Another year has gone by and we have been busy little elves completing a record 22 releases in 2009- that works out to about a release every two weeks. This is in comparison to 13 releases we did in 2008. When we are so involved in constantly making incremental improvements, it is hard to step back and see how much the product has improved compared to last year.

Last year I made a promise to improve overall quality and increase the pace of improvement. Looking back, I feel comfortable in claiming that we have delivered in what has been a difficult time for our industry and the world economy as a whole.

In the relentless and sometime grueling schedule to get out new features on time and to spec, we appreciate very much your feedback and sometime your vocal criticism. We have learned all too many times the hard way it is difficult to please everyone and one man’s feature request is another’s annoyance.  But the worst criticism for anything is apathy and perhaps by that yardstick the very vocal feedback shows us that you do care about our products perhaps a little more passionately than imagined.

Almost 90% of new features that we build are driven by customer insistence or from sales so that it fits our strategic vision of where we want to be as a company. However, every once in a while we have the freedom to slip in something when the bean counters were not looking. Well, I am writing to you today to announce just such a thing. It’s a kind of thing that we think is not going to bring in any additional revenue or close that major deal we have been salivating over for a year but something we did because we wanted to and because we had the chutzpah to imagine you may like it too.

Wouldn’t it be a nice to be able to shut down an ad just by looking at it? How often have you seen an ad and wondered how it was performing or wanted to find more details about it? We are working on a product that allows us to read your mind that we think will revolutionize the industry. While we get clearance for it from the FDA, we thought we could give you the closest thing to Mind Serving (t).So meanwhile, I give you ZEDO ADMagic. You can download it from the home dashboard of your ZEDO account and here’s a video which shows how it works:  http://www.zedo.com/demos/ZEDOAdMagic.html

It is Beta software. That means exactly what it says: treat it like a child. It may behave unexpectedly. If it causes you to double your revenues, cause the Dear Leader to press The Button, or our charismatic President to give you a tax credit, we refuse to take responsibility. We encourage you to send in your platitudes and of course your strident criticism. We lose more sleep over them than you could ever imagine. It keeps us hungry, gives us artistic license to send out I-told-you-so emails and prevents us from sending out too many unimaginative self congratulatory emails that just clog our email servers.

I am proud of it.  I would be embarrassed to call it a labor of love even though several members of our talented team have spent hours on it when they could have spent it with their families. Let’s just call it a thank you gift for now – for sticking with us through the good and the bad.

It is just the beginning of a possibility. If the feedback is encouraging, we can spend more resources to develop it more or send it to an untimely grave. We sincerely hope you will like it and you can see where it could lead.

But we have other promises to keep. I can’t tell you about them yet, except I think a few of them will revolutionize ad operations. Talk is cheap anyways. But if  you have the patience to wait two weeks, we will have a steady stream of hopefully pleasant surprises waiting for you throughout 2010.

Joseph Jacob
CTO
ZEDO Inc

Many people think that they understand what browser cookies are, but there are many myths, misconceptions and negative perceptions that surround the mysterious text files. Many people are lead to think that cookies (and the ad servers that send them to your PC) are spyware or malware. But that is far from the truth.  In fact, cookies can be good for you!  No, not the ones with sugar, butter, and frosting, but the ones that enable you to have a personalized experience when surfing the web.

Recently a brilliant weblog was published by “Lifehacker” titled, Fact and Fiction: The Truth About Browser Cookies. The author explained how cookies are simply tiny bits of text that get stored on your computer, by your web browser, when you visit websites.  It is true that cookies do log information about some of your online habits, but they do not steal personal information, or share personal information, or enable viruses to invade your computer.  Cookies are however, still misunderstood and often opted-out of.  Sadly, the negative perceptions are not only inaccurate, but could actually decrease an individual’s online experience.  Without cookies, the websites that you visit would not be able to deliver you customized advertisements based on your interests (a similar concept to which Amazon has gained much of its success from: web personalization).  The diagram below shows how this relationship between you and your websites is developed.  We hope that it offers some clarity on how cookies can be good for you!

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 02:39 PM IST (09:09 AM GMT)
San Francisco, United States and Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Tuesday, December 29, 2009 — (Business Wire India)

ZEDO Inc., the largest privately held ad server in the US, today announced that it has added European ad network Pictas Interactive to its ever-growing customer base worldwide.

