Self-directed solution unlocks the potential of social determinants of health to power precise media and healthcare targeting

HealthVerity, the leader in synchronizing transformational technologies and real-world data (RWD) to advance the science, today announced the launch of HealthVerity Audience Manager. This disruptive solution provides media agencies and life sciences organizations with a truly self-directed analytics environment that enables previously unattainable insights regarding patient behavior in combination with social determinants of health (SDOH), all in a privacy protected, HIPAA-compliant manner. Audience Manager is ideally suited to synchronize healthcare and SDOH data with ever-more sophisticated cohort modeling to precisely define audience segments for awareness campaigns, therapeutic studies and support programs.

Complex data privacy laws and limited analytics tools have historically made it challenging for media agencies and the life sciences industry to implement patient-centric engagement strategies. As therapies have become increasingly more personalized, it is more important than ever to ensure that the right patients receive the right medications in combination with any required support. Audience Manager is the only solution in the industry to empower media agencies and pharmaceutical manufacturers to synchronize proprietary enterprise data with the patient-centric RWD and SDOH data of their choice from the nation's largest healthcare and consumer data ecosystem in a fully HIPAA-compliant manner. Organizations can leverage this self-directed analytics environment to build comprehensive views of patient journeys by contextualizing patient diagnoses, procedures and therapies with patient-centric social determinants of health,  demographics and behaviors. This approach firmly places the power of discovery in the hands of organizations and provides a clear path to design approaches that reach the right patients in the right channels with the right messaging at the right time.

"Audience Manager flips the model on current industry standards that offer only pre-defined or 'black box' audience segments," explained Ben Walker, general manager, media and consumer data at HealthVerity. "Instead, we empower media agencies and life sciences organizations to conduct their own analyses with their data in combination with healthcare and consumer data, all synchronized to unlock previously unattainable outcomes. This approach enables organizations to iterate approaches far more quickly and more accurately instead of hoping that 'black box' models are aligned with their outreach objectives."

HealthVerity Audience Manager can be integrated with HealthVerity Media Measurement, a closed loop marketing solution that synchronizes digital media ad and television exposure data with pharmacy and medical transactions from patients of interest to assess campaign performance, understand the impact of targeting efforts and optimize campaigns in real time, all in a privacy-protected and HIPAA-compliant manner.

"HealthVerity Audience Manager will be a gamechanger for us," explained Brandon King, SVP activation analytics with Fingerpaint, a full-service healthcare marketing company. "It will allow us to provide our clients with insights that were previously unattainable due to complex HIPAA regulations and data management issues industrywide. With our partnership with HealthVerity, we will be able to integrate Audience Manager with Elevalt, our omnichannel orchestration engine, to not only meet all of our clients' needs to optimize their campaigns, but also provide activation-ready insights."  

Application security leaders are more bullish than developer leaders on generative AI, though both agree it will lead to more pervasive security vulnerabilities in software development

New research from software supply chain management company Sonatype reveals how generative AI is influencing and impacting the work of software engineers and the software development life cycle. According to the 800 developer (DevOps) and application security (SecOps) leaders surveyed, virtually all (97%) are using the technology today, with three-quarters (74%) reporting they feel pressure to use it despite identified security risks. In fact, most respondents agree that security risks are their biggest concern associated with the technology, underscoring the critical need for responsible AI adoption that will enhance both software and security.

While DevOps and SecOps respondents hold similar outlooks on generative AI in most cases, there are notable differences with regards to adoption and productivity. Key findings among the two groups include:

