Cablevision Corporation And GroupM Signs An Adressable Ad Deal

GroupM's advanced TV business, Modi Media, has come to an agreement with Cablevision to use its application in order to boost business.

Cablevision Systems Corporation has been making a lot of acquisitions recently. The company did not seem to be much active recently however in the past months, it has been in a lot of news when it comes to acquisitions and making deals with other companies. Similarly, GroupM and Cablevision have embraced a massive breakthrough where both the parties have signed a long term addressable deal. The idea behind this collaboration is to simplify the rigorous process so that the addressable television advertisements can be bought.

It is believed that the advanced TV business of GroupM which is known as Modi Media will get to access the Total Audience Application of the company as mentioned in the deal. It is a specific audience planning tool by Cablevision that assists agencies and companies to strengthen and improve their targeted, impressions based TV buys.

It is believed that the deal will prove to be beneficial for both parties. The deal was made especially so that the procedure of buying addressable ads become more automated using the Total Audience Application. It will further be removing the barriers that were making it difficult for the agencies and well as the marketers to enter and experiment such things.

According to the President of Modi Media, Michael Bologna stated “Addressable is complicated. There is a lot of data, technology and manual labor that goes into doing these deals. What we have done here is set the parameters and done as much of the leg work upfront as possible to allow us to execute quickly and as real-time as possible.”

Mr. Michael Bologna further added that his business and Cablevision already discussed in a type of pre planning meeting regarding how to go about this deal in the future. According to the discussion, it can be said that both companies are already done with their setting of cards per segment rate in order to execute it as early as possible for their clients.

The president of media sales at Cablevision Corporation, Ben Tatta, stated in an interview “By making ad operations, data and analytic more turnkey, we hope to streamline the entire campaign process for Modi and their clients.”

Furthermore, it was decided during the agreement of this deal that Modi Media will be spending an ‘undisclosed’ amount on the Cablevision’s addressable ad product. This will help both parties to boost each other’s businesses within no time. However, Modi Media is also in talks with other providers in order to sign similar deal to boost its business.

Verizon Extends Cell Phone Network Into Minecraft

Players of Minecraft will now get three bars on their cell phones, thanks to Verizon Wireless.

With the extraordinary innovations that circle around one, have people ever thought that they would be able to use their phones, actually use it, in an actual game? Well, it is safe to say that thanks to Verizon Communication now one can use their cell phone in the Minecraft. Now the players of Minecraft, a blocky game, will be able to make phone calls to their friends from within the game. The telecommunication giant, in collaboration with Wieden + Kennedy, an advertising agency and Blockwork, Minecraft’s advertising agency, started working on a cell phone that will be able to work within the game itself. Through this innovation, the players will be able to make video and phone calls to their friends; the only downside to this is that they will be pixelated video calls. Along with a video and call option, there is an option of a selfie stick as well; this feature allows a user to take a selfie and even send it to a friend as the cell phone is also able to send text messages and MMS. The most attractive part of this is the video calls option as a player can dial a call to anyone of their friends and will be able to see them in block form while the people on the other side of the call will be able to see the avatar of the person from the world of Minecraft. Another attractive yet not so useful feature that the cell phones of the Minecraft world have is that of web browsing. The websites in the game will also be blocked and pixelated, it would be difficult for one to read them. This whole thing came into being through a lot of hard work from Verizon company and the advertising agency. Along with its partners, they built a customized application by the name of Boxel. This specific custom application takes websites and videos and turns them into block form. It takes these options and turns them into a form in which the game can understand them. This project’s code is made available on GitHub, a software website. Currently there are two largest telecommunication carriers in the United States, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, along with smaller rivals by the name of Sprint and T-Mobile US. The first two most popular networks are the most strong and reputable networks in America. Verizon stock has been trading at a share price of $44.93 with a decrease in stock price of 1.43%. The earnings per share reported by the telecom company are 2.51.

Blackberry Decides To Pull Out Priv Smartphone From Pakistani Market

The Canadian smartphone company is quite popular for its mobile security due to which it cannot fulfill the request of the Pakistani government.

