WordPress.com parent Automattic has raised a $300 million Series D with Salesforce Ventures as the sole investor. It’s a vote in favor of open source, freemium, and, according to the company, in “the future of work”. Raise you hand if you doubted that work had a future.
What the heck, let’s just go full tin-foil-hat today. We’ll start with news that Facebook has suspended “tens of thousands” of apps during its on-going privacy review, although the company rushes to reassure everyone that only (?) 400 developers were involved and not all suspensions reflected actual privacy violations. The New York Times cites a Massachusetts court case for the figure of 69,000 actual suspensions. Facebook doesn’t claim these numbers are complete.
AdRoll is applying machine learning to ad targeting for direct-to-consumer brands. Its new Brand Awareness Solution lets users combine their company’s own data with AdRoll’s second and third party data, using machine learning to target the best prospects via contextual, demographic, interest, look-alike, retargeting, or email campaigns.
Customer intelligence platform Acxiom will collaborate with ActionIQ to deliver enhanced customer insights. ActionIQ’s CDP will integrate with Acxiom’s demographic, household, behavioral and preference data and with Acxiom’s RealID identity resolution solution. Acxiom experts will work with clients to customize and streamline ActionIQ.