Usercentrics, leading provider of consent and preference management solutions, stresses the importance for publishers to implement a Google-certified consent management platform (CMP) that supports the latest Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) v2.2. Starting in February, publishers serving ads in the EU/EEA and UK face new requirements to secure their advertising revenue and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.

Publishers using Google AdSense, Ad Manager, or AdMob for EU/EEA or UK audiences now need to comply with Google's requirements to continue using personalization features and maintain their monetization. Usercentrics CMP provides an easy, reliable, and scalable way to achieve privacy compliance and meet Google’s requirements.

How publishers should prepare:

1. Adopt a solution that supports the TCF v2.2: Using the TCF v2.2 enables standardizing working with vendors, minimizes data privacy risks, and enables compliance with data privacy requirements.
2. Use a Google-certified CMP: By January 16, 2024, all publishers using Google AdSense, Ad Manager, or AdMob in the EU/EEA or UK were required to adopt a Google-certified CMP that supports the TCF v2.2 to continue serving ads and accessing personalization features.
3. Get support for Google’s Additional Consent: The Google-certified CMP implemented should also be able to signal consent collected from users to ad tech providers that are not part of the TCF v2.2 vendor list, but that are listed on Google’s Ad Tech Providers (ATP) list.

Usercentrics CEO Donna Dror noted, “Google provides services critical for audience reach and revenue generation to millions of companies globally. Their new requirements provide a tremendous boost for data privacy, making the need for users’ consent the standard in digital markets like online advertising.”

Xsolla, a global video game commerce company, introduces Story3, a distinctive project that enables creators to explore storytelling beyond conventional boundaries. Story3 embodies a new era of storytelling freedom and Xsolla's commitment to fostering the creative ecosystem. The platform provides a unique avenue for creators to interact directly with their audience and earn a justifiable share of revenue for their work.

"Today, creators are struggling with insufficient compensation, leading to challenges like erratic income streams and career uncertainty," said Shurick Agapitov, Founder of Xsolla and acclaimed author of Once Upon Tomorrow. "Story3 is our bold response to these issues, offering creators a platform to negotiate better terms and achieve more stable and predictable earnings from their work."

In an era marked by an explosion of digital content, the disparity in creator compensation has become increasingly pronounced. Addressing this critical issue, Xsolla brings forth Story3 as a meticulously engineered platform to empower storytellers, journalists, and writers, facilitating effective monetization while deepening the connection with their audience.

Story3 Features:

• Direct and Enhanced Audience Interaction: Story3 enables creators to engage directly with their audience by eliminating traditional distribution intermediaries.
• Efficient and User-Friendly Monetization Process: Integrating Xsolla's expertise in microtransactions, Story3 simplifies the monetization process for creators through twists. Each user choice, a 'twist,' leads to a branching path, creating a personalized and unique story.
• Streamlined Payouts: Story3 introduces an efficient payout system, ensuring creators receive timely and fair compensation, providing transparent, real-time earnings insights.

"The current digital narrative landscape often overlooks the value of its creators. With Story3, Xsolla is changing this narrative," said Chris Hewish, Interim CEO of Xsolla. "We're providing a platform where creators can directly engage with their audience and be rewarded fairly for their contributions, fostering a healthier, more vibrant future for digital storytelling,"

In his visionary book "Once Upon Tomorrow," author Shurick Agapitov explores the transformative power of storytelling and the creators' role in shaping the future of digital interactions.

A pioneer in the digital accessibility industry, Paciello brings four decades of knowledge and expertise to AudioEye's digital accessibility offerings 

AudioEye, Inc., the industry-leading web accessibility platform, is pleased to announce that Mike Paciello has joined the Company as Chief Accessibility Officer. Paciello brings over 40 years of expertise to this critical role, including authoring the first book on web accessibility, founding The Paciello Group (a pioneering accessibility solutions provider), and co-founding/co-chairing accessibility industry committees to drive advancements in policy and legislation.

"We are thrilled to have Mike join our team and feel he is joining us at an exciting time as we launch into our next phase of digital accessibility," said David Moradi, CEO of AudioEye. "Mike is a pioneer of digital accessibility with a deep understanding of the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities in the digital world, and we look forward to utilizing his extensive expertise as we work with customers and the accessibility community."

In his role as Chief Accessibility Officer, Paciello will work cross-functionally to inform, advise, and drive efforts to help AudioEye continue as a strong partner and further meet the needs of the disability community in which it serves. A technologist at heart, Paciello is passionate about ensuring that people with disabilities are not left behind in the digital society.

