Looking to expand its capabilities in the Southwest market, Willow Street Editorial (formerly known as Mad River Post/Dallas) has gone independent, entering into a strategic alliance with New York-based The Lodge to offer original music, sound and mixing capabilities to its core postproduction business.
Willow Street continues under the aegis of executive VP James Appleton. The shop’s roster consists of senior editor Erik Johnson (formerly of Crew Cuts and Homestead, New York), editors Sylvette Artinian (repped by Willow Street in the Southwest and Dallas markets) and Quan Tran.
Overseeing the day-to-day operation is executive producer Jeb Schary who last year came over from his producer’s post at The Richards Group, Dallas. Other key staffers are producer Liana Matin and head of client services Robin Gierhart.
Plans call for The Lodge to handle Willow Street’s mixing needs while offering scoring and sound design by drawing on talent from its New York, London and Tokyo studios.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More