Opportunities abound, as demonstrated by companies like EBay and Naspers targeting the traditional family-owned media companies in Latin America. The growth of interactive media and smartphones is changing the way buyers and sellers match their needs for cars, homes, jobs and other items. Free classified marketplaces are surfacing as the new turf in the war for revenue and profits.

Six key Latin American markets are covered in a 64-page report, “Latin America: Battle is growing for classified advertising,” released today by the AIM Group, publishers of the Classified Intelligence Report, the global industry continuous advisory reporting service. The report, available for purchase here, focuses on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela. The AIM Group reviews the market forces in each country; the traditional media companies and their efforts to manage the transition to interactive media, and the largest classified publishers in the market, whether print, online, or both.

“Growth in the consumer economies of these major markets is forcing media companies to adapt,” said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group. “With young audiences and a still-vibrant traditional print newspaper environment, a fundamental transition is under way.

“As Internet use grows in Latin America, especially on smartphones and tablets, users are finding new ways to search for cars, homes, jobs and ‘stuff’ — putting newsprint classifieds at great risk, while creating opportunities for a wide range of media companies, ranging from small feisty independents to some of the biggest media companies in the world,” Zollman said.

*    *    *    *

About the AIM Group: The AIM Group, formally the Advanced Interactive Media Group

LLC, is the world’s leading consultancy in interactive media and classified advertising. It publishes Classified Intelligence Report, a continuous advisory service often called “the bible of the classified advertising industry.”  Founded in 1998 and based near Orlando, Fla., the AIM Group works with leading media companies, broadcasters, dot-coms, yellow-page publishers and technology companies. It provides strategic and tactical consulting; sales training; proprietary and published research about interactive media; and other services.

Zollman and AIM Group Latin America Director, Dave LaFontaine, are available for interviews. Copies of the Latin America classified report are available for journalists for coverage purposes. Call: 407-788-2780 or email: JenniferL@AIMgroup.com for more information or to schedule an interview.

           You may feel that “just” 20 murders linked to Craigslist during the past three-and-a-half years — 12 of them during the past year alone — are acceptable. You shouldn’t.

          You may be unconcerned that almost every day in the United States, someone calls police to report that they were assaulted, robbed or ripped off by someone they met through Craigslist. You should be concerned.

          You may feel that “hundreds of millions or billions” of safe transactions mean that everything’s okay with Craigslist. You’re kidding yourselves.

          And you may think the ridiculous analogy that Craigslist is “safer than the city of Oakland” means something. It doesn’t.

          The sad fact, and I say this with great respect because I use Craigslist too, is that your site has indeed become a cesspool of crime. Despite your post that “crime is exceedingly rare on Craigslist” and Craigslist is a site of “exceptional safety,” you’re wrong.

          Your response to our report about crime and Craigslist, and the reaction you inspired, proves you’re not paying enough attention and not doing enough to protect your users. Working with police to catch criminals after the fact is not enough.

         Robbers, killers and con artists have found that Craigslist is a great place to ply their trade.

         One killing would be one too many. Twenty in three-and-a-half years is an outrage. You should be outraged, not defensive.

          Can crime happen anywhere? Sure. It happened in the past with newspaper classifieds, it’s happened with EBay, it happens through e-mail and it happens on a street corner. That doesn’t mean you should say “CL is unusually helpful and cooperative with law enforcement” and leave it at that.

          Anonymity, prostitution ads and “casual encounters” all add to the ethos of Craigslist. That’s good in many ways, and bad in many ways. Craigslist has developed a “wild west” sensibility about it that is part of what makes it Craigslist — but also part of what makes it such a dangerous place at times.

          Crimes are connected with EBay from time to time. What does EBay do about it? It operates an extensive safety and security section. It tracks — not just “flags” — abusers. It spends millions of dollars every year to keep its users safe. It employs former FBI agents and police officers.

          There was a reason the AIM Group report published last week included a link to every one of those 330 crimes we catalogued. Each one of those crimes affected a person. Some affected many more than one person, and changed their lives forever. Each one was about someone who was killed, or mugged, or ripped off, or violated in some way. Being defensive about it doesn’t help any of them. You can’t deny them, or point to “the exceptional safety of Craigslist” because those are only happening once a day.

          Craigslist takes in more than $120 million a year — we know, we’ve counted — and spends probably less than $40 million a year. (We’ve estimated it with some degree of accuracy.) What do you do with those millions that you don’t spend? Could you strengthen safety on Craigslist? Absolutely. Could you make it a healthier site for people to use? Most assuredly. Could you help users understand that even “meeting in a public place” is not precaution enough? You could and you should. Craigslist can and must do more to help its users stay safe, not just help cops catch the bad guys after someone has been defrauded, attacked or killed.

          You can be defensive, or you can do something about it. You should certainly choose to do something about it.

