We are very excited to announce today that we have been selected by msnbc.com to act as the exclusive ad serving platform for its embedded video players. YuMe will also sell ad inventory in the players helping to monetize premium online properties like TODAYshow.com and Nightly.msnbc.com, home to “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.”

“From the moment we rolled out embedded video, consumers all over the web have been discovering and experiencing all of the great video content that msnbc.com has to offer,” said Kyoo Kim, VP of Sales at msnbc.com. “By tapping into YuMe’s targeting and ad optimization capabilities, we can monetize those video experiences. And marketers, who previously shied away from viral video, can now associate themselves with msnbc.com’s quality, trusted content and take advantage of viral distribution.”

Below is an example of the msnbc.com embedded player.

- Molly Glover Gallatin

We are thrilled to announce that Fox News, Glam , IDG Entertainment and Funny or Die have selected YuMe’s ACE video ad platform to manage the monetization of their video inventory. Check out our press release we sent out today announcing this news and highlighting the impressive growth we have achieved with not only the adoption of our video ad platform, but with the growth of our video ad network and advertising sales.

Here’s the quote from Funny or Die, which you will see is in true Funny or Die fashion. “YuMe’s ACE video ad platform is a true end-to-end solution,” said Mitch Galbraith, COO of Funny or Die. “ACE has streamlined our ad operations, improved inventory management, increased revenue, eliminated the common cold from our office, cured my fear of heights, and taught several of our employees to speak Portuguese.”

We also announced today that with the release of comScore’s April Video Metrix Ad Network report, YuMe is now ranked the largest video ad network with over 63 million unique viewers and 560 million video streams per month.

In addition to the great growth we have experienced with publisher adoption of our video ad platform, we have also seen tremendous momentum with video advertising sales. We now have over 100 advertisers running on any given day across our premium video ad network and the number of monthly ad impressions we are serving has increased by over 325% since January!

We are very excited about the advancements we have made in 2009 and congratulations to the YuMe team for all their hard work.

- Molly Glover Gallatin

YuMe has been selected as a finalist for a TiE50 Award for the Internet Infrastructure category. We were selected from among 1,200 nominated companies and now we need your help to win. Go to www.tie50.net/polling to vote for YuMe.

What is TiE50? The TiE50 Awards recognize the hottest emerging startups in five focus segments: Consumer Web, Internet Infrastructure, Cleantech, Wireless and Software. The selection process for TiE50 winners will be based on a combination of a public poll and private judges’ vote. Voting is open to the public beginning Tuesday, April 28, 2009 and closes on Thursday, May 7, 2009.

Vote now!

- Molly Glover Gallatin

The rationale goes that an online video GRP calculation that is comparable to the television GRP calculations that have been used for years will help media buyers and planners place larger buys online because they will have an idea about the relative gross impact of one medium or vehicle versus the other.

Also, we hope, it will facilitate access to more data and metrics about the nascent online video advertising business. And we pride ourselves on continuing to provide more and more analytics and metrics to our advertisers.

It does seem the obvious question to ask when advertising on TV content online is how does this compare to the reach and frequency results of my ad on TV content offline. Given that TV GRPs are measured based on US households watching a particular TV show for an hour and they receive millions of viewers, and online GRPs will have trouble measuring households, the comparison is not like comparing a Fuji apple (my favourite) to a Macintosh apple, it’s more like comparing an apple to a kumquat. But nevertheless, we feel it’s useful to start the dialogue regarding a standardised GRP reporting mechanism and provide that information to advertisers. And even though the online universe remains smaller, sometimes by far, than TV, the more (useful) metrics the better, we feel.

Take a look at our whitepaper on calculating an online video GRP. We welcome the feedback…

Jayant Kadambi

We all got together to bond while cooking (and wine tasting) at La Honda Winery in Redwood City this past Friday. We had a great time and it was a nice break from the world of video rfp’s, player integrations, campaign optimizations and video advertising!

The event was put on by Parties that Cook, which did an amazing job! And, best of all, they did all the dishes!

Molly Glover Gallatin

I am excited to announce that YuMe has been recognized as an OnMedia 100 winner for the second year in a row. The OnMedia 100 Award is given to private, emerging technology companies in the advertising, publishing, marketing, branding and public relations spaces. We were selected by AlwaysOn because of our game-changing strategies and innovations in video advertising, as well as our customer traction.

