, with the Windows Phone falling to 3.9% from 4.7% three months ago. Symbian was flat at 1.4%. When it came to mobile activities, about half of U.S. mobile users used downloaded apps (50%) and used a browser …

SEOmoz has raised $18 million in venture capital from Foundry Group and Ignition Partners. Brad Feld from Foundry, and SEOMoz's COO Sarah Bird will join the board as Gillian Muessig steps down to pursue new goals.

More than 3,800 jobs were advertised online that required search engine optimization (SEO) skills in March, up 24% compared with the year-ago month, according to WANTED Analytics, which supports technology to analyze employment trends, gather competitive intelligence, forecast economic conditions, and source hard-to-fill positions. These jobs requiring technical and marketing related skills support occupations like Web Developers, Marketing Managers, Online Marketing Managers, Web Designers, Marketing Directors, SEO Specialists, and Front End Web Developers. The five metropolitan areas with the highest volume of job ads for SEO skills in March were New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. New …

In its 2012 U.S. advertising forecast released today, MagnaGlobal predicts mobile advertising will grow 53% this year to $2.4 billion. That would represent a marked slowdown from the 149% increase in mobile ad spending to $1.6 billion estimated by the Internet Advertising Bureau, though starting from a larger base. “Encouraged by the rise of smartphone and tablet usage and the availability of scalable platforms, mainstream advertisers are now fully embracing all mobile formats (display, search, video, in-app)” said Vincent Letang, EVP, head of global forecasting at MagnaGlobal, the strategic global media unit of IPG Mediabrands. He added that iAd and …

The New York Times just announced strong circulation gains -- a 73% jump in weekday and a 50% increase in Sunday -- for the six months ended March 31s, according to the latest report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Citing the "fragility" of the U.S. economy, Interpublic's Magna Global unit this morning updated its outlook calling for only a 2.2% expansion in U.S. ad spending this year. The analysis, which is based on projected ad revenues for "media owners," estimates that the U.S. ad economy grew only 1.6% during the fourth quarter and 3.1% for full-year 2011, which Magna Global said represents a small upward revision for the 2.9% rate of growth it projected in its last forecast issued in January. Those estimates exclude the effects of the Olympics and election spending. Including those sources of incremental spending, Magna …

Paul Guyardo has been named executive vice president, Chief Revenue & Marketing Officer of DirecTV, expanding oversight of the satellite TV service's sales and marketing organization to include both traditional ad sales, as well as its new addressable and digital platforms. He had been CMO.