There have been several studies in recent days reporting that ad spend is recovering from the pandemic-driven lows of March. This particular one from Pixalate reports a 40% increase in April/May for programmatic ads for Over-the-Top (OTT) and Connected TV (CTV), compared with a 14% drop in March. Kids and Family apps on Roku grew by 128%.
Paris-based mediarithmics, a rare hybrid of CDP and DMP, has raised €8 million ($9.1 million), to expand in the UK market. The round brings total funding to €12 million.
Inching a bit closer to reality, Lowes launched an augmented video chat service that lets workers remotely evaluate and sometimes complete repair and maintenance projects. It’s all browser based, so easily accessible to repair people and customers with little technology investment. Like other remote-working solutions, it will probably remain popular even after the pandemic has ended.
Reports emerged at the weekend that Salesforce was in advanced talks to acquire data management and integration platform Informatica. The deal would be Salesforce’s largest since acquiring Slack in 2021, and shares fell 7% Monday on the news. Informatica would add more advanced technical capabilities to the Salesforce product line.