• SecOps are early adopters: Nearly half (45%) of SecOps leads have already implemented generative AI into the software development process, compared to less than one third (31%) for DevOps. 
• SecOps teams save more time: SecOps leads see greater time savings than their DevOps counterparts, with 57% saying generative AI saves them at least 6 hours a week compared to only 31% of DevOps respondents.  
• There are differing opinions on benefits: When asked about the most positive impacts of this technology, DevOps leads report faster software development (16%) and more secure software (15%). SecOps leads cite increased productivity (21%) and faster issue identification/resolution (16%) as the top benefits.
• Open source code will be a bigger target: More than three-quarters of DevOps leads say the use of generative AI will result in more vulnerabilities in open source code. Surprisingly, SecOps leads are less concerned at 58%. Further, 42% of DevOps respondents and 40% of SecOps leads say lack of regulation could deter developers from contributing to open source projects.
• DevOps and SecOps leads both want more regulation: Asked who they believe is responsible for regulating the use of generative AI, 59% of DevOps leads and 78% of SecOps leads say both the government and individual companies should be responsible for regulation.

“The AI era feels like the early days of open source, like we’re building the plane as we’re flying it in terms of security, policy and regulation,” said Brian Fox, Co-founder and CTO at Sonatype. “Adoption has been widespread across the board, and the software development cycle is no exception. While productivity dividends are clear, our data also exposes a concerning, hand-in-hand reality: the security threats posed by this still-nascent technology. With every innovation cycle comes new risk, and it’s paramount that developers and application security leaders eye AI adoption with an eye for safety and security.“

The licensing and compensation debate was also top of mind for both groups - without it, developers could be left in legal limbo dealing with plagiarism claims against Large Language Models (LLMs). Notably, rulings against copyright protection for AI generated art have already prompted discussion about how much human input is necessary to meet what current law defines as true authorship. Respondents agreed that creators should own the copyright for AI generated output in the absence of copyright law (40%), and both overwhelmingly agreed that developers should be compensated for the code they wrote if it’s used in open source artifacts in LLMs (DevOps 93% vs. SecOps 88%).

ListenFirst, the premier enterprise social analytics solution, today announced the release of Social Indexes for Sports, designed to empower sports industry professionals with unprecedented access to industry-wide intelligence. In an increasingly competitive and rapidly evolving sports landscape, staying ahead of the game has never been more critical. ListenFirst's Social Indexes for Sports promises to be the ultimate game-changer.

ListenFirst, the premier enterprise social analytics solution, today announced the release of Social Indexes for Sports, designed to empower sports industry professionals with unprecedented access to industry-wide intelligence. In an increasingly competitive and rapidly evolving sports landscape, staying ahead of the game has never been more critical. ListenFirst's Social Indexes for Sports promises to be the ultimate game-changer.

"We are thrilled to introduce a tool that puts the power of comprehensive industry insights at the fingertips of sports professionals. In the fast-paced world of sports, success is not just about knowing your competitors; it's about understanding the entire landscape," said Jonathan Farb, COO & CPO of ListenFirst.  "Social Indexes for Sports empowers the most important sports organizations on the planet, providing the knowledge and tools needed to stay ahead of the game, adapt to evolving trends, and secure their position as a leader in the industry."

Social Indexes for Sports launches today with the following key components:

• Unlock a Winning Advantage: Monitoring a few obvious competitors isn't enough. Social Indexes for Sports offers an expansive view of the entire industry, helping identify the share of voice threats and seize opportunities.
• Stay on Top of Fan Engagement Trends: Understanding how fans engage with teams, athletes, and leagues is key. Keep ahead of evolving fan engagement trends, ensuring strategies align with audience preferences.
• Visibility Beyond Direct Competitors: Don't be blindsided by emerging competition where you least expect it.  Broaden focus, letting you spot industry-wide trends and adapt proactively, ensuring your market position remains secure.
• Effortlessly Showcase Success: Share your increased share of voice or competitive rankings in seconds, highlighting your achievements.
• Extensive Coverage: Access a catalog of 500+ teams, leagues, and organizations, covering established and emerging competition, with instant access and no setup hassles. Includes NFL, NBA, MLS, EPL, La Liga, Motorsports, Golf, Combat Sports, Racquet Sports, and many more.
• Extra Help When Needed: ListenFirst will also provide their award-winning managed services add-on, providing expert guidance to maximize the value of translating insights to winning marketing strategies.

