Jeff Bezos Reveals He Doesn't Have a Plan to Save the Washington Post

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

Just because Jeff Bezos is going to own the press doesn't mean he has changed his approach to the press. When he speaks to journalists, he says nothing.

The Washington Post has the first interview with the new owner-to-be of the Washington Post today. If you're expecting Bezos to reveal anything about his plans for the paper, then you've never sat through an Amazon earnings call or listened to a Jeff Bezos interview.

The gist: Like he said before, he won't be running the paper day to day. And, like he does with Amazon, Bezos plans to manage the paper for the long haul.

But, when Bezos won't tell you how many Kindles he's sold, he's not saying anything because he doesn't want to clue you in to his plan. The key question for the Post and its readers (and employees): Does he have a plan this time?

If you take him at face value, he doesn't. He's going to take time - "years" - to experiment, and the only thing he knows is that it's important for readers to get value out of reading the paper.

It would be easy enough to dismiss that non-talk as cover for whatever Bezos really is planning for the paper. Except for this part, where Bezos argues convincingly that newspapers in general, and the Post in particular, are screwed. If they produce anything of value, the Web immediately swallows it up and spits it out for free:

But Bezos suggested that the current model for newspapers in the Internet era is deeply flawed: "The Post is famous for its investigative journalism," he said. "It pours energy and investment and sweat and dollars into uncovering important stories. And then a bunch of Web sites summarize that [work] in about four minutes and readers can access that news for free. One question is, how do you make a living in that kind of environment? If you can't, it's difficult to put the right resources behind it. ... Even behind a paywall [digital subscription], Web sites can summarize your work and make it available for free. From a reader point of view, the reader has to ask, 'Why should I pay you for all that journalistic effort when I can get it for free' from another site?"

This would be an excellent rationale for an investment in a Web aggregator like Business Insider, and, of course, Bezos has done just that.

But unless Bezos is suggesting that the Post is going to stop "uncovering important stories" because there's no money in it - and I don't think he is suggesting that* - then what he's really saying is that he can't figure out how to make it work. For now. Just like everyone else.

* Quentin Hardy, who is smart, thinks Bezos will in fact move to a "give the people what they want and/or are willing to pay for" mode, where Cyrus trumps Syria. And if he was making the investment on behalf of Amazon, I might give that theory some credence. But this is a personal investment, and I don't think Bezos wants to be a guy known for asset-stripping an American institution.

AOL Plans First "Programmatic Upfront"

AOL plans to sell some of its ads via what it is calling the first "programmatic upfront" event in September. The idea, modeled after the method TV networks traditionally use to sell their ads, is to convince marketers to commit to buying a certain amount of AOL's inventory using automated ad technology, a big push for CEO Tim Armstrong.

HelloSponsor Connects Brands With Local Events Looking For Sponsorships

Apple's New Ad Grabs One of Rock's Best Songs

There's a new Apple ad. It's for the iPhone 5c. No need to say much.

But since you are still here, here's the source file for the ad's soundtrack, via Sleigh Bells' 2010 "Rill Rill":

Still here? All right! Now things get really good, because you get to hear the source file for "Rill Rill," courtesy of Funkadelic. For some reason, this 1971 song got renewed life in the last few years.* Which is great, because it's one of the best songs ever:

Ah. Okay. Denouement time. Here's the ad Apple ran another time it took a thing that was popular and made it available in different colors:

* Probably because of Sleigh Bells, I guess? But it showed up on a lot of TV and movie soundtracks.

More Tech IPOs: Criteo Files, and Rocket Fuel Is Ready to Start Trading Friday

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that video ad startup YuMe was trading below its $9 IPO price; YUME shares climbed back above $9 last week and closed today at $11.

Here's another tech company headed for the public markets: French advertising startup Criteo has filed its public IPO documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which means the company could be trading in less than a month.

Criteo's latest funding round, completed a year ago, valued the company at $800 million.

Like Twitter - and just about every other company that has gone public this year - Criteo filed its initial documents with the SEC in private earlier this year, using cover provided by the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.

But, unlike Twitter, the timing of Criteo's filing isn't surprising at all, since the ad-tech world has been gabbing about it for months.

Criteo is a retargeting company, which means it helps e-commerce companies track prospects online and show them display ads. Last year, it made a profit of $1 million on sales of $354 million; in the first six months of this year, it lost $6.4 million on sales of $252.7 million.

