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Drew Olanoff
October 11th, 2012

Thoughtful.org Launches To Connect Brands And Celebrities To Shake Up Social Good

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Here’s the deal, I have some experience in the realm of trying to gather a bunch of folks around a cause to make an actual difference in the world for others. Over the past few years, I’ve seen quite a few “campaigns” shake up things on Twitter and Facebook that blew my mind, when it comes to raising money or awareness around important causes.

Today, a new service called Thoughtful.org has… → Read More

Michael Arrington
July 13th, 2011

Ad.ly In Play As Social Sites Look For Celebrity Connections

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Ad.ly is an advertising platform that pairs advertisers with celebrities. For $1,000 to $200,000, an advertiser can get one of a thousand celebrities to publish a sponsored message, usually on Twitter. The company has raised $5.5 million, has sixteen employees, and has sold 26,000 paid endorsements in the last year and a half.

The company occasionally pops up in the news. They were banned from… → Read More

Jason Kincaid
April 9th, 2011

Ad.ly Versus Facebook: Something Doesn't Add Up

Earlier this week we heard whispers that Facebook was clamping down on Ad.ly and Crowdrally — two services that let users post sponsored updates to their Facebook Pages. This is important, because the companies are monetizing Facebook Page feeds, which is something that Facebook presumably would prefer to do itself.

Inquiries to speak to both companies went unanswered.

Then, this morning… → Read More

Alexia Tsotsis
March 14th, 2011

Charlie Sheen Tweets Generated Over 1M Uniques For Internships.com

The dust has finally settled on the Sheen media hurricane from the past couple of weeks and bloggers have pretty much moved on in expectation of the next easy content fustercluck. Internships.com however, who paid at least 100K for the Ad.ly campaign (in the guise of a social media intern job post), is reaping the benefits of the two Sheen tweets, and have revealed their related traffic totals to… → Read More

Robin Wauters
October 8th, 2010

Libyan Domain Registry Shares Its Views On The .ly Hoopla, But Questions Remain

As you may have read here earlier this week, the Libyan domain registry NIC.ly raised quite a ruckus by suddenly assuming control over the domain name vb.ly, abruptly taking down a URL shortening service cooked up by Ben Metcalfe and Violet Blue.

NIC.ly now states that they tried to contact the previous owners of vb.ly repeatedly, to no avail, and that the domain was singled out because of its… → Read More

Robin Wauters
October 6th, 2010

Trouble In Clever Domain Land: Bit.ly And Others Risk Losing Theirs Swift.ly

Bit.ly, HootSuite (with its Ow.ly service), Ad.ly and perhaps even Smel.ly could well be at risk of having their domain names sudden.ly taken away by the Libyan government.

Ben Metcalfe blogs that his domain name vb.ly was recently seized by NIC.ly (the domain registry and controlling body for the Libyan domain space) because the content of his website, at least in their opinion, was in… → Read More

Leena Rao
September 15th, 2010

In-Stream Ad Network Ad.ly Extends Reach To Facebook Pages

Ad sales on Facebook are expected to reach a whopping $1.3 billion this year alone, thanks in part to the social network’s massive reach to over 500 million members. So it would make sense for Ad.ly, which operates an in-stream ad network on social platforms Twitter and MySpace, to be able to target users on the world’s largest social network. Today, the startup is announcing the ability for… → Read More

Leena Rao
June 3rd, 2010

As Twitter Starts To Crack Down On In-Stream Ads, Ad.ly Turns To MySpace

In-stream advertising network Ad.ly, which launched last year, is moving beyond just advertising on Twitter today. The startup just announced a deal with MySpace to allow the social network’s members to insert in-stream ads in their activity streams. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Ad.ly, which will continue to advertise on Twitter, links up advertisers with users and then distribute links… → Read More

Leena Rao
May 11th, 2010

Twitter In-Stream Ad Network Ad.ly Raises $5 Million, Recruits News Corp Exec As CEO

Twitter advertising network Ad.ly, which launched last year, has raised $5 million in additional funding led by GRP Partners with Greycroft Partners and Matt Coffin (the founder of LowerMyBills) participating in the round. Ad.ly is also bringing on new CEO, Arnie Gullov-Singh. Gullov-Singh was previously EVP of product, technology and operations at News Corp’s Fox Audience Network, a group he… → Read More

Michael Arrington
March 24th, 2010

Schwing! Ad.ly Wants To Sell One TechCrunch Tweet For $7k

I admit it – we’ve been skeptical of this whole Ad.ly sponsored tweet model where you literally rent out your Twitter stream for cash. It just smells a little too much like pay per post to us.

But we went ahead and signed up for Ad.ly last year to see what kind of ads might be proposed to us. The price we asked for? $10 million per tweet.

Hey, everyone has their price.

Until today there were no… → Read More

Leena Rao
February 16th, 2010

Ad.ly Launches Self Serve Platform For Advertisers To Push Sponsored Tweets

The idea of ad-sponsored Tweets has been the subject of some controversy. Some say advertisements within a Twitter user’s stream could distort the user’s authority. The idea that a Twitter users (and advertisers) would be monetizing their followers is questionable and has raised some interesting discussions. Ad.ly, which launched last year, aims to link up advertisers with Twitter users and then… → Read More

Leena Rao
December 17th, 2009

Ad.ly Launches Analytics For Sponsored Tweets

There’s been a bit of controversy around Ad.ly, which aims to link up high-profile advertisers with celebrities on Twitter and then distribute links to marketing campaigns through the user’s tweet stream with full disclosure. Launched this fall, the startup has created an interesting way to use the viral nature of Twitter and celebrity reach to develop an advertising model.

Today, Ad.ly has… → Read More

Erick Schonfeld
November 5th, 2009

The Realtime Agenda For The Realtime CrunchUp

Over the past few weeks, it’s definitely been crunchtime as we’ve been putting together the panels and demos for our Realtime CrunchUp on November 20 in San Francisco. Get your tickets here. After much back and forth, and with the help of our Realtime Board, we finally have an agenda we are very excited to present (see below).

Speakers will include Twitter COO Dick Costolo, Salesforce CEO Marc… → Read More

Robin Wauters
October 20th, 2009

With Fresh Funding And A Hollywood PR Firm, Will Ad.ly Define Twitter Advertising?

I’m still not sure if the Twitter stream is the right place to be for advertising, but with the way the company set out to make it easy for developers to build upon their platform with open APIs, it’s no wonder so many ad networks have sprung up since it got started. Its massive growth and the fact that the San Francisco startup is a media and celebrity darling probably helped in that regard… → Read More

Leena Rao
September 22nd, 2009

Ad.ly Brings Sponsored Tweets From Celebrities

As Twitter continues to mull over how to make money, startups are looking to capitalize on the advertising potential of the microblogging platform. Media network Glam Media is going to be launching a Twitter ad network. And today, Ad.ly, an Los Angeles-based startup, is launching a Twitter-based advertising network to connect high-end brand advertisers with celebrity and high-profile Twitter… → Read More