CMO Today: Peter Thiel Owns Up to Backing Legal Fights Against Gawker
May 26 2016 - 7:57AM
Dow Jones News
By Steven Perlberg
BATTLE ROYALE: The Florida judge who presided over Hulk Hogan's
legal bout with Gawker Media dismissed the digital media company's
motion for a new trial, as expected, setting up what could be a
protracted appeals process. But the real story looming over the
proceedings was about Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who
confirmed to the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal late
Wednesday that the reports that he has been underwriting legal
battles against Gawker are true. Mr. Thiel said estimates of $10
million are "roughly in the ballpark" of what he has spent to
secretly take on Gawker, which he called a "singularly terrible
bully." In a statement to WSJ, he said he does "not support legal
actions against any other organizations." While his financial
support is certainly not illegal, the fact that a technocrat
billionaire has waged a war against the media company that outed
him as gay could have a chilling effect on sites that publish
private things about powerful people.
EXCHANGE YOUR MIND: Facebook will shut down its ad exchange,
called FBX, a product that let third-party ad tech players purchase
ads across its platform, CMO Today reports. The move is pretty much
in line with Facebook's push to focus on its own Audience Network
and places another brick in the company's so-called "walled
garden," or closed-off ad-buying ecosystem. FBX also didn't feature
mobile or video ads, two areas of explosive growth at the company,
and Facebook last year limited the number of ad tech partners who
could buy ads through FBX. One former Facebook product manager who
helped build FBX told CMO Today it was created in an effort to
boost revenue right around the time Facebook was going public, but
the company was never a fan of giving up any control over its
ads.
TELECOM RIVALS: While Verizon is said to be one of the favorites
among the companies bidding on Yahoo, Bloomberg reports that its
telecommunications competitor AT&T is still in the mix to buy
the company's core Internet business. A marriage between AT&T
and Yahoo would be quite the pivot, given that the telecom company
had at one point decided against bidding and it recently unwound a
15-year partnership with Yahoo that moved a large chunk of its
business elsewhere. But AT&T may see Yahoo as a way to better
compete after Verizon acquired AOL, which has a mix of ad tech and
media properties like Yahoo. We'll likely find out who wins in
another two to three weeks, according to Bloomberg.
BUY BUY BIRDIE: Twitter has disbanded its 25-person commerce
team and has stopped product development on its "Buy" button, which
had been encouraging consumers to purchase products in the app,
BuzzFeed reports. As WSJ notes, Twitter at one point hoped that the
buy button could make the platform into a "virtual shopping mall."
Facebook, too, has experimented with buy buttons, but it appears
consumers aren't quite ready for a social media shopping
experience. The move coincided with Twitter's annual shareholder
meeting, where CEO Jack Dorsey fielded questions and concerns from
investors about whether the tech company is on track. Mr. Dorsey
pointed to this week's news about not counting media attachments or
usernames in Twitter's 140-character limit as an example of
user-friendly progress.
Elsewhere
Apple executive Eddy Cue floated the idea of buying Time Warner
Inc. at a meeting with the media company last year. The discussions
never included the two companies' CEOs and didn't progress beyond a
preliminary stage. [ FT]
A federal appeals court rebuked the Federal Communications
Commission over the agency's failure to update its media-ownership
rules, some of which date back four decades. The FCC is required to
review its rules every four years, but that hasn't happened since
2006. [ WSJ]
Marketers and media companies are chasing the "mythical
millennial," but thinking of the group as a monolith obscures the
fact that it's one of the most diverse generations. [ NYT]
Speaking of millennials, Chris Altchek, CEO of
millennial-focused Mic.com, said on the WSJ Media Mix podcast that
it's only a matter of time before all advertising is branded
content. [ CMO Today]
The New York Times is offering buyouts to staff at the end of
the month. The newspaper also didn't rule out the possibility of
layoffs. [ WSJ]
Insider, a Business Insider-owned lifestyle brand that started
as purely "distributed" on social media, has launched its own
website. Insider has already attracted 10 million followers across
six Facebook pages. [ CMO Today]
Warren Buffett, who owns dozens of local newspapers, says he
would never sell any of his publications, though even the Oracle of
Omaha admits his company hasn't yet cracked the code on a viable
business model. [ USA Today]
Snapchat has hired former Vanity Fair editor Betsy Lack to lead
"global brand strategy." [ Recode]
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 26, 2016 07:42 ET (11:42 GMT)
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