More than half of Criteo's top-line dollars go back out the door via traffic-acquisition costs. It spent $205 million on TAC last year, and another $152 million in the first half of 2013.

Criteo, which is based in Paris, wants to list its American Depositary Shares on the Nasdaq under the "CRTO" ticker.

Criteo's filing follows disappointing public debuts for ad-tech startups this year. Marin Software and Tremor Media are trading below their IPO prices, and the general climate for ad-tech stocks has been lousy enough that Adap.TV chose to sell to AOL instead of following through on its IPO plans.

But now the conventional wisdom is that investors are once again willing to look at companies that combine technology and advertising, at least in some cases - see Facebook's triumphant return.

We should get a better sense of investors' appetite for ad tech at the end of this week, when Rocket Fuel, which helps advertisers buy "programmatic" inventory, is supposed to go public. People familiar with the company's plans said it expects to price its shares on Thursday, and head to the Nasdaq Friday morning.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Everett Collection)

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that video ad startup YuMe was trading below its $9 IPO price; YUME shares climbed back above $9 last week and closed today at $11.

No Internet? No Problem: YouTube Getting Ready to Let You Watch Videos Offline, on Your Phone.

YouTube streams more than six billion hours of video a month. Soon it will let people watch some of those videos even if they're not connected to the Web.

Next month, Google's video site will let viewers save clips on their phones and other mobile devices for up to 48 hours, so they can watch them when they're not online.

The videos will still be free, and Google will run ads on the clips, which will be available via its mobile apps.

That's a big change for the eight-year-old company, which has previously required a live Web connection to watch its videos (though there are plenty of workarounds).

YouTube announced the move in a blog post published late last night, and started telling its partners about its plans via email, as well; YouTube said it will allow uploaders to opt out of the offline option.

The practical benefit for YouTube viewers is that they'll be able to watch videos in places where they've previously been unable to do so, like planes or cars.* This should presumably boost overall viewing for the site, which already generates more than a quarter of its views - that's more than a billion views a day - via mobile.

If so, that may put more pressure on YouTube's ad rates by opening up more inventory.

Here's the text of YouTube's post announcing the move:

We're always exploring ways to bring more viewers to your content. As part of this effort, later this year we'll launch a new feature on YouTube's mobile apps that will help you reach fans - even when they're not connected to the Internet.

This upcoming feature will allow people to add videos to their device to watch for a short period when an Internet connection is unavailable. So your fans' ability to enjoy your videos no longer has to be interrupted by something as commonplace as a morning commute.

This is part of our ongoing updates to give people more opportunities to enjoy videos and channels on YouTube mobile. Check out the YouTube blog when this launches in November for more details on how this will work for viewers.

* I'll check, but I don't believe the move is relevant to Google's Chromecast gadget, which is designed to work in conjunction with mobile devices, but which relies on an Internet connection to play content on your TV. UPDATE: That's correct.

Facebook Says It Has Figured Out Mobile. Wall Street Says It Believes Facebook.

You can't say Wall Street has agreed to forgive and forget its past issues with Facebook. But it's getting closer: After a very strong Q2 earnings report, investors pushed shares up 17 percent in aftermarket trading.

Facebook is now trading at about $31 a share, nearly as high as it has been all year. That still doesn't bring it back to the $38 price from its 2012 IPO, but it's definitely progress.

Big picture: Facebook seems to have answered, at least for now, questions about its ability to handle the shift to mobile: Its users are headed there, and it is showing them ads there, and both usage and ad dollars are up.

Facebook also took pains to explain that it is still totally cool with the kids. Which sounds a bit strained when they say it, but until people can show statistics proving otherwise, investors may cut them some slack.

And Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also made a point of mentioning all the usage Facebook sees during prime time TV viewing hours. Translation: Hey Twitter - we can pitch social TV to advertisers, too.

Earlier:
It's more fun to come on an earnings call when Wall Street is psyched about your numbers, right?

At least that's the theory. Let's see how Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg do following a strong quarter, which has investors bidding up their stock more than 14 percent in after-hours trading.

Let's listen in. Actually, I'll listen: You guys watch me type a liveblog.

5:04 pm: Greetings. Listening to Mark Zuckerberg, reading with enthusiasm.

Points out that results today come from big investments a few years ago. Promises patience for more long-term payouts.

Did you know there are 5 billion people who aren't on Facebook? Facebook is coming for you, people who are very likely not reading this liveblog!