ZEDO has been expanding its presence in the European market. Recent feature developments for Europe include new formats and built in ad network optimization, behavioral targeting data and a self service platform.

Oana Dereli, Managing Partner at Pictas Group said, “The difference between Pictas Interactive and the other Eastern European ad networks is the fact that we deliver real targeted advertising, which benefits our clients. The future prospects look brighter. Several great formats that ZEDO offers have already been rolled out to the ad network. We are very happy that our clients now have access to the ZEDO platform to get informed in real time about the campaign status and make quick changes, if necessary.”

“ZEDO is excited by the demand in Europe.” said Amit Pai, Head of European Sales. “We plan to make ZEDO the largest privately held ad server in Europe. ZEDO has formed powerful strategic partnerships and continues to sign new customers on a weekly basis.”

ABOUT PICTAS INTERACTIVE

Pictas Group recently launched Pictas Interactive, an online vertical ad network focusing on parents and children. One of the premier advertising networks in Romania, Pictas gathers websites with a common specific target: diverse informative articles, online contests, online shopping and entertaining activities for both parents and children. The Advertisers benefit from targeted advertising, low costs, and consultancy from Pictas online marketing specialists, while Publishers benefit financially by placing ads on their websites. (www.pictas-interactive.com)

About ZEDO

ZEDO, Inc., the largest privately held ad server in the US, has been offering a variety of products and services to websites, advertisers and networks for 10 years. ZEDO focuses on premium technology to increase ad performance and maximize revenue for publishers. This includes cutting edge behavioral targeting; ad network optimization; video ad serving; ad serving on iphones; a widely acclaimed easy-to-use UI; self-service advertising and new formats to meet advertisers’ needs for innovation.

ZEDO is headquartered in San Francisco and has four development centers in Russia and India. (www.zedo.com)

Advertising server ZEDO, Inc. has tapped behavioral ad firm eXelate for an improved behavioral targeting platform. The partnership will give ZEDO ad customers the ability to tap into the behavioral targeting data which eXelate has compiled.

by Kristina Knight

eXelate has data related to 170 million unique online consumers.

“Our partnership with eXelate will give our customers easy, seamless access to powerful targeting data directly in their ZEDO ad management interface. It is clear that behavioral targeting data can both enhance campaign performance, and help drive significantly higher (up to 10-20x) CPMs for our clients – a one-two punch to help drive revenue,” said Summer Koide, VP of Products & Services for ZEDO.

ZEDO’s advertisers will be able to target using the compiled information based on interests, purchase intent and 20 other advertising segments. Marketers won’t have to learn a new platform, the information will be available directly from ZEDO’s existing advertising management platform. This should give marketers access to better targeting and the ability to better engage consumers outside the context of their existing website.

“eXelate’s integration with the ZEDO ad serving platform enables data targeting to not only the large customers that ZEDO serves, but also an underserved segment of the marketplace, namely the numerous niche direct publishers and ad networks that seek to leverage seamless audience targeting. So, in essence we are also ‘bringing data targeting to the longtail’, which is in keeping with eXelate’s philosophy of ‘Data Anywhere. Audience Everywhere’,” said Mark Zagorski, the Chief Revenue Officer of eXelate.

Tags: ad targeting, advertising targeting, behavioral targeting, eXelate, online advertising, ZEDO

Phew….We have been busy lately. And, good news – intelligent PASSBACK tags will be available in mid November!

What are PASSBACK tags?

Ad networks don’t always have an ad to serve for every impression a publisher sends them. So what do they do when they don’t have ads to serve? Correct: serve defaults or PSAs. In short, they serve ads that make no money for the publisher.

This is where ZEDO’s PASSBACK Tag steps in to make some MORE money for publishers. Now our AdNet RevMax product allows you to sequence ads in order of the highest eCPM for each country/ ad dimension combination. When setup as backfill with ad networks, the PASSBACK tag will automatically serve the next ad on “Ranks Ads” (sequencing dashboard). So all you have to do is use AdNet RevMax and rank your ads by highest eCPM for each country/ ad dimension combination.

