GDC is the world’s largest and longest-running professionals-only game industry event. It’s the number one annual meeting ground where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers, and others involved in the development of interactive games gather to exchange ideas and shape the future of the industry.

This market defining conference features over 400 lectures, panels, tutorials, and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts. In addition, the GDC expo showcases all of the most relevant game development tools, platforms and services helping to drive the industry forward.

Who’s going to be there? Anybody who is anybody in games today.

Attendees will be eager to see what Microsoft has in store. The company announced it would have “a huge presence at GDC 2015” this year marketed by game-changing news and developments. Given that the company is hosting 16 separate sessions during the event, it’s clear that “huge” is not an overstatement.

All told, many game-changing companies will be on hand this year, including Airpush, which is bringing its hottest new ad formats to GDC 2015. The Los Angeles headquartered company, one of the world’s largest mobile ad platforms, will give demos of its new Abstract Banners (innovative banner ads that blend full motion transparent overlays with app content that have proven effective monetization-enhancers for game developers).

The conference will also feature the 17th annual Independent Games Festival, the longest-running and largest festival relating to independent games worldwide.

In addition, GDC honchos will present the annual Game Developers Choice Awards, the premier peer-recognition awards in the digital games industry.

To check out the full conference schedule and see what else is on tap for GDC 2015, click here.

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Perhaps more notable, however, is the introduction of a new set of targeting features that provide brand and performance advertisers increased transparency and control over their mobile ad campaigns.

According to a statement from the company, MMX, launched out of a partnership between Millennial Media and AppNexus, provides advertisers and developers a “unique opportunity to buy and sell on a real-time, programmatic basis at scale.”

Included in the new targeting enhancements is the ability to reach consumers across desktop and mobile. Millennial Media matches and enhances AppNexus targeting identifiers, which allows advertisers to purchase impressions and run cross-screen campaigns in the same way they had previously purchased display impressions.

“We believe that programmatic ad technology is critical to enabling cross-device targeting with exceptional control and performance for the world’s largest marketers,” says Ryan Christensen, VP of Product at AppNexus. “Together with Millennial Media, we are accelerating advertisers’ ability to reach cross-screen audiences seamlessly, effectively, and at exchange scale.”

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By Palmieri’s own admission, Yahoo’s former Chief Revenue Officer Michael Barrett will ascend to the big chair as Millennial Media’s new chief executive officer.

Palmieri, meanwhile, is on his way to becoming a venture advisor at NEA.

“This is an exciting and momentous day for Millennial Media,” Palmieri writes on his company’s blog. “There is never a perfect time for a transition of CEOs, but now is the right time. Coming off an impressive quarter, capped with the successful acquisition and integration of Jumptap, the momentum at the company could not be better. We have the best team and technology in the business, and are poised for continued success.”

Palmieri foresees big thing for Millennial Media, adding to his post that the company is on a clear “upward trajectory” for 2014 and beyond.

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The data is made available through a case study Tapjoy conducted with Nokia that is designed to explore how Rewarded Rich Media ads helped the company get a huge lift in both branding and direct response through mobile ad campaigns.

The case study clearly suggests that there’s an interesting story to tell not only around the benefits of rich media advertising on mobile, but also on how the rewarded ad model helps drive high-quality engagements.

Getting down to the nitty gritty, Tapjoy’s Rewarded Rich Media campaigns drove a 73% video completion rate for Nokia, compared to the industry average of 46% (according to Celtra).

Users also spent an average of 56 seconds interacting with the ads (39 seconds watching the video, then 17 more seconds swiping through the image carousel), compared to the industry benchmark of 13 seconds.

The branding related stats, as independently measured and verified by comScore, are that the campaign also generated a 68% lift in brand awareness, and 109% lift in ad recall, and a 154% increase in message recall.

Not too shabby, Tapjoy.

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The solution in question, the company says, will help solve a major problem in the mobile advertising space – the challenge of tracking data from multiple ad networks in one place.

Advertising Analytics by App Annie provides a platform that can aggregate an app publisher’s total advertising spend and revenue from multiple ad networks into one single dashboard.

So far, the product us available for AdMob, Chartboost, iAd, jumptap, MdotM, Tapit! and Tapjoy, with the long-term goal of allowing any ad network to connect.

Mobile advertising is one of the fastest growing sectors within the mobile app ecosystem. According to the iAB, mobile ad revenues grew 82.8% between 2011 and 2012. However, the space is still in its adolescence and many app publishers are using as many as 20 advertising networks to either monetize their app or purchase user downloads for it.

“Making sense of the chaos of networks can be difficult at best, and yet developers are forced to make critical decisions based on data coming from five, 10 or even 30 different ad networks,” says Omar Hamoui, Partner, Sequoia Capital and founder of AdMob.  “Understanding how much you’re making, where it’s coming from, or where best to allocate your ad spend requires a single dashboard. Without this you quickly end up in ad hell. It makes perfect sense for App Annie to extend its analytics platform into advertising; not only do publishers get a more holistic view of their products, they get to manage it all in one place. Less running around, more understanding.”

The post App Annie Debuts Mobile Advertising Analytics for its Platform appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to details provided to MMW, the partnership will offer parents a new way to download their children’s favorite books… for free.

The iStoryTime library app, available for iOS but coming soon to Android, will integrate the Tapjoy Mobile Value Exchange model where parents engage with advertisements to earn Story Points to spend on hundreds of iStoryTime digital books for their kids.

The partners, however, confirm that these offers will be behind a “parental lock,” ensuring that the advertisements are directed at the parents and not kids.

Additionally, the books purchased with Story Points are completely free of advertisements.

The partnership underscores a significant shift in how consumers are looking to acquire premium content, whether it is for themselves or their family members.