Example Insights

• The top US professional leagues on social media are the NBA (2.8B), NFL (1.6B), and MLB (874M), respectively, when combining social activity for the league and all teams.
• MLS has acquired 27M new social followers throughout 2023, nearly exclusively due to Messi joining Inter Miami FC.
• Formula 1 (959K) is the #1 individual sports organization on social media, followed by WWE (753M) and UFC (365M).
• The top three teams, leagues, and organizations in the world on social media are Real Madrid CF (2.3B), FC Barcelona (1.8B), and the NBA (1.3B).

ListenFirst today has begun onboarding the initial set of users on Social Indexes for Sports. 

Telesign’s Trust Certified Badge Provides a New Seal of Confidence for Consumers Wishing to Do Business with Brands that Demonstrate the Highest Standards of Fraud and Identity Protection

Telesign, the leading provider of customer identity and engagement solutions, announced today a new Trust Certified Badge for digital businesses that meet high standards of protection against fraud and identity theft. Global companies across a number of industries, such as fintech, SaaS (Software as a Service), social networking, and more, will display the Trust Certified Badge, demonstrating their commitment to creating a more trustworthy place in the digital economy.

According to the findings in the 2023 Telesign Trust Index, fear of digital fraud is on the rise with more than half (50%) of consumers indicating their level of apprehension regarding telephone and digital fraud has increased in the last two years. Ninety-four percent believe companies have a responsibility to protect the digital privacy of users. Companies that fail to protect consumers suffer. The Trust Certified Badge is designed to boost consumer confidence in brands’ digital platforms.

Kristi Melani, Telesign CMO & Head of GTM Strategy, said, “In today’s digital economy, trust is a valuable currency for businesses conducting online transactions. Telesign believes in creating a digital world built on Continuous Trust. The time is now to prioritize trust, and our Trust Certified Badge is an important step forward in deepening consumers’ confidence in the digital platforms they engage with. The Trust Certified Badge is a clear indicator to consumers that they are entering a space that protects their personal information and puts their safety first.”

Companies who have earned the badge have indicated that they are committed to protecting their users by working to:

• Protect customers’ digital identities
• Safeguard their digital ecosystems from fraud
• Proactively prevent and detect digital crime on their systems
• Respond to fraud threats when they arise

Companies that earn the badge can now promote the certification as a symbol of their commitment to providing safe and seamless digital experiences for their customers. Telesign initiated the Continuous Trust™ Authority and the Trust Certified Badge program in response to the ever-evolving threat of trust-eroding fraud in the digital world.

As brands seek to differentiate themselves on social, Sprout Social’s 2023 Index reveals that twice as many consumers believe personalized care from brands is more memorable than content on trends and social issues

Social media is no longer just a virtual gathering place for friends and family -- new research shows it's the epicenter of building brand-consumer trust that requires timely, genuine engagement from brands. Released today, the 2023 Sprout Social Index, Edition XIX: Breakthrough finds that a majority of consumers (51%) think the most memorable action a brand can take on social media is simply providing a response. Meanwhile, 1 in 4 consumers think speaking out about social issues and causes makes a brand memorable, despite this being seen as a differentiator in recent years. With consumers primarily following brands on social media to stay up-to-date on products and services (68%), the 2023 Index reveals a shift in what consumers want on social media and makes it clear that brands must prioritize personalized care and engagement.

Sprout Social, an industry-leading provider of cloud-based social media management software, surveyed over 1,800 consumers and 900 marketers across the US and UK to see how social media’s role has evolved in today’s business landscape, what consumers expect from brands on social, and how brands are planning for the future.

The research finds the majority of consumers (53%) are using social media even more today than during the pandemic-era surge, and marketers are leveraging AI in response to meet their desire for personalized connection and deliver better customer experiences at scale. In fact, 81% of marketers say AI has already had a positive impact on their work, citing more time for creativity (78%) and increased efficiency (73%) as the top benefits. Marketers are also seeing the positive impacts of AI taking on time-consuming work like data analysis, giving them more time to meet the demand for authenticity and have those personalized conversations that consumers crave.

