Bicoastal Cohn+Company has added director Harry Patramanis for spots….Director Danny Boyle is joining Hollywood-based SunSpots….Tombo, the Hollywood-headquartered production house founded by executive producer Fred Porter, has signed director Branson Veal….Swedish director Johan Tappert has signed with Compulsive Pictures, New York for commercial representation….VP/executive producer Matthew Charde has exited San Francisco-headquartered Red Sky’s entertainment division and is pursuing other opportunities. The entertainment group was created last fall after Red Sky acquired Boston- and Burbank-based animation/effects/live-action studio Olive Jar, in which Charde was a principal, and Los Angeles-based multimedia firm White Noise (SHOOT, 10/6/00, p. 1). Earlier this year, Red Sky filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (see SHOOT’s "Street Talk," 7/27, p. 22)….Bicoastal Believe Media has fortified its U.K. presence via an association with Rose Hackney Barber, London. Believe Media’s London operation will be quartered on the Rose Hackney Barber premises, with executive producer Mark O’Sullivan continuing to represent the Believe directorial roster in the U.K….Hollywood-based Orbit Entertainment Group, the parent to commercial production house Orbit Productions, is set to produce Phoenix Pictures’ military thriller Basic. Directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard, The Hunt For Red October) and starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, Basic is the first feature to come out of the strategic alliance entered into last year by Orbit Entertainment Group and Culver City, Calif.-based Phoenix Pictures (SHOOT, 1/21/00, p. 1)….PostWorks, New York, has named visual effects/graphics designer Victor Barroso director of the company’s newly created graphics and visual effects division…Smoke editor Nathan Hurlburt has joined Liquid Light, New York….Jeff Ross has come aboard Glendale, Calif.-based Sunset Digital (formerly Sunset Post) in the newly created role of executive VP/COO. Ross spent the past 11 years at Pacific Ocean Post, Santa Monica, joining as its COO in 1990 and then serving from ’97 on as managing director of POP Film and POP Animation (which have both since been merged into R!OT)….Amy Nicholson, creative director at the New York office of Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), has left the agency. Todd Waterbury, who had been at the Portland, Ore., headquarters of W+K, will succeed Nicholson….Nigel Williams has joined ad agency davidandgoliath, as creative director. He will be based in the shop’s Los Angeles headquarters (the agency also maintains a New York office), and report directly to David Angelo, chief creative officer/managing partner. Williams comes over from Suissa Miller Advertising, Los Angeles….After 15 years in business, Holland Mark Advertising, Boston, has closed. Clients serviced by the agency included Polaroid, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Yankee Candle Co., and Veryfine Products’ juice line….
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