Outbrain: a new ad medium is born near Union Square

Can "Content Discovery" help save the newspaper industry?

"Content Discovery" provides online readers high quality, personalized content at the end of each article on publisher websites.

Outbrain (www.outbrain.com), a NY-based content recommendation company and new Bruni PR client, is the leader in this new internet Trend and advertising medium. The three year-old startup's mission is to serve "interesting content" to online readers.

Google finds info that you're looking for; Outbrain's platform finds content/info you didn't know existed.

Media Companies are flocking to this web technology because it enhances reader experience, increases traffic and provides a valuable new revenue stream. By offering "sponsored recommendations", they generate revenue from advertisers/brands promoting their content next to the publisher’s own editorial.

Outbrain data shows that readers don't mind if content is paid. As long as it's interesting, they will click and engage with the content.

Outbrain's client list includes many major Media players: Conde Nast, USA Today, iVillage, Boston.com (Boston Globe), The Daily Beast, TheStreet, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, Seattle Times, VentureBeat, and Slate.

What's Outbrain's "secret sauce"?

Outbrain's proprietary technology personalizes content recommendations to the individual, helping each online reader discover new, interesting articles. The recommendations are based on contextual and behavioral algorithm.

Outbrain has raised over $18 million in Series A and B financing.

Outbrain's network reaches 150 million monthly users on the Web

Why Entertainment Will Drive the Next Checkin Craze

Why Entertainment Will Drive the Next Checkin Craze

Philo TV wowed the NY Tech Meetup audience last week here in NYC. I've been testdriving it and love checking in while I'm watching TV. Tonite, Philo TV followers will be chatting about the latest Jersey Housewives show, not high brow cultural stuff, but enough to get some traction for this fascinating coach potato app. Kudos to Founder David Levy and his team.

LightSquared

Press Releases - LightSquared


I met Phil Falcone a few years back when I worked on a couple assignments for Harbinger Capital, which had become majority shareholder in Parmalat and was getting the message out to reporters covering Europe. The Italian press called him "Il Falcone", "the Falcon". Phil's lastest venture, a hugely ambitious wireless network called LightSquared, launched earlier today. Burson Marsteller is handling PR and has its hands full. Phil has to raise billions in debt to finance the project, and I believe, will likely prevail.

The Revenge of "Flogs"/ Four year Anniversary

AT&T Wireless PR (ATT_Wireless_PR) on Twitter


What's a Corporate PR Department's worst nightmare? A Twitter account that "fakes" your communications to the outside world. And, gets more attention than the "real" releases.

Ask AT&T's PR people. They are contending with a "fake" Twitter account that is making a laughing stock out of AT&T's PR Department and PR agency (probably Burson or H&K). Just today, NYT tech editor Damon Darlin lists the fake PR Twitter acct. as one of the "things he's following" right now, on a daily basis. Amazing endorsement from my favorite tech editor on the planet.

Edelman PR, the nation's largest Independent PR firm, started this mess a few years back with their infamous "flog" , fake blog for the Walmart account, a early desperate attempt by the PR industry to get its hands around Social Media. Ironically, four years later (almost to the day), we have the new order of "fake" communications, this time from the "other side" of the PR equation.

Papa John’s Recruits Facebook Fans to Create Next Pizza

Papa John’s Recruits Facebook Fans to Create Next Pizza

Can you crowdsource your next pizza recipe? My dad, Americo Bruni, owner-founder of Bruni's Pizzeria, the "king" of South Jersey pizza, would be appalled at the idea of leaving these decisions up to the customer, but times change even in the pizza business. Can't wait to show him the poll results. Pineapple with tofu and kimchi on pizza? Mama mia.

My Foursquare Day (and Night)

Foursquare made history yesterday and I was proud to be part of it. I was one of the several hundred thousand or so Foursquare users around the globe who gathered to celebrate this amazing mobile LBS service/social network/game, which is morphing into a media platform, the CNN of young techies here in New York City. Foursquare hit the 1 million member mark as well as yesterday, according to Mashable and Techcrunch. I experienced the power of Foursquare Nation at the Foursquare Party in Hotel on Rivington Penthouse and partied with co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen, both rock stars of the reborn Silicon Alley in NYC.

The 15 Biggest PR Disasters Of The Decade

The 15 Biggest PR Disasters Of The Decade

U.S. Wealthy Lack Loopholes to Offset Obama’s Taxes (Update1) - BusinessWeek

U.S. Wealthy Lack Loopholes to Offset Obama’s Taxes (Update1) - BusinessWeek

Tax Time is just around the corner. Deferred Comp is making a big comeback as a tax saving solution.
BRUNI PR placement for NIP-Retirement Capital Group, a leader in this space.