"I strongly believe that finding the right balance between humans and automation is the combination we need to scale accessibility in order to ensure compliance and usability," Paciello said. "People with disabilities are often edged out, and where our entire ecosystem is centered around digital experiences, most of these experiences aren't enabling people with disabilities to equally participate. Our organizational goal is to contribute and support the accessibility industry, and I'm excited to help enhance the lives of users with disabilities and to work as a strategic partner with our colleagues in the field."

As the former co-chair of the United States Federal Access Board's Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee (TEITAC) and recognized by President Bill Clinton for his contribution to the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), Paciello has played a pivotal role in shaping accessibility standards and practices. His extensive knowledge and insights will be instrumental in driving efforts around AudioEye's expanding accessibility platform.

Paciello recently joined AudioEye's HearSay podcast to discuss the current state of digital accessibility, how businesses can better prioritize accessibility efforts, and how we all can work together to make the internet more inclusive.

Fora's C-Suite AI Powers Executive Action 

Today marks the debut of Fora, an innovative executive relationship management (ERM) platform poised to transform C-suite decision-making through cutting-edge AI technology. Fora emerges from stealth to pioneer an AI-driven approach to leadership, and is backed by $3.8 million in pre-seed funding led by Converge.

Fora's ERM platform is uniquely designed to address the distinct challenges faced by executive leaders, moving beyond the traditional focus of AI solutions, which cater predominantly to knowledge and task workers. By channeling an organization's continuous daily information flow into actionable insights, Fora enables leaders to navigate the complexities of their roles with enhanced clarity and efficiency.

Emphasizing the platform's unique position, Joe Essenfeld, co-founder and CEO of Fora, notes, "In a landscape dominated by AI solutions designed for widespread use among knowledge and task workers, Fora stands apart by specifically serving the C-suite. Going beyond enhancing decision-making capabilities, Fora ensures the highest levels of safety and security. Our platform acts as a safeguard for executive leaders, integrating AI to support strategic decisions while conscientiously minimizing organizational liability related to the retention of meeting recordings and transcripts. This careful approach advances leadership effectiveness and protects sensitive information, establishing Fora as a vital ally for the C-suite in navigating AI adoption with confidence and reduced risk."

Addressing Executive Information Overload

The relentless influx of data in today's corporate environment places unprecedented demands on executive bandwidth. Fora addresses this challenge directly by sourcing essential insights from the cacophony of information generated by organizations, allowing leaders to concentrate on strategic decision making and relationship building.

Simplifying Complex Data for Strategic Advantage

Fora excels at transforming the complexity of unstructured qualitative data into concise, understandable insights—overcoming a significant hurdle for effective executive leaders interested in clarity and action. With its secure and intuitive interface, Fora seamlessly becomes a part of the C-suite's daily routine, elevating executive preparation, issue resolution, and strategic planning. It ensures that concise, relevant, and timely information underpins every strategic decision, enhancing leadership effectiveness and organizational agility. 

User Spotlight

Joe Shaker, CEO of Shaker Recruitment Marketing, attests to Fora's transformative impact: "As our company navigated rapid growth, the challenge of managing an overwhelming volume of information became increasingly apparent. Fora has been instrumental in providing the insights necessary for effective leadership, becoming an indispensable tool for my team and me."

A Vision Supported by Strategic Investment and Leadership Expertise

Fora's vision garners strong support from its investors, underscored by the strategic addition of industry veterans to its Board of Directors. Nilanjana Bhowmik, founder and general partner of Converge, and Susan Vitale, former CMO of cloud-based recruitment platform iCIMS, have joined the board, bringing a wealth of experience and insight to Fora's strategic direction.

"The business world is ripe for the kind of transformation Fora brings to executive leadership," stated Bhowmik. "In an AI-driven age, Fora distinguishes itself by equipping C-suite leaders with tools that not only amplify decision-making capabilities but also foster deeper, more impactful relationships."

With the combined expertise of Bhowmik and Vitale, Fora is poised to redefine executive leadership, steering it towards a future where AI and human insight converge to drive unparalleled organizational success.

The new library of cookieless deal IDs empowers advertisers to future-proof their media investments in a transforming programmatic landscape.

OpenX Technologies, Inc., one of the world’s leading omnichannel supply-side platforms, today announced the newest advancement in its suite of cookieless targeting solutions. The Cookieless Deal Library allows advertisers to easily test and scale campaigns against the full universe of cookieless targeting options and activate in their DSP of choice. 

As the advertising industry prepares to face the biggest shift in the history of programmatic, 98 percent of marketers report they're concerned about signal loss, and buyers aren’t equipped with a seamless way to test cookieless offerings within existing workflows to determine which solutions perform best at scale.