According to Android Authority, Blackberry Ltd has decided to pull its newest addition to the Blackberry family, the Priv. Since Priv has mainly been designed around extreme privacy, the government had a number of concerns and was asking the company to grant a backdoor access to the encrypted network. The reason for the Pakistani government to ask for such a favor was so it could ‘spy’ on its citizens to keep a check on their activities. The smartphone company could have approved this request of the government and would have gotten a chance to increase its sales in the country and earn revenue but it chose to announce the exact opposite. Apart from announcing its pull of Priv smartphone from the country’s market, it also told the reason for this act, which was the country’s political condition. Blackberry’s reputation has always circled around having the most secure mobile network and mobile security. It has managed to gain an excellent reputation in all the markets and just to settle in the Pakistani market, it could not let go of that reputation that it has built in years. In order to keep its brand reputation, the Canadian smartphone company is not ready to compromise on anything. The new Priv smartphone has been lagging in the United States in comparison to other places. Since the new smartphone’s release, it is in such high demands that it is always out of stock in mobile stores. The Android powered smartphone soon after its release was sold out from most of the store in the United States. Due to the shortage of the smartphones in most of the stores in the country, the company had to delay a number of orders for a number of its customers. Priv is priced $699 and has amazing specifications that have managed to attract a huge amount of customers to buy the product and test it. Along with having amazing specifications, the device also has a good storage space of 32GB with a 5.4 dual curved screen. The biggest specification that was leaked of the devices was its battery life. It can last up to 22.5 hours with its 3410 mAh battery. Additionally, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority announced a ban on Blackberry Enterprise Service in summer 2015, which was supposed to be executed on November 20, 2015. The sole reason for this ban was as usual the ‘security concerns’ of the government. Privacy International, just before this announcement was made by the Canada based company, issued a report to warn the ISI, Pakistan Inter-services agency.

Verizon Communication Tell Its Customers To Put Their Phones Down

In the new advertisement that aired on Thanksgiving, the company wants you to put your phones down and live in the moment. Telecommunication companies all around the globe would their business to grow, would want higher sales, even higher profits and would want more and more customers to use their cell phones as well as consume as much internet as possible but one such telecom company had done the exact opposite, the company being Verizon Communication. It is quite an unconventional approach that company has opted for as the holiday season arrives. A new television commercial was aired on Thanksgiving in an attempt to promote the telecommunication company but did the exact opposite. Instead of trying to get more consumers to use their smartphones and increase their internet usage over the holidays, the company promoted that people should spend as much time with their families and loved ones as possible. The aim of the commercial was to remind the people that family and giving them time is more important than spending most of their time on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media website. The advertisement ended with a slogan that said ‘Better Matters.’ The telecom giant is urging its customers to put their phones down itself, even though it is merely a publicity stunt by Verizon but it speaks for the larger audience. The message that the company has tried to send through it advertisement is definitely meaningful and will help a lot of people realize the importance of family. According to Verizon news, the company’s aim was to help people get to their loved one and after they have arrived to meet their families they put their phones down and spend time with them. Melissa Garlick, the head of Verizon’s creative brand team, stated that Verizon will bring people to their friends and family but once they are there the company wants them to be fully available. She added the point of this is to make the audience realize that Verizon is America’s most reliable network that can get them to their families even at such a busy time of the year. This is not the first time the telecom company has opted for such a campaign and encouraged people to put their phones down. Back in 2009, the telecom company released a campaign ‘Don’t Text and Drive’ which was aimed at safety of driving and supported the laws based on that. Even though the telecom company has put forward a very simple message for their audience, today’s consumer is much for skeptical and it would probably take much for than a holiday ad to get their attention and furthermore to even change their beliefs, as per Allen Adamson who is a brand expert along with being the former chairman for North America of WPP’s Landor Associates.

No Transparency To Be Expected From BlackBerry Ltd

The software giant has informed the market that it will not be providing them with transparency on its security business like the other companies in the industry.

BlackBerry Ltd has been under the critical eyes of analysts and investors in the tech industry for a long time now, and that too for all the right reasons. The giant has been experiencing some serious falls in the hardware business with the increasing competition coming in from rivals like Google, Apple and Microsoft and has failed to meet the expectations of its fans on a lot of levels. Only recently, the software giant has yet again been threatened with competition in the only market feels strong in and that is the software industry, in which the Canadian company has been contributing in many different ways. The security and cloud services that BlackBerry business provides to its users are considered to be of the best kind by analysts, and the security sector is believed to be the biggest strength of the company, considering how it has been experiencing serious failures in its smart phone business since the initiation and expansion of Android, the operating system coming from rival Google and the success that Apple’s iPhones have received in a very short period of time. However, the software giant was still being considered to have a strong presence in the industry; until now. BlackBerry software sector has clearly indicated that it has no plans whatsoever to provide the customers with transparency of any kind in the security business, which has affected the sentiments of the already bearish investors in the company. Companies like Google an Apple has been working towards the provision of a see-through image of the activities of the company where the user information and its distribution is concerned which has regained trust of the users in a lot of different ways. This step was deemed as an important one after the whole Snowden episode that took place and showed the ugly picture of how companies in the industry were selling off information of the users to the government without the prior permission, which upset a large number of users. According to a BlackBerry spokesperson, it was confirmed that the company is not looking towards making things transparent for its users and will not be following footsteps of its rivals to support the idea. News from comScore suggests that the mobile phone making company has actually lost a large space in the mobile market of the country in the past two to three years, from having a presence of 13.4% to 1.2% now, which shows the fall its smart phones have taken and how customers have switched to other cell phone companies due to unsatisfactory results from the giant’s products.