Facebook advertising isn't just making money for Facebook, it is somehow improving the world's overall economy.

Ratio of daily active users to monthly active users is increasing - that is, as more people come on to Facebook, more people spend more time on Facebook.

By the way, don't believe those "Facebook engagement decreasing" reports: Market share steady or increasing.

Now, about those teenagers you keep hearing about: They're still totally using Facebook! Here Zuck uses a phrase that I don't feel totally comfortable retyping. So.

Instagram: Still totally growing!

Instagram video growing fast. Facebook Graph Search and Facebook Home, not so much, but that's totally cool, says Zuck. Think long-term!

5:10 pm: Zuck still pumped, and now he's talking about ads, which is not a thing he would have been pumped to talk about a few years ago. Maybe even one year ago.

Shoutouts to all the Facebookers! "You're all helping to connect the world and push it forward."

5:11 pm: Now, Sheryl Sandberg, who is less forcefully excited. But reciting impressive numbers regardless.

Also talking up app ads, local ads.

And hey, don't look now but FB is up 20 percent since this afternoon's numbers.

Now taking time to talk up all the TV-watching, and TV-talking, that happens on Facebook. In other words: In case you didn't catch this earlier, Twitter, we are totally coming after the social TV business you've been building. Heads up!

(Apologies, missed a couple minutes here while multitasking.)

5:17 pm: And now CFO David Ebersman.

Usage numbers are great. 699 million average daily users in June. Total time spent: 20 billion minutes each day.

(More apologies. Was busy asking Facebook beat reporter Mike Isaac why he was Tweeting about the call while I covered the live blog for him.)

(Bunch of statistics you do not want to read about in a liveblog. If you are looking for that stuff, by the way, it's all over here.)

We're still going to pour a lot of money into capex, Ebersman says. So get used to it. (Google had to explain this to investors for a while, too.)

News Feed ads will be main ad growth engine for rest of the year. But note that they started up a year ago, which means Q3 and Q4 comps will be a little tougher. Okay, analysts? (Guide that number down a bit!)

Also, expenses are going to grow at a faster clip then revenue this year. (Got that, analysts?)

5:25 pm: And now, ladies and gents, here's Q&A, with Mike Isaac!

3:25 pm: Mike Isaac here, taking over for Peter on the questions from analysts.

3:26 pm: A question from Doug Anmuth on ads.

Basically, is your big ad growth a lot more ads in the feed, or better ad products?

3:26 pm: Sandberg: Both! All!

Also, we've got a big increase in demand from marketers.

3:27 pm: Mobile app install ads question - Sandberg says they're small but growing.

"It's basically an entirely new market ... we're growing quickly and helping to grow the market."

I asked about mobile app install ads, too, in a chat with Ebersman earlier. They're sorta mum on its success specifically, but I hear that developers like them.

3:28 pm: Oh, if you've noticed, my time stamp is wonky. That's because I'm sitting in an airport in Aspen, Colorado, liveblogging from the terminal as my flight has been delayed. Ho hum.

3:29 pm: A question on monetizing Instagram! Please tell us you have something in mind for that pretty photo-sharing app.

3:29 pm: Zuckerberg on Instagram: Non-answer.

Yes, we want to build a business. "Probably through advertising." But right now they're focused on just letting the thing grow like crazy.

True. It's up above 130 MAUs. Pretty crazy.

3:30 pm: Sandberg on growth in ad spend: Yes! Soon!

"I'm a believer that over time, this is where people are spending their time, and any marketer who wants to reach people is going to spend here."

Fingers crossed, Sheryl.

3:31 pm: Growth is still strong across regions outside of the U.S., Sandberg said.

Particular focus on Asia, seeing increasing adoption in APAC and the rest of the world.

3:33 pm: Sandberg says Facebook exchange is actually a small part of the company's business. They're expanding their on-the-ground sales force, too.

3:34 pm: Ebersman chimes in on how much the company is spending.

No end in sight to the amount Facebook is spending to invest in the business.

But he cites being "disciplined" and "focused" in their spending.

In other words, it's not all kegs and sushi bars for the campus. Lots of smart spending, he says.

3:36 pm: Sandberg: Facebook loves brands. Brands love Facebook.

The end.

3:37 pm: More TV talk in this call. Quite a direct shot over the bow at Twitter, the social company that has long promoted its "second-screen-ness" and complementary nature to television.

