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Google Inc. has completed its acquisition of DoubleClick, a company that offers online ad serving and management technology to advertisers, web publishers and ad agencies.

“We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman/CEO. ”With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.”

~Giselle Abramovich

Sybase has commenced its Dutch Auction tender offer to purchase no more than $300 million of its common stock at about $30 per share.
The number of shares to be purchased makes up approximately 12 percent of Sybase’s outstanding shares.
None of Sybase, its directors and officers, the dealer manager, or the information agent is making any recommendation to stockholders on whether to tender their shares. Stockholders must decide how many shares they will tender, if any, and the price within the specified range at which they will tender their shares for purchase by the company.
Sybase’s directors and executive officers have advised Sybase that they do not intend to tender any of their shares in the tender offer.
Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated is acting as the dealer manager for the tender offer and the information agent is Innisfree M&A Incorporated. The depositary is American Stock Transfer & Trust Company.
The purpose of the auction is to allow stockholders to indicate how many shares and at which price within the company’s specified range they wish to tender.
Based on the number of shares tendered and the price specified by the tendering stockholders, the company will determine the lowest price per share within the range that will enable it to purchase up to 10,000,000 shares, or such lesser number of shares as are properly tendered.

Britain’s “Media Agency of the Year,” Steak Media, has announced its U.S. launch, naming as its first clients the fashion brand French Connection, the luxury lingerie brand Myla and the global mobile-based community FunkySexyCool.

Steak’s impressive growth has been guided by its board which includes advertising and media experts such as Mother’s Matt Clark, financial director and partner; Robert Campbell who founded Rainey Kelly Campbell Rolfe, was creative director and vice chairman of Y&R Europe, and executive creative director and vice chairman of McCann Erickson; and Steak’s Chairman, Seb Bishop, founder of Espotting and ex-creative at Publics and Rainey Kelly.

Steak is the search-led digital agency, offering search engine marketing, online reputation management, mobile search, digital media planning and buying, affiliate marketing and digital creative.

Established in 2005, Steak’s origins lie in search marketing. Steak’s management team were founding members of Espotting, the company that pioneered search marketing in Europe in 2000, providing paid listings to Yahoo Europe, Lycos Europe and Ask, before being sold in a deal that valued the company at $186 million.

Chrysi Philalithes, ex-Espotting founding member and vice president of global marketing and communications at MIVA, was appointed as launch managing director.

~Giselle Abramovich

With the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Exhibition right around the corner, I figured I’d interview one of the show’s long-time attendees Kevin Lee, co-founder of Did-it to see his outlook on the show and mobile search. Here’s what he had to say:

 Giselle Abramovich: With mobile search picking up the pace, the SES show has three panels that are dedicated solely to the channel. What are some of the most recent developments in the mobile search arena, that you feel will truly pave the way for mobile search?
Kevin Lee: IPhone clones will be key in the evolution of mobile search. The user experience must improve to stimulate usage.
GA: Did-it is a master at Internet search on the PC. Will your company be moving into the mobile search space in the next few years? Why or why not?
KL: We keep testing things and as we get success stories, we will move more heavily into mobile advertising.
GA: What are some of the challenges and opportunities in mobile search? What’s your assessment of mobile search and where do you think things are headed?
KL: The biggest challenges are scale (not large enough) and finding the appropriate way to charge for advertising.  CPC and CPM may not be right, so CP-Call or some other metric may work
GA: In regards to the show, why does Did-it like to exhibit at SES.
KL: Our audience is there.
GA: What are some of your impressions of past shows?
KL: Open discussion and a thirst for learning best practices are conducive to a great conference.
GA: What are some of the important topics you are looking forward to attending?
KL: I like to keep up what brand marketers are looking into, so I’ll pop into the sessions with major spenders represented.

Yahoo Inc. says that it will debut its long awaited advertiser publisher exchange dubbed APEX in the second quarter this year.
At least that’s what the Internet giant’s CEO Jerry Yang told executives at the Interactive Advertising Bureau conference in Phoenix, AZ. APEX has been in testing since last summer and is designed to coordinate advertising with content, creating a more relevant experience. Yahoo says Apex will help it create cross-channel  ad campaigns in search, display and mobile. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

~Giselle Abramovich