OpenX’s Cookieless Deal Library streamlines the process for buyers, enabling them to test new options with ease, maintain existing workflows, and continue to use their platforms of choice. This means it’s easy to immediately start testing multiple solutions, test them against each other, and set new benchmarks – all without incremental contracts or negotiations.

This new DSP-agnostic solution will allow buyers to easily access more than 1,000 pre-built deal IDs from a full range of cookieless tactics, which will include:

• Alternative Identifier Deals powered by: Digiseg, ID5, and LiveRamp’s RampID
• Attention Deals powered by: Adelaide, Oracle Moat, and TVision
• Contextual Deals powered by: 4D, Audigent’s Contextual PMPs, Captify, Cross Pixel, Oracle Contextual Intelligence, Silverpush, and SQREEM Technologies
• ID-Free Audience Deals powered by: Dstillery ID-free®
• CTV Deals powered by: Samba TV
• Privacy Sandbox Topics Deals powered by: Chrome
• Publisher First-Party Data Deals powered by: Audigent’s Smart PMPs

Further, OpenX’s Cookieless Deal Library marks the first time that Google Privacy Sandbox Topics segments will be made available for buyers to target in any DSP, including those that aren’t currently supporting that technology.

The Cookieless Deal Library follows the launch of ConteX, OpenX's contextual marketplace, with some ConteX deals delivering a 300% increase in delivery in non-cookied environments.

“OpenX’s status as a leader in innovation, our direct premium publisher integrations, and our attention to customer feedback makes it easy for buyers to test, learn, and act. With the Cookieless Deal Library, buyers can log in today, select from the universe of cookieless deal IDs, and start testing solutions now,” said Matt Sattel, SVP, Buyer Development at OpenX. “Platforms that are overly reliant on indirect traffic and/or that lack dynamic technology infrastructures will be at a significant disadvantage in a world without cookies. We’re all going to need to test, learn, and pivot quickly in this new landscape.”

With this new library, buyers can now find and activate deals from OpenX’s robust ecosystem of dozens of data partners and targeting solutions that don’t rely on third-party cookies for matching or activation. This is an important step in cookieless innovation, with future innovations including enhanced forecasting tools and new off-the-shelf cookieless audiences.

Integration Makes Transcoded Creatives Directly Available in Google Ad Manager's Creative Repository from Flight Control, Streamlining Ad Serving Calls for a Seamless Viewing Experience

Clinch, the leader in dynamic ad serving and personalization and creator of Flight Control, the Omnichannel Campaign Activation Platform, announced today its integration with Google Ad Manager's Creative Transcoding API, allowing videos to be served to various media owners that utilize Google Ad Manager DAI.

This integration enables fully transcoded creatives to be available directly in Google Ad Manager's Creative Repository without the need to transcode in real time when requested, and ready to serve via Dynamic Ad Insertion. This ensures that advertisers' personalized video ad content is optimally prepared for server-side ad serving calls and seamlessly integrates into publishers' content streams.

"Our partnership with Google represents a significant step forward in streamlining ad campaigns and making ad serving more efficient and effective," said Charel MacIntosh, Head of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Clinch. "This collaboration allows us to continue to deliver personalized video ad content with the utmost efficiency, enhancing the viewing experience for users while ensuring better outcomes for advertisers and publishers."

Key benefits of Clinch's integration with Google Ad Manager's Creative Transcoding API include:

• Ensures a quality user/viewing experience.
• Maintains an equal balance of value between advertiser and publisher, ensuring consistent fill rates for publishers and zero missed opportunities for impressions for advertisers.
• Helps to ensure monetization of inventory, particularly via programmatic channels where the use of DAI might not be apparent in bundled content or targeted private marketplaces.

"This process allows for pre-ingestion transcoding, eliminating the need to transcode during the initial impression," continued MacIntosh. "In Clinch's ad response, a Google Media ID is included, and transcoded assets sourced from Google Ad Manager's Creative Repository are then retrieved for dynamic ad insertion, streamlining the entire workflow."

This collaboration marks the latest milestone in Clinch's mission to build valuable partnerships for advertisers to increase speed to market and campaign activation efficiencies while reducing errors.

The first platform in the hospitality industry to put diners at the center of how restaurants operate, so restaurants can create better experiences and grow their business 

BentoBox, the Official Restaurant Technology Partner of the James Beard Foundation (JBF), has launched the BentoBox Marketing & Commerce Platform, an all-in-one restaurant commerce engine—encompassing modules for websites, online ordering, reservations, and events management—that will engage diners and keep them coming back.

Starting today, restaurant operators can leverage the BentoBox Marketing & Commerce Platform to stand out from the competition and bring in more business, sell during and after business hours to boost profits, connect with diners between visits, and operate more efficiently to improve their bottom line.