3:38 pm: Ebersman again on spending: Hardware costs probably going to go down, but product development is a variable.

5:39 pm: Hello again! It's Peter Kafka! I'm very excited!

Some talk about lumps and inflections re: mobile.

There was "more feed eligible demand" this quarter, says Ebersman. Yet, price didn't drop as they sold more ads.

5:43 pm: New question: Five percent of News Feed is now ads. Is that the "right" number and how does that vary across geography? Also a multipart question I didn't get.

Ebersman: Re: Five percent, it was 0 percent a year ago. We're happy with it. Varies by geography, and also by person (which maybe explains why I don't see that many ads in my feed compared to some complainers).

5:45 pm: Q: When are you going to get around to rolling out video ads? Also, what's going on in Europe?

Sandberg: We totally have video ads - you can embed a video in your post. "We're exploring how we can expand that" but if you think I'm going to talk about a product we haven't announced, then I would like to sell you a premium Bebo membership.

5:46 pm: Q: Hey Mark, how do you get partners to participate more actively in your platform? (And not worry you'll dump them in a year?)

Zuckerberg: We've been charging developers for distribution, and they like it. That's a shift.

5:48 pm: Big picture question for Zuck. How has life/perspective changed since you wrote founder's letter in your S-1 (14 months ago?)

Zuck: We hit the 1 billion people mark, which used to be a rallying cry. Now we have bigger ambitions. But now, meh. "The real goal is to connect everyone in the world, and map out everything there is." But! We weren't happy with mobile 18 months ago, so we had to do a lot of work on it. Coming into 2013, we started to see that we were in better shape.

So: Sort of a big picture answer. But maybe not really?

3:50 pm: Isaac here again!

Sorry about the timestamp.

3:50 pm: I swear we aren't time traveling.

3:50 pm: Question: Really guys, what ad units made you guys kill this quarter so hard?

3:51 pm: Sandberg: Direct response marketers are big contributors to growth. E-commerce doubled! They use all sorts of our ad products.

Lots of growth in mobile app install ads. Small market, but we offer a product that no one else has.

Yep, that ad unit is shining.

3:53 pm: Again, a question on growth.

Really, how?

3:54 pm: Direct response marketers are bumping up their ad budgets because they're getting good returns, Sandberg says.

Okay then.

3:55 pm: Ooh! A sort of sideways question on hiring and perhaps a way to talk about the ZuckerPAC, Fwd.us.

3:55 pm: Mark takes the hiring question.

Hiring great people is hard. But "our country doesn't produce the volume of engineeers that our companies want to hire." So basically that's why he's doing this Fwd thing.

3:56 pm: Sandberg highlights General Electric's Instagram campaigns.

They aren't paid ads, but rather fancy photos of GE-related products and such.

In other words, brands are willing to experiment.

3:57 pm: A custom audiences question - Sandberg said they've doubled the number of marketers using that particular product over the period of two quarters. Lots of big brands doing it.

3:58 pm: Sandberg plays up "PMDs" - or third-party ad sellers - and wants brands to buy through multiple sales channels.

3:59 pm: Last question is a softball. Why do consumers like your stuff?

3:59 pm: Zuckerberg says Instagram is easy, everyone loves photos and capturing moments.

4:00 pm: His comments on Facebook "Home" are interesting.

Look at it over the long term. Sort of like a seed that Facebook is planting.

"Expect these to become market-leading products."

4:00 pm: Just look at how naturally they fit into the flow of peoples' daily lives to get an idea of how long it will take to get popular, Zuckerberg says.

4:01 pm: And we're done!

Kafka and Isaac - out.

Publicis, Omnicom Close to Merger Deal

Omnicom Group Inc. and Publicis Groupe SA, the world's second- and third-biggest advertising companies, respectively, are near a deal to merge, people familiar with the situation said, creating what would be a $30 billion behemoth.

If a deal is completed, it would be billed as a merger of equals. The two companies each have a market capitalization of about $16 billion. Omnicom Chief Executive John Wren and Publicis CEO Maurice Levy are expected to be co-CEOs of the combined company, the people said. An announcement could come as early as Sunday, the people said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Ads Appear on Instagram, Just Like Instagram Said They Would

Instagram said it was going to deliver ads to your Feed, and then it said it again.

And now, here they are.

