Looksmart to provide "Triangulation of Data" via Metamarkets perhaps?

Mention has been previously made before - - of who I feel will become the most important (intrical) and such a 'central' player (as part of an exciting future for both Looksmart & a/the fully scaled global, OPEN marketplace), being a Co called Metamarkets.  

- tinyurl.com/3s46hks

In my most recent mention of Metamarkets [The Yahoo! Q1 - 2011 Report .."Yahoo has lost a Major Distribution Partner"....

.... tinyurl.com/43tfynv] I had even suggested  - that this Co's project (called, The Druid) is more than likely 'based' on or, has certainly been influenced by - the following:

[PDF] Authority in the Context of Distributed Knowledge - Druid: Home - - - File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View by K Foss - Related articles - (Bottom of page 8/the start of page 9-"distributed knowledge" is to have some agent - - - that may be called the "co-ordinator".) ["Agent Looksmart" has a nice 'ring' about it?]

tinyurl.com/43tfynv

We know this important Company Metamarkets [details] has been described as essentially trying to price ads across mobile and web platforms for media companies in real-time.- The company is described as being a supply-side electronic media price discovery and predictive analytics platform. [Stan]

Today, the Co's CEO (David Soloff) writes an interesting column over at adexchanger.com. - Read the full story here »n

David Soloff (I feel) virtually makes mention of a same (fundamental) need for (both) "distributed knowledge" and a "co-ordinator" in his article.

< No trading desk or electronic broker would outline an execution strategy without the data necessary to provide a solid analytic basis for developing a winning trading strategy.

In this use case, market data provides a solid signal against which to execute: any HFT (High Frequency Trading) shop relies on multiple high-quality, high-frequency, neutrally-aggregated market data sets to feed the models that form the basis for the day’s trade execution.>

Regarding those two fundamental needs that I've mentioned, in (Use Case the Second; in which the market itself conspires against price discovery), he goes on to say:

<The only answer here is lots and lots of corroborating or triangulating data. Data trades inversely to liquidity. In the absence of a transaction flow to dip one’s toes into, data sets and valuation frameworks are the only mechanism to discover how to value an asset. >

<This need for data presents a major business opportunity. Capitalism abhors a vacuum, and all manner of public and private data sets have been created to help seller and buyer determine a fair trade. In illiquid and opaque markets, capital has been allocated very efficiently to help buyers and sellers of the asset learn how to fairly value that asset.>

And that:

< The system of independent information brokers works pretty well, despite some periodic cataclysmic hiccups, and especially taking into account the amount of capital and risk flowing through these various systems’ pipes.>

He goes on to say:

< The best form of information vendor to these illiquid markets are typically contributory data networks: individual parties contribute their transaction set to the common pool, in exchange for access to the aggregated data set, stored and attended to by a consortium-owned data broker. - - - -  Mike Driscoll, has coined the acronym V.A.D.A.R. to describe these “value-added data aggregators and redistributors.” These are the businesses that turn straw into gold. >

He points out, that:

< Nobody conducts business, either buying assets or pricing product, without consulting a data set or information product delivered by these companies. - - - These companies are duty-bound to protect and keep secure the data that has been entrusted to them.- - By the same token, contributors recognize - - that only by allowing their data to be analyzed and statistically combined with other data can value as information be derived.>

He then concludes:

< Maybe the introduction of triangulating data will enable buyers to more confidently participate in these opaque and illiquid markets.

Perhaps this business may offer two product lines to suit both use cases: information products to suit low-latency auction markets on the one hand & more opaque & hard-to-value assets such as contract-based inventory on the other.

Perhaps the rule of efficient allocation of capital dictates - - that this happen sooner rather than later?> [Triangulation]

Now I've made many a mention here of Looksmart's Chief Scientist Dr. Vincent Granville [tinyurl.com/66thmyp] and a huge 'role' he and his team has to play.