This announcement includes the introduction of BentoCore, the heart of the platform that houses a restaurant's diner data and centralizes menu information, marketing tools, and branding materials. BentoCore powers diner-facing modules that restaurants can activate based on their needs, including Restaurant Website, Takeout & Delivery, Digital Waitlist, Online Catering, Events Management, Reservations, Gift Cards, and QR Code Order & Pay. The activation of more modules allows BentoCore to collect more data, providing a fuller view of restaurant's diners and overall business performance, enabling more targeted marketing and smarter hospitality.

Key features of BentoCore include:

1. Diner Database: Gives restaurants a unified view of their diners.
   • It collects and stores data from diner interactions with a restaurant's website, online ordering, reservations, and more, which restaurants can then use to create more personalized marketing and hospitality experiences.
2. Menu Management: Allows restaurants to centrally manage all of their menus and menu items, taking a one-and-done approach.
   • Whenever a restaurant needs to make a change to a menu, they only need to do it once and the menu will automatically update everywhere it shows up online.
3. Brand Center: Stores diner-facing brand elements live such as logos, colors, and fonts.
   • Once the restaurant's brand elements are uploaded to the Brand Center, they can be applied to any module, making it easy to give diners a consistent brand experience.
4. Marketing & Loyalty: Includes all the tools that restaurants need to stay connected with customers and keep them coming back such as email marketing, SMS marketing, and loyalty programs. These include:
   • Automated Emails: After a customer has ordered online, made a reservation, or planned an event, the platform will automatically send well-timed emails encouraging them to do it again.
   • Email Campaigns: Restaurants are able to create custom email campaigns like newsletters and send to pre-built or custom-segmented customer lists.  
   • SMS Marketing
     • Automated SMS: After a customer has ordered online, made a reservation, or planned an event, the platform will automatically send well-timed texts encouraging them to do it again.
     • SMS Campaigns: Restaurants are able to create custom campaigns with promotions and other updates and send to pre-built or custom-segmented customer lists. 
   • Loyalty Programs: Restaurants are able to keep customers coming back by offering rewards and incentives based on the number of orders placed or amount of money spent.

As restaurants today face numerous challenges, the BentoBox Marketing & Commerce Platform enables restaurants to stand out, sell, engage more diners, and operate more efficiently. As a champion of restaurants and the hospitality industry, BentoBox is providing restaurants with technology that will create better guest experiences, better operator experiences, and faster growth.

TEGNA Inc. today announced that Premion, LLC, its industry-leading premium Connected TV (CTV)/Over-the-Top (OTT) advertising platform for regional and local advertisers, has signed an agreement and simultaneously closed on the acquisition of Octillion Media. Octillion is a next-generation demand-side platform (DSP) focused on Local CTV/OTT advertising. The acquisition will expand Premion’s capabilities in the growing CTV marketplace by combining Octillion’s cutting-edge technology with Premion’s award-winning local CTV/OTT advertising solution.

“Octillion is precisely the type of smart bolt-on acquisition we have long considered to accelerate our already successful organically grown Premion business,” said Dave Lougee, president and CEO, TEGNA.

“We are thrilled to announce the acquisition of Octillion Media,” said Tom Cox, president of Premion and senior vice president, corporate development, TEGNA. “We built Premion with a local-first mindset from the start. The acquisition of Octillion Media provides us with a proven purpose-built local CTV platform to further enable product innovation, improve operational efficiencies, and drive accelerated growth. Local relevance remains a top advertiser priority, and the addition of Octillion’s technology will enhance our ability to meet ever-evolving customer needs and drive value for our clients.”

Founded in 2019, Octillion Media’s technology platform has been natively developed for local CTV/OTT advertising. Named the #2 fastest growing private media company in the U.S. on Inc.’s 5000 in 2022, Octillion has experienced impressive growth by delivering innovative CTV/OTT solutions with a focus on advertiser results and transparency. In 2023, Octillion was the first local OTT platform to achieve the TAG Certified for Transparency Seal.

“With our shared belief that transparency, quality, and brand safety are the key pillars of success for local CTV advertisers, bringing Octillion together with Premion is a natural fit,” said Gabe Greenberg, CEO and co-founder of Octillion. “We’re excited to continue to build and develop our innovative CTV/OTT product offering and activate the platform’s capabilities backed up by quantified business outcomes across Premion’s network of sellers and clients.”

As part of the transaction, Gabe Greenberg, as well as Octillion’s employees based in the U.S. and internationally will join the Premion team.

TEGNA will cover the cost of the acquisition with available cash on hand, which will not have a material impact on TEGNA’s cash or leverage levels. The transaction is expected to be free cash flow and EPS accretive within 12 months and is not expected to have a material impact on TEGNA’s 2024 financials.