Designer Michael Kors started running this ad this morning. This is a version that ran in a brand's own Feed, but people who aren't following the company may see the same image anyway, with a "sponsored" tag where the timeline is in this image:

So there you go. An ad on Instagram looks exactly the way Instagram said it would look.

Bigger picture: An ad on Instagram is one of the reasons Facebook said it isn't going to jam up its own Feed with more ads - because it doesn't have to in order to make more money. Another way it can do that will be video ads, but we're not going to see those until next year.

Facebook Director Kate Aronowitz Shifts to Head Brand Design

Kate Aronowitz, Facebook's director of design of the past four and a half years, will shift roles and become Facebook's director of brand design, she announced on Wednesday at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo.

In the new role, Aronowitz will join Facebook's Global Creative Services team, reporting to Mark D'Arcy, the former Time Warner ad exec who moved to Facebook in 2011 to become director of global creative solutions.

"I think I can bring my background on how the design of Facebook and user experience works to my new position," Aronowitz said in an interview, "which I think will make for better creative brand content overall."

Aronowitz will be working more closely with Top-100 brands that spend millions of dollars in advertising on Facebook, beginning with high-end luxury brands. Instead of encouraging the more viral marketing that many agencies and brands aim for on social channels today, Aronowitz will push for more "compelling, targeted content" to speak to specific market segments, as well as more enduring content that has a longer shelf life across the network.

Previous to her time at Facebook, Aronowitz was director of design at LinkedIn, and before that, she was a senior manager of user experience and design at eBay, where she worked in the commerce giant's design department for six years.

Cross-Device Ad Startup Drawbridge Adds Mobile App-To-Web Retargeting (And Vice Versa)

Drawbridge, an ad targeting startup backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, is expanding its offerings today with a new feature allowing mobile advertisers to reach consumers with retargeted ads, regardless of whether they're using an app or on the mobile web.

Founder and CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan said that while ad retargeting (i.e., ads targeted based on your past visits and activity) is possible within apps, things get trickier when you try to cross the boundary between apps and websites: "It's literally two devices on the same device, separated by an iron wire." (I question her question use of "literally", but I think you get the point.) App developers can also try to reengage their users through alerts and notifications, but users can always turn those off.

In order to solve that problem, Drawbridge is "piggybacking" on its core technology. That technology examines user activity to help advertisers identify when multiple devices are likely being used by the same person. That allows advertisers to use data collected on the desktop to target ads on mobile. The company's two products launched last fall include PC-to-mobile retargeting and mobile app marketing. The mobile-to-mobile retargeting is intended to fill out the mobile marketing product, Sivaramakrishnan said.

Drawbridge has already run test campaigns with e-commerce companies, who were either trying to bring old customers back to the site or to convince current customers to buy more. Sivaramakrishnan said that in a campaign targeting lapsed users, the client reached 100 percent return on ad spend within three weeks. Another campaign targeted active users and reached 100 percent ROAS within a single day.

Advertisers will have a chance to test this out for themselves, Sivaramakrishnan said, because the new capabilities include an A/B testing framework. So advertisers can run part of their campaign with Drawbridge's retargeting and part of their campaign without it and see which ads perform better.

Earlier this year, Drawbridge announced that it was partnering with TRUSTe to allow mobile consumers to opt out of its targeting. Since then, Sivaramakrishnan said that some users have indeed opt out, but that the rates haven't been "heavy".

Publicis And Omnicom Are Merging To Form A $35.1B Advertising Leviathan

Today Publicis and Omnicom, two of the "big five" global advertising and marketing agencies, announced a "merger of equals", in which the two will combine to create the world's biggest agency, with some $22.7 billion in annual revenues and a market capitalization of $35.1 billion. The pair say that the new Publicis Omnicom Group initially will be jointly run by the two existing CEOs, John Wren from Omnicom and Maurice Levy from Publicis, and headquartered both in New York and Paris, with a holding company HQ in the Netherlands.

The companies will trade publicly as ONC (currently Omnicom's symbol) on both the NYSE and Euronext.

The confirmation - after reports of the deal swirled earlier this week - was delivered today in a press conference on a hot Sunday summer afternoon in Paris - a slightly oxymoronic setting for a megadeal.

"For many years, we have had great respect for one another as well as for the companies we each lead. This respect has grown in the past few months as we have worked to make this combination a reality. We look forward to co-leading the combined company and are excited about what our people can achieve together for our clients and our shareholders," the co-CEOs said together.

