Ginny Marvin says, “Yahoo said, this week, that it is now offering brands independent verification on display and video advertising for both viewability and fraud measurement. In addition to Yahoo’s own MRC-accredited viewability tool, Prime View, advertisers can use third-party solutions such as comScore, DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science and Moat. “At Yahoo, we believe advertisers should have the flexibility to verify viewability and fraud levels with the tools of their choice,” Dennis Buchheim, VP of product management at Yahoo, “which is why we’re partnering with leading,... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Major publishers and online media companies are all vying for a piece of the rapidly expanding online video advertising spend pie.   In advance of next week’s NewFronts, Yahoo has unveiled a new native video ad format. As detailed by AdAge’s Tim Peterson, the new ads, which will appear on the Yahoo Homepage as well as its digital magazines and mobile apps, play automatically on mute and can be viewed full screen if a user chooses. In an effort to address concerns about viewability, advertisers are charged for an ad view only after three seconds. If a user... [...]

Greg Finn says, “Yahoo, already a leader in video, is bringing a new set of ad units to video content. The announcement was made a week ahead of the Yahoo’s presentation at the NewFrontsnext week. The new ad units will allow advertisers to push native content or advertise video-based app-install ads with Yahoo Gemini. The native video ads have seemingly been tested already with quite positive results. According to the release, users that viewed native video ads on Yahoo saw brand favorability increase up to 50% — and purchase intent also increasing up to 28%. The tests for video app-installs... [...]

Lauren Orsini says, “Yahoo is planning an internal reshuffle that could effectively end the independence of its most popular acquisition, the visual blogging platform Tumblr. The Information reports that CEO Marissa Mayer spoke about the major changes inside the company at an offsite meeting with executives. She also reportedly asked Tumblr CEO David Karp which Yahoo executive he’d like to report to from now on. Yahoo spent $1.1 billion to acquire Tumblr in May 2013, and it looks like the company is finally planning to seek a return on that investment. Tumblr’s highly visual format makes... [...]

Lara O’Reilly says, “Yahoo’s digital advertising recovery is definitely happening. But it’s not happening fast enough. The latest forecast from research group eMarketer predicts that Twitter will overtake Yahoo in terms of total digital display ad revenue (which includes ads that appear on desktop and laptop computers plus mobile phones and tablets) in the US for the first time in 2015. And that’s despite eMarketer forecasting that Yahoo will report a lift in US display ad growth this year for the first time since it started tracking the company’s ad revenues... [...]

Amy Gesenhues says, “Amazon.com’s e-commerce platform Webstore is on its way out. According to a report on Internet Retailer, the e-commmerce solution for small to mid-sized merchants will shut down in 2016. ChannelAdvisor Corp’s CEO Scot Wingo told Internet Retailer that Amazon had begun notifying its Webstore customers this week of plans to discontinue the service in the coming year. “We have about 100 customers that utilize the Amazon storefront technology,” said Wingo, “We are working with them to find new solutions.” The decision has prompted a thread in Amazon’s sellers... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Yahoo is bringing its extensive audience data and targeting capabilities to video advertising. Yahoo announced Wednesday that Audience Ads are now available on the Brightroll Demand Side Platform (DSP), the video advertising platform the company acquired last November,. Audience Ads allow advertisers to target users based on demographic and behavioral data across Brightroll’s video supply on and off Yahoo’s owned and operated properties. Yahoo claims to have behavior and interest data from more than a billion users globally. It also harnesses user data from Yahoo... [...]

Carly Okyle says, “There are so many passwords to remember — email, bank accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, news subscriptions, just to name a few. Trying to keep in mind which combination of letters and numbers and symbols goes to what site can be frustrating and time-consuming, which is probably why people routinely use obvious ones that are easy to remember — and easy to hack. Knowing this, Yahoo has created a way to permit access to their email without entering passwords, which it introduced at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, on Sunday. Yahoo’s new system allows... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “As one part of its growth strategy, Yahoo has bet heavily on native ads. The company’s Gemini platform offers both mobile search and in-stream/native display ads to marketers. Yahoo also says its native ads perform much better than conventional display ads. Forecaster eMarketer has estimated the market for native ads in the US will be worth roughly $5 billion by 2017. During the recent IAB event in Phoenix, Arizona Yahoo walked me through consumer research that supports its native ad consumer claims and offered some best practices advice. As a general matter, the... [...]

Danny Sullivan says, “Twitter today announced the release of its first official WordPress plugin, bringing WordPress publishers easier access to a host of Twitter features and functionality. The plugin gives publishers the ability to: Generate Twitter Cards: Twitter Cards, which extend Twitter’s 140-character display with thumbnail images, headlines and subheads, can be automatically generated for each of a site’s pages. Customize the look — including the color of links and borders — of embedded tweets. Directly embed Twitter video on pages. Add tweet buttons to posts: The buttons... [...]