Not every deal is consummated.  Zoom announced that it will not complete its planned purchase of cloud contact center company Five9 after Five9’s shareholders rejected the all-stock offer.  The value was $14.7 billion when the agreement was announced in July, but Zoom’s stock price is now about 30% lower.

The beleaguered walled garden vendors also face new competition for ad revenue, most notably from TikTok, which just passed one billion users. TikTok is moving quickly to help ad buyers come aboard, with a bucket of new features to connect brands with content creators, to create content and ads, and to measure results. They’ve also added partnerships with Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify for ad safety and fraud protection.

It’s tough to get brand safety right, but the industry keeps trying.  IPG Mediabrands announced a new set of tools to find and block inappropriate ad placements, while IAS expanded its suitability measurements to include standards from the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).  Meanwhile, DoubleVerify admitted a mistake made brand safety on X/Twitter look worse than it really was in October 2023 and March 2024.