“Our research shows consumer expectations continue to rise and shift year-over-year. Today’s consumers want brands to do more than jump on trends and social issues – they want to trust and truly connect with a brand, requiring them to be more responsive and personal than ever,” said Jamie Gilpin, CMO at Sprout Social. “Social media is the channel for building that trust, and consumers expect a brand’s social presence to provide authentic communication and strong customer care. Our research also shows that with the introduction of more sophisticated AI-powered tools, marketers are able to do just that and at scale. AI is supporting social teams in streamlining workflows, delivering personalized insights, and creating memorable experiences that meet these modern demands.”

This year’s Index also shows demands on social teams are higher than ever. Authenticity tops the list of what consumers don’t see enough of from brands on social media, and 70% expect personalized responses when they reach out on social channels. More than three-fourths (76%) of consumers place equal value on brands prioritizing customer support and responding quickly to their needs, with 69% expecting a response within the same day of reaching out. In order to meet this demand for timely responses and streamline customer care on social, roughly half (47%) of marketers plan to use AI and automation tools to handle basic customer inquiries at scale, allowing them to focus on developing deeper, more personalized engagements with customers.

Additional key findings from the 2023 Index include:

• Marketers have AI in their future plans, but not without some apprehensions. With over 8 in 10 already seeing the positive impacts of AI, marketers anticipate AI playing a role in analyzing social data (68%), content creation (66%), social media advertising targeting and campaign targeting (65%), and building chatbots (63%) in 2024. On the flip side, marketers rank job displacement as the #1 concern when it comes to AI. Furthermore, a third are concerned with maintaining a balance between AI and human touch in social media interactions, and 42% of consumers are apprehensive about brands using AI in social media interactions.
• The social teams of tomorrow must make silos a thing of the past. Social’s role has expanded well beyond marketing, touching nearly every corner of a business. Today, 76% of social marketers say their team’s insights inform other departments and 65% say other teams inform their social efforts. Despite this, 43% of social teams still feel siloed from other departments, especially among mid-market (48%) and enterprise (44%) organizations in comparison to their small business counterparts (33%).
• The social-to-revenue connection varies between practitioners and executives. Engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments are the most regularly tracked metrics among all respondents (78%). However, mid-level management and practitioners track social media traffic to the website (60%) and reach/impressions (58%) at a higher rate than executives (46% and 44%, respectively). While the measurement shows a new level of social media maturity, quantifying the value of social media engagement in terms of revenue will be marketers’ primary way of demonstrating social’s impact on business goals in 2024 and beyond.
• Most social teams today are structured by social network, but adaptability will be key for continued success. The majority (64%) of social media teams today are organized by specific social media platforms or networks, with one team member being responsible for TikTok, another for Instagram, etc. The other most common team structures are based on different audience functions (48%) like community management or customer support, and distribution roles (44%) such as content creation, video production, and publishing.

Users have instant, searchable access to 100+ integrations that extend the power of Rebrandly and boost ROI

Rebrandly, the market-leading provider of link management solutions, today announced the launch of the Rebrandly Marketplace, a new cloud ecosystem that extends the value and power of the Rebrandly platform at scale. Developers can tap into the Rebrandly Marketplace to explore Rebrandly's API and easily create powerful integrations with other popular tools. In addition, through the Marketplace, users can access Rebrandly's robust partner network to quickly and easily connect Rebrandly's link management and click-tracking solutions with the systems they already use — accelerating time-to-value.

Furthering the company's commitment to data privacy, security, and compliance, the Rebrandly Marketplace also showcases a new Trust Center designed for ease and transparency. Rebrandly users (often in legal, compliance, IT, and security roles), partners, and developers can use the Trust Center to learn about Rebrandly's security posture and access the company's data privacy, policy, and security documentation, and other related legal information.