If Google is the world's biggest digital advertising network, the merger of these two will create an advertising megacorp that will be the world's biggest provider of advertising to feed that machine. It will be twice the size of its nearest rival, WPP. While there are two other agencies in addition to these, Interpublic and Havas, they are significantly smaller. This will lead, inevitably, to antitrust scrutinty from regulators. Today, the companies, both already global operators, noted that they will need regulatory approval in 41-46 countries.

"We are not expecting anything that would prevent us from going forward," Wren said at the press conference (according to Reuters). "We are confident that we will get regulatory approvals," Levy also noted.

It may also spur more merger activities among other players.

Without a doubt, the history of the ad industry has been one of ongoing consolidation, and in that regard this seems like a logical and inevitable step. Some of the agencies that were once rivals and will now coexist under one owner will include BBDO, Saatchi & Saatchi, DDB, Leo Burnett, Razorfish, Publicis Worldwide, Fleishman-Hillard, DigitasLBi, Ketchum, StarcomMediaVest, OMD, BBH, Interbrand and ZenithOptimedia, with clients covering some of the world's biggest buyers of advertising, including mobile carriers like Verizon and AT&T, drinks companies like Coca-Cola, financial services companies like Visa, and many more. The companies say they will have "efficiences" of $500 million as a result of the deal; whether that will lead to layoffs or closures has yet to be announced.

But while this plays to type in some regards, the world of advertising and marketing is also up against growth of other disruptive forces, for example the change in consumer habits brought about by the internet. That has taken the rug out from some of the more traditional formats for advertising, such as print media, and pushed more spend towards digital formats like the internet and mobile advertising.

These are still relatively smaller players in the wider advertising ecosystem: worldwide there will be about $519 billion spent in marketing and advertising this year across all mediums. But if you break out a newer area like mobile advertising, it's expected to be just under $9 billion this year globally, according to the IAB.

Still, the smart money sees the writing on the wall. TV advertising dominates today, Nielsen noted earlier this week, but it has grown by just 3.5% so far this year while Internet has gone up by 26.3%. The IAB estimated that mobile will go up by 83% this year.

Publicis and Omnicom's rival WPP projects that by 2018, 40% of ad spend that it oversees will come from digital. That is driving a number of acquisitions and investments, but it is also fuelling the rise of a new kind of advertising company focused around advertising technology (ad tech) to better measure, leverage and distribute ads in these new mediums. The rise of digital media is also dovetailing with the growth of advertising and digital opportunities in emerging markets like China, South America, India and so on.

All of this plays strongly into the technology and startup ecosystem, both in terms of the companies that are growing up around these innovations, but also because such a large part of the tech world is built around the consumer internet, and much of the consumer internet is built on free, ad-based models. Consolidation of players like Omnicom and Publicis speaks to a growing desire to better scale and consolidate on the kinds of returns at can be made from newer platforms like the internet.

Twitter's TV Guide Experiment Gets a Little Closer to Prime Time

Twitter often describes itself as a digital town square. But that's not the only metaphor it likes: Twitter is also intent on becoming a TV Guide.

Dick Costolo and company talked a lot about the Twitter + TV concept in the runup to their IPO, but the idea is still a work in progress. You can get a hint of Twitter's ambitions in its latest mobile app overhaul.

You'll have to look hard, though:

• Get the newest version of Twitter's iOS and Android apps.
• Click on the "Discover" tab.
• Click on the "Trending" button.
• Scroll down.
• Keep scrolling.
• Keep scrolling ...

Got it? Tucked away in the corner of its app, Twitter is now promoting TV shows to its users, supposedly based on the amount of chatter they are generating on the service (click images to enlarge).

A handful of Twitter users saw these banners this summer, when Twitter tried a test run. Now all of you can see them.

The Twitter TV promotions aren't formal ads, though you could easily imagine a way Twitter might charge for them, directly or indirectly. More important to Twitter is the idea that it can drive traffic to TV shows (which it is also trying to do with Comcast and the cable company's "Seeit" buttons).

Twitter also likes the notion that TV shows are something that appeal to lots of mainstream users - the kind it would very much like to recruit and keep on the service.

So what will all of that mean? Not much, yet: If Twitter was really serious about this stuff, it would move it out of a subfolder in a section of the app normal people don't ever visit. So it's safe to assume this is still in the experimental phase.

