Wall Street Journal

Marketers have been pouring money into mobile, but they’re still hungry for better tools to track the reach of their ads. Now there are signs of progress at the big measurement firms.

Nielsen will announce it is partnering with BrightRoll and TubeMogul -- two digital ad-sales firms -- for a technical trial before the expanding its ad-tracking system, known as Online Campaign Ratings, to mobile this summer.

ComScore, a Nielsen rival, announced the expansion of its measurement product, Validated Campaign Essentials, to track ads appearing on smartphones and tablets.

The two initiatives are evidence of how important tracking consumer activity on mobile devices is becoming to advertisers -- and how measurement companies are scrambling to provide more of that information.

NBCUniversal said it plans to launch an extensive original programming slate for its digital platforms.

The Comcast unit said the programming would be featured on its channels' websites, through video on-demand services and on streaming service Hulu.

NBCUniversal said the plan is "designed to connect advertising brands with consumers in the most engaging and immersive ways." The digital series, in several cases, will be developed in collaboration with advertising partners, the company added.

"Much of the uncaptured value in the online world can be unlocked with smart collaborations between creators and clients," NBCUniversal content executive Jeff Wachtel said in a release. "This year, we're making a big push to building that bridge."

NBCUniversal's announcement comes two weeks after it reached a multiyear deal to give Hulu exclusive rights to stream several TV shows.

Madison Avenue has long been home to creative gurus who had months to produce an advertising campaign. But an explosion of social media has pushed ad firms to work at faster paces and to even hire folks who are used to working on tight deadlines: reporters.

Take Caitlin Francke, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer. After a stint in marketing at Conde Nast and work at various agencies, she’s now senior vice president and director of social strategy at Publicis Kaplan Thaler.

“We know as journalists that we can teach to the advertising agencies the need to move that much faster,” Francke said. Her job includes running Publicis’s so called “Newsdesk” operations, a department of 50 people that includes social strategists, creative staffers and others.

The newsdesk, formed two years ago, monitors social media for eight clients and looks for opportunities for a marketer to jump in on a conversation in real-time. A morning meeting for the newsdesk may include a rundown of the important news of the day, a discussion of what major events to prepare for and a review of the conversations that are unfolding on social media. For big events, like the Olympics, Publicis will set up a pop-up 24/7 newsdesk for its client.

If they spot an opportunity, they post something quickly on social media channels like Facebook or Twitter that links the brand to what’s going on. Finding the right opportunity isn’t easy – a brand doesn’t want to tie itself to bad news.

BuzzFeed has become a destination for young, pop-culture aficionados through its hearty offering of TV-themed stories, lists and quizzes such as “What Would Your ‘Game of Thrones’ Name Be?” Now, the online publisher is offering TV networks a chance to align their brands more closely to BuzzFeed’s.

BuzzFeed is offering to let TV networks use its brand name for on-air and digital promotions for their shows. Cable channels IFC and Bravo, which have quietly tested the service in recent months, have signed on as launch partners.

The service is part of an expansion of an existing BuzzFeed marketing offering to TV networks, which already pay the site to create stories deemed to be of interest to the shows’ target audiences. The so-called “sponsored content” is distinguished from regular editorial stories and makes clear that the story was created on behalf of the advertising brand.

The new advertising services highlight how BuzzFeed, an online publisher which creates content designed to be shared through social media, is attempting to become a more important venue for entertainment advertising -- a market that big social media sites and online publishers are targeting aggressively.

US regulators said a vulnerability in banks' computer networks could have exposed sensitive information to hackers, and they instructed both small institutions and Wall Street firms to update their security systems.

The alert from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council said the "Heartbleed" encryption bug may have allowed hackers to access the private "keys" to banks' servers, allowing them to decrypt and view sensitive information.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, one of the members of the council, said it wasn't aware of attackers exploiting the Heartbleed flaw that became public in recent days but said banks should assume that their security systems may have been breached. Regulators said hackers may have accessed sensitive information without the banks' knowledge.

Amazon.com said video streams on its Prime Instant Video service nearly tripled year-over-year, helped along by the company's heavy spending on original shows and new content.

"We've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in great TV shows and movies for Prime members and it's working," said Bill Carr, vice president of digital video and music for Amazon.

The announcement comes about a week after Amazon unveiled a $99 set-top box, called Fire TV, for streaming video and games, which should allow the company to reduce its dependence on other hardware manufacturers such as Roku to deliver its streaming-video service to televisions.

Samsung is the still the king of the US smartphone marketing race, but the Korean giant’s rivals closed its huge lead with an advertising blitz in 2013.

