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What you need to know in advertising today
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What you need to know in advertising today

zuckerberg

Stephen Lam/Reuters

Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on stage during the annual Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 18, 2017.

Facebook has painted itself into a corner.

The company wants to be a major video-advertising player, but its executives have declared that they are firmly against pre-roll ads, those video ads that run right before video clips.

A solution may lie in Spotify's video ads, which are upfront with consumers about giving them 30 minutes of music with no ad interruptions after a single ad.

To read more how Facebook could learn from Spotify when it comes to making money from video, click here.

In other news:

Speaking of Facebook, the company seems to have hit a wall. People may be continuing to sign up for Facebook, but they aren't really using it as much as they once used to.

Facebook is also killing off M, the messenger assistant that books dinner reservations on command. Companies can, however, still launch chatbots for customer service, and M's key-word driven suggestion feature will stay in place.

It has also struck a deal with Sony's music division to let users share music videos. The licensing agreement will allow Facebook users to post videos and music with content from artists signed by Sony/ATV.

"This is quickly becoming meaningful": Magazine giant Hearst is going all in on Amazon's Alexa. Hearst says it is seeing quick user adoption of content created for voice-enabled devices like Amazon's Echo.

The engineer fired for his memo about women in tech is suing Google for discrimination over being white, male, and conservative. James Damore alleges that he was the subject of discrimination for his political viewpoints as well as his race and gender.

Google managers kept blacklists of conservative employees - and one manager even considered holding "trials." These allegations are part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of fired Google engineer James Damore that seeks to represent white males and conservatives who feel like they've been the target of discrimination.

The Weeknd tweeted that he was cutting ties with H&M over a shocking sweatshirt ad many accused of being racist. H&M used an image of a young black boy to advertise a hoodie that said "coolest monkey in the jungle."

Viacom has agreed to acquire influencer marketing agency Whosay, the Wall Street Journal reports. Viacom wants to use Whosay "as an engine" to work with brands to develop unique content around tentpole events.

Endeavor - the new name for the entertainment conglomerate formed after WME's acquisition of IMG - has agreed to buy branding and marketing agency 160over90. Terms weren't disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter said the price was around the $200 million mark.

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