Developer Resources

Every day, tens of thousands of organizations and millions of users rely on Rebrandly to securely create and manage custom short links — increasing brand awareness, engagement, trust, and marketing campaign performance. Branded links have a 39% higher clickthrough rate compared with generic ones, according to Rebrandly data. Rebrandly also has an active community of 90,000+ developers who build and innovate on the Rebrandly platform. Now, this synergistic relationship has been formalized and evolved with the launch of Marketplace, a "one-stop shop" for building on Rebrandly — expediting application development and value delivery. Rebrandly Marketplace allows developers to explore their most valuable connections quickly and easily so they can:

• Build with Rebrandly, with direct access to Rebrandly's developer portal for creating new applications that connect users everywhere they work.
• Access Rebrandly's API for custom, branded links. Rebrandly's API Explorer makes it easy to integrate tracking data and streamline link-management tasks.
• Use coding recipes with time-saving shortcuts and innovative techniques to elevate coding and drive efficient, creative programming.
• View documentation and resources to help seamlessly connect Rebrandly's powerful tools with other applications — unlocking new customization and branding opportunities.

"Our customers and partners have been asking us to bring leading apps and solutions together to augment their link management tech stack — and we've made this happen. The Rebrandly Marketplace furthers our company mission to drive digital innovation at scale and solve a massive need in the market — time-to-value," said Carla Bourque, Rebrandly CEO. "The Rebrandly Marketplace prioritizes innovation, value, efficiency, security, and scale — enabling customers to easily connect with the solutions that matter most to growing their businesses."

Integrations

From within the Marketplace, Rebrandly users can access 100+ integrations, grouped into the following categories:

• Browser extensions, including Rebrandly for Chrome, Edge and Firefox.
• Link management, including Link.Gallery and Google Sheets.
• Social media, including SocialPilot, MeetEdgar, Gleam and Postcron.
• Automation, including Zapier, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and MessageBird.
• Productivity, including Slack, Dropshare and Paperform.
• Communications, including ReplyBuy, ubisend and Bybrand.
• Domain names, including WordPress, .link and Name.com.

Partnerships

The Rebrandly Marketplace spotlights Rebrandly's partners in three distinct areas. Technology partners can integrate their products or technologies with Rebrandly to enhance existing offerings, create a seamless user experience and boost revenue retention. Channel partners can accelerate revenue growth and amplify product/service distribution with Rebrandly by tapping into new markets, sharing relevant opportunities and expanding market reach. Co-Marketing partners can team up with Rebrandly for promotional campaigns to drive engagement, reach a broader audience and increase brand visibility. 

Rebrandly partners note:

• Vaughn Liley, GM, Nova Registry, registry operator for the .link Top-Level Domain, said: "Through our work with Rebrandly, our registrar partners can offer link names combined with Rebrandly's powerful branded link management capabilities. This integration provides companies with greater differentiation in the marketplace and the ability to better optimize link performance. And now, through the Rebrandly Marketplace, we can expose more businesses to the value of our joint solution."
• Matt Overman, CRO,  Identity Digital, provider of the world's largest and most relevant domain extension portfolio, said: "We help businesses inspire their customers with unique, authentic domains. Now, by easily connecting their domain name to Rebrandly via the Rebrandly Marketplace, companies can use custom, branded short links to improve engagement with their campaigns and enhance brand visibility."
• Shikhil Sharma, Founder, Astra Security, which helps organizations become proactively secure with continuous vulnerability scanning and pentests, said: "With companies creating billions of links daily through social media, email marketing, SMS and internal communications, security is more important than ever. Having a centralized link management solution like Rebrandly not only improves security and compliance but also allows for better collaboration and performance of a brand's digital assets. We partner with Rebrandly to bring advanced security (SOC 2) to links, and we look forward to offering this capability to the new Marketplace." 