On the other hand, the fact that Twitter is now experimenting where everyone can see its work, instead of a tiny subset of its users, means ... something. The trick is figuring out how to surface this stuff in a way that doesn't dismay its current users, and, more importantly, in a way that makes sense to new users, who Twitter really needs.

My hunch: Twitter eventually marries TV recommendations with the mechanics of Magic Recs and Event Parrot, two other Twitter experiments that deliver information - interesting users, or interesting news - to users who have asked for it.

AllThingsD Week in Review: BlackBerry Is Just Resting, and YouTube Goes Mobile First

In case you missed anything, here's a quick roundup of some of the news that powered AllThingsD this week:

1. Amid great uncertainty, BlackBerry publicly pledged this week that it's not dead yet and, in fact, will rise again. Meanwhile, a new suitor for the once-dominant mobile company emerged: Lenovo is confidentially exploring BlackBerry's books as it mulls a potential bid.
2. Since April, Yahoo has made a big push around its Facebook-esque "stream ads" that show up within the scrolling feeds of the company's finance, sports and news pages. Sources this week said that it's an even bigger initiative than previously thought: CEO Marissa Mayer hopes stream ads will one day be Yahoo's greatest driver of new revenue.
3. This week, security outfit QuarksLab claimed that Apple's messaging service iMessage was not secure, and could be opened up by either curious Apple employees or by a government mandate. But on Friday, Apple vehemently denied that claim.
   
4. After a decent Q3 earnings report, Google showed a little bit more of its hand re video plans. CEO Larry Page announced new numbers that suggest mobile is more important to YouTube than ever.
5. Sources said Twitter plans to significantly update its direct-messaging product in the near future, bringing it to the forefront as rival messaging apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp continue to thrive.
6. Who wants an iPhone 5c? Apparently, about half the number of people who want the more expensive 5s. Make no mistake, it's still selling like an iPhone, but a growing chorus of supply-chain-trimming rumors suggest that Apple's expectations for the device might have been too high.
7. A long list of tech titans and well known companies are supporting the nonprofit Code.org as it tries to bring computer science to more schools. But two names in its first educational program might jump out more than others: Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, who will be leading coding tutorials during Code.org's worldwide "Hour of Code."
8. After Apple CEO Tim Cook hired and then fired retail head John Browett last year, the question of who would replace him became hotly debated. Now, we finally have an answer: Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts, who will join in the spring.
9. It's already possible to send cash to friends or relatives online through services like PayPal or Venmo, but this week, Square unveiled its entry in the field. In All Things Reviewed, Walt Mossberg reviewed Square Cash and found it to be "simpler and more private" than its established competitors.
10. IBM turned in disappointing earnings on Wednesday, and it's worse than a quarterly problem: The longtime No. 2 software-revenue company in the world, behind Microsoft, has now slipped in the rankings. Its replacement? A press-release-happy Oracle.

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All of These Google Chromecast Ads Are Awesome

Lots of smart people I know are very, very excited about Chromecast, Google's new TV-streaming gadget.

I think it's pretty cool, too. But only as an iterative step: Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure out The Big Picture, but to me this seems like a cheaper version of Apple TV and Roku's boxes, both of which do very similar things.

But Apple TV and Roku were pretty cheap to begin with, and now Chromecast is just about free. Google is selling it for $35, but it's giving you three free months of Netflix (even if you're already a Netflix subscriber), which brings the net cost down to $11. If you smoke cigarettes and you live in New York City, you will pay more for a pack of Marlboro Lights.* [UPDATE: That was fast: A day after announcing the Netflix deal, Google has pulled the plug. So now it's back to $35 -- or the price of four movie tickets (not in New York, though).]

So if Chromecast's main contribution is that it makes this kind of Web-to-TV box something that literally everyone can afford, then that's still pretty important, because it makes Web-to-TV that much more commonplace. As long as it works.**

And if Chromecast is going to become the device that lots of people buy, it will be in part because of Google's super-smart ad campaign, which does a brilliant job of quickly explaining the Web-to-TV concept, and making it look like something normal people would love to do.

I've already raved about the main Chromecast ad, but Google has a whole set of these up and running, and they're all awesome examples of great story telling. In 15 seconds, no less.

* Don't smoke cigarettes!

** It's worth noting that Roku also has its own "streaming stick," which looks just like Chromecast (minus some features). But it doesn't push that device - instead it is focused on the Roku 3, which has a bigger footprint. I wonder why that is. (Ah! Thanks to Zach Seward and Steve Kovach for the quick answer: Roku's stick won't work with most TVs.)