This Saturday, our team will release a new Ad Trafficking form.  If you haven’t already, contact your Account Manager to get a walkthrough of what the new Trafficking page looks like.  There are several changes, from information organization, to design, to code optimization.

Why’d you change this?  It was fine the way it was and I’m used to it.

Our old form included years of iterations and feature improvements.  The code had become bloated and the page itself had its own share of usability issues (refreshing, for example, when you click on certain parts).

Additionally, it had become challenging to train new users.  The information, as laid out on the old page design, was not clearly categorized or delineated.

Ok.  What are the changes?

Several!  But some of the important and noteworthy ones include:

1. Code Optimization. From 12,000 lines of code, to 4,000.  Techies out there will know why we’re so proud.
2. Better error messaging. More informative error messages and feedback.
3. No Refreshing Until Page Submit. (!!!)
4. New Functionality. Create a new ad dimension right in this page!  Look for “Add New” option at the bottom of the dropdown.
5. New Controls. New Interactive Geo Targeting, New Language Targeting, Time of Day, etc., all new user controls for complex targeting

Sounds good.  What if there are problems?

Like with any significant code change, there is always a risk of a problem or two.  For this reason, we intend to support the Classic Form for a period of time post-release.

You can preview a Demo of the new page on the Create Campaign page in your ZEDO account.

San Francisco, CA — August 21, 2009 – ZEDO, Inc., the largest privately held ad server in the US,  today announced that it has added PostClick in Australia to its ever growing customer base worldwide.  
 
ZEDO recently decided to enter the Australian market. Due to growing demand and customer frustration with limited competitive offerings and poor service ZEDO is now releasing its high quality technology and high quality customer service for Australian publishers. Since launching in Australia with PostClick as an early customer, demand for ZEDO has skyrocketed in the Australian and South East Asian markets. ZEDO plans to provide dedicated sales, support and implementation resources for clients in these markets.
 
Summer Koide, VP of Product and Services at ZEDO said, “We are very excited to enter the Australian market, and look forward to working with many new and successful Internet companies here.”
 
Andrew Lockwood, CEO Post Click, Australia commented, “The decision to use ZEDO is part of our roll out of a high performance ad network for premium sites within Australia. ZEDO’s advanced capabilities for optimization are the key reasons for choosing ZEDO”
 
 
About PostClick
 
PostClick is Australia’s leading site representation firm. They service specialist mid-tail sectors across business, finance, news lifestyle, and multi-cultural internet spaces and are one of the few networks in the Australian market that offer site-specific, channel, run-of-network and bespoke offerings across more than 200 Australian and International websites.
 
 
About ZEDO
 
ZEDO, Inc., is an Internet ad serving company that has been offering a variety of products and services to web sites, advertisers and networks for 10 years. ZEDO, now the largest privately held ad server in the US, focuses its technology on maximizing revenue for web publishers. ZEDO sits in the premium sector of the Internet advertising landscape and believes that technology can increase the quality of ad impressions and therefore the revenues that publishers earn from advertising. 
 
ZEDO offers several technologies to increase publisher revenue including: cutting edge behavioral targeting, ad network optimization that calculates which ad network will pay the publisher the most, ad serving in flash video players, a widely acclaimed easy to use ad serving UI, a self service advertising technology and new formats to attract advertisers in any market conditions.
 
ZEDO is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Mumbai, Goa, Pune and St. Petersburg.
 
For more information visit www.ZEDO.com or call 415.348.1975

We’re very excited about the recent release of Friendster’s Do-It-Yourself Ads, using Self Service Advertising Built by ZEDO!

FRIENDSTER Launches “Do It Yourself” Ads.
Small Businesses Can Now Buy Local Ads with Any Budget on Friendster

Mountain View, CA, July 28, 2009 –Friendster, Inc., a top 20 global website based on traffic*, today announced the launch of Friendster “Do It Yourself” (DIY) Ads, a simple and cost-effective way for local businesses to buy and launch highly targeted ads with any budget on Friendster. DIY Ads are available immediately for use by anyone, including Friendster’s tens of millions of active users and Internet users around the globe. Businesses and users can buy ads directly at http://www.friendster.com/advertise/index.php

With Friendster DIY Ads, businesses can promote products and services to segments of Friendster’s vast network of over 100 million users globally, from over 75 different countries. Advertisers can target thousands of Friendster users by utilizing a set of demographic targeting data for their ads such as country, age, gender, and marital status. Friendster DIY Ads can be purchased from any country globally and can currently be targeted to the following countries; US, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Ads can also be targeted to states, cities and provinces in all countries except Singapore.