Metamarketsgroup.com  is 'hosted' by Slicehost LLC  - Server Details
IP address:  67.207.129.21 (Click on that hyper-link below, here)

67.207.129.21/

Details can be found on the (also) previously mentioned Domain name:

CLOUD-IPS.COM

Registrars.Registrant:
Josh Odom
112 E. Pecan St.
...Suite #400
San Antonio, TX 78205
US

Josh Odom | LinkedIn is with Rackspace, who bought out Cloudclick, who he was also with.[Cloudkick makes it easy to manage and monitor cloud servers across different cloud providers http://cloudkick.com]

"Rackspace has been a long-time hosting partner & has demonstrated its talent and expertise year after year, raising the bar in the design and deployment of customer solutions built on Microsoft technologies," said John Zanni, director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft Corp.

tinyurl.com/43bq6ae

[19th of May - Rackspace sponsor @ Internet week in NY June 6-13th

www.internetweekny.com/sponsors]

[28th of July - Rackspace - instagr.am/p/Iuktd/ ]

Metamarket 'investors' include AOL and a very clever 'angel' in Jerry Neumann, who even gets a mention on it's Twitter page, too!

twitter.com/#!/metamx/

tinyurl.com/5uhgcm4

seekingalpha.com/user/36191/instablog/se...

During 'test' (I feel) I had pointed out recieving a Looksmart Ad from AOL's AdTechus, served on Mail.com (Also, owned by AOL)

tinyurl.com/3rqxdra

I find it fascinating that Metamarkets have their 'office' down @ 300 Brannon St. San Francisco, just around the corner from Looksmart, in 2nd Street. The [old Looksmart] building that also had the Metamarket Chief's former Co [in Rapt] as a tenant. (Besides iWin & 200 myspace engineers, supplied by News Corp!!!) tinyurl.com/5w6k9zg



Microsoft has a 'finger' in everything, no doubt.

< Microsoft plans to incorporate Rapt's tools & consultancy business into its Atlas Publisher Suite. That will allow it to offer publishers an integrated service to manage advertising sales, it said.

Microsoft obtained Atlas as part of its... acquisition of aQuantive for US$6 billion last May. It did not say how much it will pay for Rapt.

Rapt already counts a number of online services among its customers, including Microsoft, Expedia, Dow Jones and The New York Times, according to Microsoft.

One Rapt customer Microsoft didn't mention is Yahoo, which has used Rapt's Price Director software in the U.S. since 2004, and worldwide from October 2005, according to Rapt.>

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/143449/microsoft_buys_rapt_for_its_ad_management_tools.html

Now consider Looksmart AdCenter partner Adknowledge's BidSystem Ad Marketplace is a performance ad network for advertisers looking to maximize their online performance on a CPC or CPA basis.???

They say: "Our predictive targeting technology ensures delivery of the right message, to the right consumer, at the right time.

Performing over 20 billion calculations each day, [our- AdK's] targeting technology enables advertisers & publishers to achieve their objectives in a performance-based marketplace." http://www.adknowledge.com/

I could 'go-on' but won't do so.

Today, some-one must have decided shares in LOOK were a 'buy'. The volume after 1.00pm was very high (Day's Range: $1.83 - $2.23) and they pushed it's value up to that high of $2.23, before Market Makers then, brought it back down. (Accumulation)



finance.yahoo.com/q?s=look

LOOK: 4:00PM EDT: $2.09   0.20 (+10.58%)

All, just an opinion, as always.

LC

ps; By tomorrow we just may have some news? Who knows?

TechCrunch has tweeted that ... Facebook Deals Is Being Unveiled Tonight With Credits And Partners In Tow .... And that the NYT has put it's post back up here. 

Another embargo bites the dust… (Says TechCrunch)

You can almost 'bet you next week's wages' that OZ site Cudo will be involved, and up to it's chin, at that.
 

• Facebook launches deals program, rivals Groupon - AP

 

Disclosure: Long LOOK and extremely happy to be so, too...
.