“With zuuka and the iStoryTime app, we are empowering parents to earn credits for use toward their family’s favorite narrated books,” says Steve Wadsworth, president and CEO of Tapjoy. “We are seeing a trend of app publishers utilizing the mobile value exchange model to enable their users to get the premium content they want. With this partnership and the amazing brands and narrated storybooks that are available through iStoryTime, we’re breaking new ground and continuing to deliver innovative ways to deliver the premium content people love.”

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• Why Millennial Media Bought Jumptap: The Mobile Ad Market Is Going Automated

Mobile advertising is hot. But mobile ad networks are struggling. There’s no clearer example of that than Millennial Media, which became the first publicly-traded mobile ad network in 2012. But while mobile seems to be working for some — ie: Facebook — Millennial Media’s stock is down 47% since it listed in March 2012. Wall Street isn’t wild about the fact that its ability to grow is closely tied to headcount as deals as the majority of Millennial’s business is still people striking deals with publishers and advertisers.

• Nexage: How mobile RTB is pushing audiences, spending

According to some experts, programmatic – or real time bidding (RTB) – advertising spends will account for at least half the mobile ad spend with in the next few years. This increase in RTB spending is pushed by the data rich audience segments delivered.

• Is now the time for mobile private marketplaces?

It’s an open secret that mobile advertising still has its fair share of growing pains. From limited data, to inconsistent tracking methodologies, to a lack of transparency, context and brand safety, agencies still have plenty of reasons to be cautious.

• Which mobile ad network bootstrapped its way to $150M in revenue?

Mobile ad networks are all the rage. A generation ago, the winners among its desktop brethren made a killing and many view the mobile Web and app ecosystem as a similar if not larger scale opportunity. And yet, no one has nailed it yet. The early winner was AdMob, which was acquired by Google for $750 million in 2009. Since, others like Millennial Media and Jumptap have emerged as worthy challengers. But there remains enormous opportunity for innovation and for additional high nine or even ten figure exits.

• Mobile Advertising Will Sprint Past Desktop Ads In Four Short Years

You already know mobile ads were taking off like crazy. But this fast? According to a new report from eMarketer, mobile ad revenues will surpass those of desktop ads by 2017. That sprint will be led by search ads, which have seen mobile revenues rocket from only 2% of all search ad dollars in 2010 to 22% this year. That will jump further to nearly 60% mobile by 2017.

The post Mobile Advertising Roundup: 5 Must Read Articles appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

A new report from AppFlood finds that a majority of developers are not clear on the benefits of different mobile marketing channels.

This lack of clarity and trust in ad network providers is blamed for the starling reality that 70 percent of developers are frustrated with the current state of app marketing.

The findings of AppFlood’s survey into developer attitudes toward mobile app marketing and advertising were published Tuesday.

71 per cent of all respondents expressed the view that ad networks often exaggerated their eCPM (effective Cost Per Thousand impressions) claims. Overall, medium-sized developers are the most dissatisfied with the eCPM claims of ad networks, with over 80% citing they felt that eCPM figures were exaggerated, versus 70% of small developers and 60% of large developers.

In terms of how developers choose which advertising company is the best fit for their app launches, cost is not the most important factor.  It ranked only third in developers’ order of priority.

“Instead,” AppFlood reports, “the most important factor to almost half the developers surveyed was their ability to trust the advertising partner to deliver effective results at a reasonable price, with many different advertising networks, formats and mechanisms contributing to a sense of confusion as to which approach is best.”

To learn more about the findings of the survey, check out AppFlood’s website here.

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According to published reports from Tech Crunch Tuesday, the company is jostling its executive lineup and laying off an estimated 20 employees.

For now, Tapjoy hasn’t officially confirmed the extent of the layoffs.

With regard to the executive restructuring, Tapjoy’s vice president of global communications, Patrick Seybold, said the following:

We have made changes in our organization to position the company for continued growth. Following the appointment of new executive leadership and a thorough assessment of our Product and Engineering teams, we have decided to re-organize these departments. Jeff Drobick, our CPO, is now in an expanded role and will oversee our Product and Engineering organizations end-to-end. Sean Lindsay, who had been running Tapjoy’s Boston engineering office, is now VP, Engineering for the company, reporting to Jeff.

In conjunction with these appointments, the company is also re-organizing its engineering organization. The changes are intended to address velocity of getting products to market, product quality and scaling the company’s core infrastructure for continued growth.

In addition, there have been some reductions across the company to better align our organization with our business plan and strategic direction. We believe these moves will make us more competitive, productive and will enhance our ability to bring innovative products to market.

The post Tapjoy Confirms Shake Up at Mobile Ad Network appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to the public company’s formal announcement, John Greiner has been named Managing Director of Japan, and will lead the company’s operations out of the newly opened Tokyo office.

“Following the opening of our Singapore office in 2011, expanding into Japan was a natural progression as we look to continue working with brands, agencies and developers across Asia,” says Mollie Spilman, EVP, Global Sales & Marketing at Millennial Media. “Our scale, innovative rich media capabilities and industry-leading data asset will allow us to bring a premium mobile advertising solution to the Japanese market.”

As the Managing Director of Japan, John Greiner will lead all operations in Japan and will be responsible for building relationships with developers and publishers, and working with premium brands and agencies to help them execute effective mobile advertising campaigns. Greiner was most recently the President of MonkeyPaw Games, and brings over 18 years of experience in the Japanese market.

“Japan is an incredibly advanced and robust mobile market, and there is a tremendous opportunity for brands to reach and engage consumers over mobile devices,” said Greiner. “Millennial Media has the technology and infrastructure in place to bring a unique, premium offering to the region, and we will be looking to immediately capitalize and generate scale.”

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