Advertisers have full control of the messaging and creative in their ads, and ads can be optimized over time allowing advertisers to test campaigns on limited budgets. Friendster DIY Ads support both graphical and text ads, and all ads are in the standard 300×250 web ad size. Advertisers can link their ads directly to a web site, blog, Friendster profile, or anywhere online. Ads are purchased in a pay-for-impression or CPM model which gives advertisers the ability to determine how much it will cost per 1000 impressions (or times) their ad will be shown by country on Friendster. Paypal is the accepted method of payment for ads, advertisers can use their credit card or debit card to add money to their Paypal account.

Friendster DIY Ads complement the family owned business culture in Asia where Friendster is a leading social network and has more than 75 million registered users. Plus, Asia is the largest market of Internet users (Asia has 41 percent of the world’s Internet users, more than double the 19 percent from the U.S.), and Asia is the fastest-growing region in the world.*

Once a Friendster DIY Ad campaign is launched, ads are strategically placed and integrated into the Friendster web site and appear along side content created by the Friendster community. This approach allows advertisers to get their ads in front of users in the right places, without disrupting the user experience. Advertisers have access to a performance chart and a dashboard of metrics surrounding their campaigns. Metrics include total impressions, total clicks, total dollars spent, and campaign flight dates. Friendster does review all ads before they launch to ensure they comply with the Friendster Advertiser Guidelines, see link http://www.friendster.com/advertise/guidelines.php

How to Create a Friendster “Do It Yourself” Ad:
A Friendster account is required to place an ad. To create a new Friendster account, please visit:http://www.friendster.com

• Log-in to Friendster
  Go directly to the Friendster “Do It Yourself” Ad set up page: http://www.friendster.com/advertise/index.php
• Create your Ad
  Click “Create Ad” and build a text or graphical ad. Script the ad text, upload an image for graphical ads, and choose the dates when the ad is to start and finish, and add a link/URL.
• Choose your Budget
  Enter ad campaign budget. Advertisers will not be billed for more than the amount specified for the campaign. Once the country in which to run the ad is chosen, advertiser will see what the cost is per 1000 of impressions of the ad in that country.
• Select your Target
  Choose country, age, gender, marital status, and category targets for the ad.
• Launch your Ad
  Save the ad and deploy it on Friendster!

For more information, please visit the Friendster DIY FAQ page, http://www.friendster.com/advertise/faq.php

Richard Kimber, CEO of Friendster said, “Small businesses can now buy ads to promote their products in a very smart and cost effective way locally to thousands or millions of Friendster users. ‘Do It Yourself’ Ads are integrated seamlessly into the Friendster user experience and community which allow advertisers to reach their target audiences in much more natural, and non-obtrusive way, we look forward to welcoming all the new advertisers aboard.”

Roy de Souza, CEO of ZEDO said, “ZEDO is excited to have collaborated with Friendster on the configuration of their ‘Do It Yourself’ Ads built on ZEDO’s own self service platform. In this current economic environment where social networks need to solve monetization challenges, ZEDO believes self service is a great strategy. It increases revenue without additional capex or cost of a larger sales force.”

Press Contact
Jan Freeman, 415.348.1975 

Do you wish that you could have a basket of ads by your side, so you could just add good ads and remove the bad ads from a channel?

ZEDO has released a feature which allows you to add or remove any creative to or from a channel directly from the “Rank Ads” page.

Adding Creative

You can directly add a creative to the desired level on the “Rank Ads” page, and set an impression limit and frequency cap too.

Removing Creative

Removing a bad creative is also easy. Just mouse over on the ad name, click on the “recycle bin” icon and select the ads to be untargeted from the channel.

Ads to be removed will be shown as below:

When you click Submit, all the selected ads will be added and/or removed.

You can also remove ads from the Channel Dashboard!

Ads to be removed will be shown as below:

All the changes will be saved on clicking submit.