BlackBerry Priv: The Reviews Are In

The software company seems to be hitting it off with the Priv, its new smart phone in the tech market.

BlackBerry Ltd has released its new smart phone in the market last week, and the most exciting factor about the gadget is that it is powered by Android operating system. This is the first time that this OS is being used by the giant to incorporate in its mobile phones, and this act has been deemed by the analysts as another effort, and probably the last one, to make a comeback in the hardware industry. The giant has been experiencing some extremely low sales and revenue generation for the past couple of quarters and this has turned out some highly negative comments about what the giant should further do with its idea of carrying forward the hardware business. Analysts have constantly suggested the giant to wrap up its non-lucrative hardware business as it continues to go into loss, but John Chen has some other ideas. The Priv, which is the new smart phone of the BlackBerry business, has been welcomed by the industry with mixed emotions. The fact that the giant has finally surrendered to the most used OS in the mobile phone market has only made its fans happy and the reviews which have come out of the phone have focused on multiple features of the device that are being appreciated on the whole. The mobile phone has some specs on the latest phone which is sure to bring about more customers to it than before. As promised by the CEO, the Priv has a huge 5.4 inch screen along with a back cover which has been given a classic look by the designers with a material that looks very much like glass. The cell phone has also been provided with the traditional QWERTY keyboard, for what the Canadian company has always been famous for. This keyboard, however, can be used by simply sliding it open on the device and has been deemed quite durable by analysts. As for the 18MP camera which has been provided on the Priv, analysts believe that the fact that the camera takes great pictures even when there isn’t abundance of light in the area is something good enough to bring a lot of audience to buy the new phone. Furthermore, the battery life of the device has also been recognized as that of a much durable one as it goes on for 3,410 mAh, which is much more than what the rivals in the industry have to offer. Other than that, the giant has also brought some improvements on the software side as well.

Verizon To Carry Out New Plans For Better Sales

The wireless company has finally decided to sell off all of its assets which are not giving the giant profit as much as expected and to now focus on wireless segment only.

Verizon Communications has brought about some massive changes in its wireless business and analysts have been wondering where this giant now might be headed. The most recent news about the wireless giant is about how it has announced of its plans to carry out a major selling of its assets which are worth $10 billion in a transaction that will soon be held by the giant. This is majorly being carried out for the purpose of making its focus come right back to where it was previously and to get rid of all the excessively expanded business activities which were not bringing as much profit to the company as planned to. One of the major names in the asset-selling program to be carried out will be of MCI, which is one of those businesses which were offering the simple internet and landline services to special clients along with some major companies. However, all of such smaller businesses have been facing some serious competition from other projects and programs launched by companies like Amazon and Alphabet Inc, which is why the wireless company has finally thought of selling these off in order to maximize its profit. The giant has indeed put up struggles to fight against the ever increasing competition but now it has decided against it, as all of these businesses will be sold off in the major sell-off plan that is to be carried out by the wireless business. Analysts at Bidness ETC have turned out to be very bullish towards the Verizon stock now that the giant has announced it will be implementing a new strategy to make things better within the company’s sales. The analysts are of the opinion that in order to stay strong in the wireless communication industry, such steps are mandatory for the giant. Verizon wireless has also decided to give all of its attention to the wireless segment of the company, which is believed to increase sales in all the right ways according to the analysts. In a press release, the giant was seen informing the industry of how much of a hassle it will be start selling off its assets as the biggest problem that will be faced in the initial stages is of departmentalization of all the assets which will take some time before the selloff finally takes place. The company is currently putting off the load it had previously taken and to put that as an investment in its wireless business to make it even better than it already is. The stock of the company closed at a share price of $45.78 on Friday, which showed a downside activity by around 0.91%.