All told, seven of the top US smartphone makers spent a tad over $1.3 billion in 2013 on ads across TV, print, online, radio and outdoor venues, up 33% from 2012 spending of about $1 billion, according to ad research and consulting firm Kantar Media. Spending in the telecom category as a whole grew more than 8%, about nine times faster than the total US ad market that grew 0.9%, said Kantar Media chief research officer Jon Swallen.

The numbers reflect the rising intensity of the smartphone race and highlight the growing role that device makers play in wireless marketing as carriers focus their advertising on service plans or network quality instead of devices, as they did in the past. Samsung outspent Apple by $68 million in 2012, but the iPhone maker responded with a TV-led counter-attack and closed the ad spending gap to just $12 million as Samsung dialed back its outlays.

Residents and business owners in Carbon Hill (AL) got a surprise in letters from AT&T in February. The company said the town, where signs welcome visitors to "the city with a future," could usher in one of the biggest technological changes since Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone.

AT&T and Verizon are racing to replace their phone networks with new technology. The change is supported by the federal government, but smaller phone and Internet service sellers say the two giants are trying to escape regulations that promote competition. If regulators approve, AT&T customers would eventually have to switch to wireless or high-speed service. New customers wouldn't be allowed to sign up for traditional, landline-based service at all.

AT&T's top executive in Alabama, Fred McCallum, wrote that the proposed changes are an "exciting opportunity for our customers and for our company." But Carbon Hill City Clerk Janice Pendley says some people in the former mining town are apprehensive. "Some of them like their landline, and they like it just the way it is," she says.

Nearly 40% of US households now have no landline phone, and there are more wireless devices than people. "Revolution is all around us," says Federal Communications Commission Chairman Thomas Wheeler. An all-Internet protocol network could lead to better products, lower prices and "massive benefits" for consumers, he says.

AT&T says no one will lose old-fashioned phone service until the carrier proves it can provide those customers with "an alternative." The revolution is about to get a nudge from the federal government. AT&T is seeking approval to launch a series of changes that would start with not letting new customers in Carbon Hill and a section of Delray Beach (FL) sign up for traditional, landline-based service. AT&T wants new and existing customers to eventually use broadband service, mobile phones or a conventional phone that connects to a router-like box.

In Carbon Hill, AT&T wants to go ahead even though the carrier is unsure how it would provide broadband service to about 4% of residential customers because they are too far away from the center of the sparsely populated area. In Delray Beach, there is a different challenge: About half of the people are at least 65 years old, the age group slowest to embrace new phones, according to the FCC.

Smaller phone and Internet service providers say it isn't fair for AT&T and Verizon to escape oversight by shifting to a different type of network. Those rivals depend on access to the giant carriers' networks -- and fear it could be threatened as chunks of the traditional phone network are shut down. That could lead to fewer phone and Internet-service choices -- and higher costs for businesses and consumers, the smaller companies say.

Cincinnati Bell said that it has agreed to sell its wireless spectrum licenses and other related assets to Verizon Wireless in a deal valued at $210 million.

Cincinnati Bell Wireless will sell all of its rights, titles and interest in its wireless spectrum licenses for $194 million in cash, while Verizon will take over certain tower lease obligations. CBW said it expects to continue to provide wireless service for eight to 12 months from the time of signing, and that customers don't need to take any action at this time.

"This transaction is an important step toward increasing focus on our growing strategic product base, wireless service and support throughout the transition period," said Ted Torbeck, president and chief executive of Cincinnati Bell, adding that it gives the company "increased flexibility" to meet growing customer demand for its suite of fiber-optic connection products.

CBW will lease back the spectrum it is selling for a period of time following the closing of the transaction, in order to wind down its wireless network operations and to help its wireless customers transition their service to Verizon Wireless or other wireless providers, the company said. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2014.

Turkey's telecom regulator signaled that it would stop blocking Twitter with government officials saying the microblogging site would soon be accessible two weeks after it was banned ahead of crucial elections.

Turkey's Telecommunications Board, or TIB, removed a court ruling from its website that had been used to justify the ban shortly after 5 p.m. local time. At 5:30 p.m., Twitter still couldn't be directly accessed, forcing users to continue seeking technical workarounds like virtual private networks. The TIB later said that the block on Twitter would be "lifted right after the necessary technical steps are taken."

The telecommunications watchdog's website still displayed court rulings blocking YouTube, in a sign that the video-sharing platform could be poised to remain inaccessible. Twitter didn't make an immediate comment on its @policy Twitter handle, but said in a tweet that it welcomed the court ruling. "We hope to have Twitter access restored in Turkey soon," the San Francisco-based company said.