Click here for a full list of OnMedia 100 winners.

Molly Glover Gallatin

Last Thursday evening, at the newly opened Lucky Strike Lanes in Manhattan, Mindshare World celebrated recent their victory at the YuMe Bar Game Olympics event in style.  Over 30 Mindshare employees came out to enjoy the open bar, buffet and 4 lanes of bowling in a private lounge courtesy of YuMe as the grand prize for their Bar Game Olympic victory.  An impromptu game of Name That Tune also took over, as guests were challenged to name the artists of the songs playing on sound system, with the first person correctly identifying the artist of the song playing giving out a drink to the person of their choosing.  Despite the challenging economic times we’re in, it was great to be able to kick back, enjoy some drinks and let off some steam with a great group of agency folks.

- Gian Lombardi

YuMe hit the ‘Big Windy’ this month…

With a Nintendo Wii in tow and harvest tables in row, YuMe had a great party for Chicago’s Zed451 on Clark and Huron for Chicago agenices and clients on November 4th. Although we had several games in hand at the event, the most popular game by far was ‘RockBand.’

With the talent that was on display, we had several people in attendance who brought out their inner-rocker and brought down the house. (It’s amazing how Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” and Bon Jovi’s “Wanted, Dead or Alive” brings out the hidden talent in us all.)

Stay tuned for future Chicago events, and please be there for future funk and circumstance. Remember people, YuMe keeps it sharp, classy, and with elegance in Chicago.

Keep it up…

- Bret Dougherty

Congratulations to the team from Mindshare World for winning the YuMe Bar Game Olympics, having won two Gold Medal and one Silver Medal.  Beyond came in a close second with one Gold and one Silver medal.  We look forward to helping Mindshare enjoy their grand prize of a happy hour on YuMe.

Final Standings

Foosball
Gold Medal: Beyond Interaction – Melissa Kugelman & Rachel Veiga
Silver Medal: Mindshare – Bessie Zhang & Richard Oh

Pool
Gold Medal: For Your Imagination – Gino Tomac & Jon Johnnidis
Silver Medal: Underscore Marketing – Rachel Marcus & Victoria Shirley

Ping Pong
Gold Medal: Mindshare – David Wu & David Hwang
Silver Medal: Beyond Interaction – Meinan Liu & Risa Pearl

Beer Pong
Gold Medal: Mindshare – Chris Dino and Richard Oh
Silver Medal: Carat – Hugh Cullman & Will

- YuMe Team

If you haven’t seen the article from last week titled “Forbes Expands Ad Guarantee Program“  it got me thinking and writing. So here’s my post.

Forbes is “guaranteeing reach and frequency” for its ad buys. But only if you are part of an elite group who spend a serious amount of money on Forbes per year. Hmm, so Forbes doesn’t guarantee reach for the proletariat? If we don’t deliver the reach we promised (as per the IO), we either continue the campaign until it delivers or refund the money. I’m not sure what it means to guarantee it. Guaranteeing frequency? Well, we do that (as I’m sure others do). We’ll frequency cap the ads so the user doesn’t tire from seeing the same ad, if that’s what the advertiser wants. Basically, I’m confused about the point of the article or what Forbes was trying to say.  
 
The article goes on to state that Forbes is against the proliferation of ad networks. I guess it’s ok to say that. It’s their opinion. But the article didn’t spend enough time on why. Let me open on a couple of reasons why Forbes could think this is a good idea (and then quickly plug YuMe while doing so…)

First - Ad Networks take away business from Owned and Operated (O&O) sites such as Forbes. Well, Forbes of all magazines should be OK with a bit of friendly competition. What are they afraid of?  That we’ll outperform them because we have a far larger set of content, uniques and publishers so we can optimise and spread the ad around better to make the campaign perform better?

Second - Ad Networks are devaluing O&O inventory?  Maybe the display and search businesses sold their inventory blind, but we don’t. Everthing is transparent and we sell inventory at premium prices, while have the ability to blend in other inventory to lower the effective cpm for the advertiser, yet maintaining the campaign metrics and goals.

Third - When advertiser go to the O&O publisher and the publisher is sold out, they shouldn’t have another choice, so they simply book their ad campaign next month or next year, instead of finding another alternative. See the first point above. Sounds pretty anti capitalist to me.

- Jayant Kadambi