Google, Hollywood and Drama, Drama, Drama

Hollywood is about drama. It's about suspense, it's about intrigue. I think our relationship with Hollywood is similar.

– Google Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora on Google and the entertainment industry, in conversation at D: Dive Into Media

Google's Biz Chief: 50 Percent of Ads Will Go Online in the Next Five Years

Ads are part of the very fabric of our society, and have been for years. But ad execs want to stick with what works: It’s why the bulk of today’s industry ad budgets are still pointed at traditional mediums like television, print and the like.

Not for long, according to Google SVP and chief business officer Nikesh Arora, in conversation at the D: Dive Into Media conference on Tuesday.

“There’s currently about $800 billion in the global advertising market today. That’s a very large number, but online advertising accounts for less than $100 billion of that number,” Arora said. “There is a reasonable probability that over 50 percent of advertising goes online in the next five years.”

Ambitious, to say the least. We’ve been stuck in the same model for the better part of the past century, and companies like Google have spent the last decade trying to convince the ad industry that, yes, the Web can indeed make you money. That’s exactly what YouTube’s Robert Kyncl has been pitching with the online video arm of Google and its channels initiative, not to mention Google’s other potential ad businesses (which have indeed been successful).

Funny, considering Arora wasn’t about to say what online advertising would look like 10 years from now. He just knows that whatever it’ll look like, it’s going to be successful.

He gave a bit of insight into how it’ll get there though. “The big tipping point we're waiting for is Internet connected televisions,” Arora said. “We’re waiting for things going from ‘nice-to-have’ to ‘must-have.’” So basically, when his company can get that whole Google TV thing to take off — or perhaps others in the space wanting to do the same — we’ll see the tides of change begin to shift.

Check back with you in five years, Nikesh.

Stay tuned for video highlights from the session.

SEC Watch: Swoop Raising $5M To Embellish Food Websites With Deals And Ads

Swoop, a company that works with food websites to automatically inject relevant deals, coupons, and ads, has raised $3 million of a $5 million Series B, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing was first spotted by Mass High Tech.

When the service launched in February, CEO Ron Elwell pitched it as a way for publishers to create a “search discovery” experience on their sites. If you’re looking up recipes, a natural next step is to figure out a place where you can buy the ingredients at a low price - with Swoop, publishers can provide that information without directing visitors to another site.

Elwell also told me that the technology could be used in other areas, like baby and beauty products.

A visit to the Swoop website suggests that the model hasn’t changed too much. The company is also pitching itself as “a Native Advertising service that seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services,” and it features case studies on how food brands ran Swoop campaigns and saw much higher engagement rates than standard display advertising. At the same time, Swoop still says most of its content consists of automatically aggregated deals and coupons, rather than advertising. (In the screenshot above, you can see regular Swoop links and a butter-related ad.)

In addition to Elwell, Swoop’s founding team includes CTO Simeon Simeonov. Both Elwell and Simeonov have VC experience - Elwell was a partner at Bessemer Ventures, while Simeonov was an executive in residence at General Catalyst Partners and a technology partner at Polaris Venture Partners.

I’ve emailed Swoop for confirmation, and will update if I hear back. The company previously raised $4.8 million from US Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners, and General Catalyst. The filing doesn’t say who’s investing in the new round.

Apple’s smart Maps maneuver

“It might seem as if Apple chose its iOS 6 release last week to practice the biblical directive to love one’s enemy. For, by ejecting Google Maps from updated iPads and iPhones, Apple hath caused glorious comparisons to shine upon its foe,” Brad Hill writes for Engadget. “If most people were unaware of comparative feature sets and quality aspects that distinguish Google Maps from Apple Maps, every tech-loving person on God’s earth is an expert now.”

“I argue that replacing Google Maps with Apple Maps was shrewd, inevitable and an indicator that Apple understands the true battle it wages,” Hill writes. “By grafting its own Maps product into the nervous system of its mobile OS, Apple accomplishes two important things. First, the company’s primary mobile competitor is exorcised from the main body. This outcome might be viewed as the remedy to an ailment that never should have occurred... Second, Apple positions itself to harvest future local ad revenue. Apple Maps, despite its spatial confusions, has 25 percent more business listings (100 million of them) than Google does.”

Much more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Joe Architect" for the heads up.]