USA TODAY analysis: Many CEOs took a pay cut in 2009 - USATODAY.com

USA TODAY analysis: Many CEOs took a pay cut in 2009 - USATODAY.com

BRUNI PR placement in USA Today Report on CEO Pay

Nestle vs. Greenpeace: How Not to Handle a Social Media PR crisis

Have a break? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

The Nestle vs. Greenpeace PR battle that erupted this week shows PR pros what not to do in Social Media PR crisis: censor. When this Greenpeace video criticizing Nestle gained traction this week, Nestle's PR folks decided to try to muscle YouTube into censoring the vid. and deleting comments about it. Not a smart PR strategy. The resulting furor has increased coverage of the battle.

2010 Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW Finalists | SXSW.com

2010 Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW Finalists | SXSW.com

NY startups featured at this year's SXSW BizSpark Competition :
AnyClip, Topguest , Knowem? , ChallengePost, Udorse

Toyota Turns To Twitter To Repair Its Image

Toyota Turns To Twitter To Repair Its Image

NYConvergence - A digest of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut digital media technology news: NY Tech Meetup Debuts New Monthly Feature

NYConvergence - A digest of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut digital media technology news: NY Tech Meetup Debuts New Monthly Feature

Suspended jail sentences for Google | Video | Reuters.com

A major PR headache in Europe for Google : Suspended jail sentences for Google | Video | Reuters.com

A $3.5 Billion Effort Aims to Help Tech Start-Ups - NYTimes.com

A $3.5 Billion Effort Aims to Help Tech Start-Ups - NYTimes.com Will Silicon Alley get Silicon Valley money?

I Pissed Off A PR Spammer Today/ a Tale of Caution From TechCrunch

I Pissed Off A PR Spammer Today

Tiger Woods Apology Boosts His Standing Online | Andrew LaVallee | Voices | AllThingsD

Tiger Woods Apology Boosts His Standing Online | Andrew LaVallee | Voices | AllThingsD

Milabra

The 1 trillion images on the Web are Advertising's Next Frontier.

Pairing images with targeted ads is the Holy Grail for Advertisers. The reason: consumers rely heavily on images in search engine result pages.

The age of Visual Ad Targeting is just around the corner.

Google recently announced plans to begin matching images from its fast-growing Google Image Search with display ads. Presently, Google photos are indexed by text and other metadata.

But, a NYC startup called Milabra beat Google to the punch last year by launching the world's first contextual ad network with targeting based upon visual content. And, it's getting a lot of attention from major ad networks and digital chiefs at big ad agencies.

Milabra (www.milabra.com) uses cutting edge visual recognition software to see what's important in an image, and targets advertising based on that data. Visual media publishers simply add the Milabra tag to their site, and Milabra automatically segments and moderate their content into advertiser friendly "buckets", increasing their inventory value and improving their performance.

Why is visual recognition ad targeting so effective?
It actually connects with the hard wired patterns of the human mind to create a more effective advertising experience. It's the language of pictures. By connecting to our primary sense, sight, it connects with consumers on a more fundamental level than other forms of targeting.

Milabra has signed up a slew of Ad networks since it launched over a year ago.

Most of the leading digital chiefs on Madison Avenue have met with Milabra and are looking under the hood of its technology, developed by a Columbia University neuroscientist.

TechCrunch wrote a glowing post back in February after the startup raised $1.2m in angel investments. No ad trade or mainstream media coverage to date. Milabra was the talk of AdTech last week and recently premiered to rave reviews at the NY Video Meetup and AlwaysOnMedia.

Outbrain's OutLoud: Earned Media Maximizer

One of the biggest problems in the PR field called Media Relations is that media placements, these days called "earned media", have a limited shelf life. Sure, a media placement such as an article in the New York Times can live on forever in Google News Search, but how do you maximize the longevity of a "PR hit" in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

Outbrain, an NYC startup that provides content recommendation technology to over 25,000 websites, has come up with an answer: "OutLoud". “OutLoud”, lets customers submit articles, blog posts or videos for only $10 a month and have them distributed in a scaled and targeted way. "Amplify your earned media and positive press, build an audience for your corporate blog, or bring new audiences to your own crafted content" says Outbrain, which will be featuring OutLoud at this week's AdTech event. BTW: Bruni PR is using OutLoud to blast a recent Financial Times placements on behalf of Beyond Media, a New Brunswick NJ based client.

What if retailers had a Digg-like social media game that predicts what they should sell for the Spring 2010 season?

Believe it or not, Limited Brands is spending substantial money right now on just that. It has hired a new NYC-based startup called StyleHop to conduct "predictive" research on what young female consumers will be buying next Spring.

StyleHop has been gathering results from a panel of 10,000 monthly "StyleHoppers"/ users and feeding the findings to Limited. StyleHop (www.stylehop.com) CEO David Reinke thinks that Limited and other clients, including Calvin Klein, are spearheading a "revolution" in the use of predictive behavior research.