The 10 things in advertising you need to know today
1. Chime Communications has agreed to sell to WPP and Providence for £347 million ($582 million.) The deal, talks over which were reported yesterday, will see shareholders become entitled to 265 pence for each share of Chime, as well as an interim dividend of £2.53 per share based on the closing share price of 29 July.
2. The new Apple TV is reportedly arriving in September. On the software side of things, the biggest news is that Apple is reportedly revealing an Apple TV App Store that will allow developers to create third-party apps and games for the device.
3. LinkedIn's Q2 earnings beat expectations on both the top and bottom line. The company is de-emphasizing products like display ads, in favor of newer efforts, like sponsored updates, which has become its fastest growing business.
4. Mark Zuckerberg has hinted on a multi-billion dollar opportunity Facebook hasn't even begun to get started on yet. Search could be a huge revenue driver.
5. New York-based mobile video advertising and content company Jun Group has raised $28 million in its first institutional investment round. The investment was led by Halyard Capital and Bridge Bank.
6. I hired a virtual PA for a week. It's made me a far more organized person, but I felt a bit of a snob.
7. NBC is reportedly investing $250 million in BuzzFeed. That would value BuzzFeed at $1.5 billion.
8. These are the 13 most popular apparel brands by age. Fluent surveyed more than 1,600 US consumers.
9. Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg look way smarter now that they've doubled Re/code's sale price in just two months. Re/code's buyer Vox Media is reportedly raising a new round of financing from NBC Universal that would value the company at $850 million, making Swisher and Mossberg's all-stock deal 2.2 times more valuable today than it was two months ago.
10. There's one part of the SoulCycle IPO filing no one can stop laughing about. The way SoulCycle describes the brand in the paperwork is cringeworthy.