New Amazon Connect Ready designation differentiates Acqueon as an AWS Partner that has invested and engineered solutions while demonstrating the ability to deploy and operationalize these solutions repeatedly, at scale. Finally and most importantly, it differentiates Acqueon as having a list of customers that have successfully deployed the solution on AWS.

Acqueon, a leading conversational engagement platform specializing in revenue generation, revenue recovery & revenue intelligence, announced today that it has achieved the Amazon Connect Ready designation. Acqueon is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advanced Tier Services Partner and a member of the AWS Service Delivery Program within the AWS Partner Network (APN). Achieving the Amazon Connect Ready Partner designation verifies that Acqueon's software supports Amazon Connect and follows architectural and operational best practices, is being actively used by customers in production environments, and customers are advocating for the solution.

With the contact center industry and experience evolving, more customers and consumers are seeing the benefit of investing in modern and developing technology to optimize and streamline their systems. Amazon Connect software solutions support current and future contact center technology investments with the support of AWS. Amazon Connect Ready Partners specialize in providing solutions in areas that include analytics, customer engagement, customer relationship management, outbound communications, reporting/dashboards, and workforce engagement.

Acqueon's conversational engagement platform includes Acqueon Engagement, an advanced, omnichannel Campaign Manager with a built-in Compliance Suite and Acqueon Summarize, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered real-time call summarization capability, all built on an intelligent Data Platform. Acqueon features pre-built integrations with Epic EHR Software, Salesforce, and dozens of other applications, along with APIs for flexibility and customization. While undergoing fundamental transformations in the implementation of Amazon Connect, customers are seeking guidance from Acqueon for their revenue generation and revenue recovery workloads. Acqueon's conversational engagement solution leverages Amazon Connect to help solve the advanced campaign management and compliance needs of the nation's top health insurance companies, banks, financial services firms, and public sector organizations.

The Amazon Connect Ready designation differentiates AWS Partners that have invested and engineered their solutions while demonstrating the ability to deploy and operationalize these solutions repeatedly, at scale. Finally, and most importantly, they have a list of customers that have successfully deployed the solution on AWS.

"Having supported Amazon Connect since AWS launched the service in 2018, our team is proud to achieve the Amazon Connect Ready Partner designation," said Ashish Koul, chief executive officer at Acqueon. "We are dedicated to helping B2C enterprises achieve their business transformation goals while maximizing the growth and revenue potential of every customer conversation. This new specialization and our continued work with AWS allow Acqueon to leverage the agility, breadth of services, and pace of innovation of AWS, all with a goal of fueling growth and success for our customers."

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the AWS Service Ready Program to help customers identify AWS Partners with deep industry experience and expertise.

Conceal, a global vanguard against online threats, today proudly unveils its strategic partnership with Hyprfire, an Australian front-runner in active threat hunting and network defense. This collaboration introduces an amplified enhancement to Hyprfire's lauded Firebug Network Detection and Response solution, seamlessly incorporating ConcealBrowse.

“Integrating Conceal’s unique capabilities complements our foundational ethos,” remarked Tim Jones, Managing Director of Hyprfire. “Conceal's reputation in proactive web protection makes this partnership a cohesive endeavor. We foresee our combined strengths, from ConcealBrowse’s dynamic web content analysis to our actionable event intelligence and high fidelity network visibility, redefining the cybersecurity paradigm.”

Gordon Lawson, CEO at Conceal, echoed the sentiment, “Conceal's reputation in proactive web protection makes this partnership a cohesive endeavor. We foresee our combined strengths, from ConcealBrowse’s dynamic web content analysis to our actionable event intelligence, redefining the cybersecurity paradigm.”

“Partnering with Hyprfire's unique capabilities complements our commitment to providing unparalleled web security,” remarked Gordon Lawson, CEO of Conceal. “Furthermore, this synergy allows us to reach an expansive audience, targeting teams with threats at the edge.”

Together, Conceal’s revolutionary browser security and Hyprfire’s consistent threat-hunting tools offer a formidable defense against evolving online challenges.