          Finally, a personal note. You can claim someone paid the AIM Group to “falsely portray Craigslist as fraught with criminal activity,” and it’s true we were paid. There’s no reason for us to be ashamed of that, just as there’s no reason for you to be ashamed of the millions of dollars you’ve received for operating Craigslist. That’s the system we live under, after all. But to impugn us personally and say that our “research” (you even put it in quotes) was “bought and paid for by a client” so it has no perspective, is shameful. And “falsely portray?” Every one of those crimes is enumerated. There’s nothing “false” about it. Read the clips for yourself.

         The research and detail of the 330 crimes reported in the media in the past year, and the 20 killings in three-and-a-half-years, is out there for you or anyone to see. Sadly, there were probably even more crimes than we reported. While the crimes are undisputable, the conclusions are ours. You, and the millions of people who read about this online, can agree with us or disagree with our conclusions as you wish. Oodle supported (i.e., paid for) the research and publication of the report. They didn’t cause the crimes, they didn’t kill anyone and they didn’t tell us what to say. We’re independent. That’s why we’re consultants to such a wide range of companies, worldwide, in the interactive-media industry.

       We’ve been following Craigslist since it was in five cities, and we’ve seen its remarkable growth and its tremendous success. We’ve also seen its failings. And 20 killings, a crime a day (almost) and an attitude that it’s exceptionally safe because there’s not more crime is just outrageous.

      You know us well enough. Because it suited you, you had our positive coverage of Craigslist’s elimination of prostitution ads read into the Congressional Record during last December’s Congressional investigation into human trafficking.

     So now, because it suits you, you blame the messenger. You shouldn’t.

     Instead, do more to fix Craigslist. You’ll never make it perfectly safe. That’s impossible. We understand and acknowledge that. At the AIM Group, most of us use Craigslist, and we’ll continue to do so. But we think sticking your head in the sand and claiming to be a safe place, when even a single user is either being robbed, mugged or killed, is a sad response to a rampant problem that you can and should address.

     Best regards,

     Peter M. Zollman

Deep was responsible for the rollout of new platforms, features and functions at Adicio, which provides technology for recruitment, real estate and automotive classifieds to hundreds of customers worldwide. Only last week, he debuted social-media enhancements across Adicio’s platforms.

He was a friend to us here at the AIM Group — always helpful, candid and enthusiastic — and we’ll miss him. We offer our condolences to Deep’s friends and family, and his colleagues at Adicio.

Services are pending. We’ll update this post when we hear more.

Deep, 31, was promoted to VP in August 2009. Before that, he was GM of Adicio’s Motors platform.

Trained as a software engineer, Deep held bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical (computer) engineering from Northeastern University and an MBA certificate in business administration from Tulane.  Before joining Adicio, he held positions at Cognex, Sun Microsystems, Cadence Design Systems, Stryker Communications and elsewhere.

Backpage.com’s revenue from online prostitution ads in 23 U.S. cities increased 15.3 percent to at least $1,671,685 in September compared with August, according to research conducted by the Advanced Interactive Media Group in Altamonte Springs. Fla. That’s an annual rate of just over $20 million.

However, Craigslist’s decision in early September to reject any further advertising for escort services put a huge dent in revenue generated by prostitution advertising. In August, the AIM Group estimated that the top sites for prostitution ads would generate nearly $76 million in annual revenue. Without Craigslist, that estimate has plunged 48.4 percent to $39.2 million.

AIM Group estimated that Backpage.com’s escort-service ad revenue increased $221,000 in September, which is a pittance compared with the monthly $3.7 million that U.S. sex-workers, pimps and traffickers had been paying to Craigslist for listings.

“There are clear signs that some revenue and listings are migrating to Backpage and to other sites that specialize in prostitution advertising,” said Mark A. Whittaker, an AIM Group consultant who worked on the report. “It doesn’t seem likely that alternative sites will be able to absorb all of the money that had been spent with Craigslist.”

Village Voice Media on Monday announced steps to prevent placement of “illegal ads” in the “personals” and “adult” sections of its Backpage.com classifieds site, but it remains to be seen if any of those steps will affect its revenue.

“Now that Backpage has become the market leader in ads for prostitutes, it’s feeling some of the heat that Craigslist felt before it eliminated its adult-services ads, and that could be the reason it’s taking security measures,” Whittaker said.

Revenue wasn’t the only evidence of a shift. Unique visitors to Backpage.com increased 15.8 percent to 2.73 million in September, according to Compete.com. Meanwhile, Craigslist’s unique visitors declined 2.4 percent to 59.76 million, its lowest total in the last 12 months, the Compete.com numbers show.

In mid-September, the AIM Group published an analysis of revenue from sex ads on 12 websites, including Craigslist, which on Sept. 3 eliminated its ad category for sex-related services. A variety of organizations, including state attorneys general and groups that combat sex trafficking of underage girls, had pressured Craigslist for months to remove the section.

Although a Craigslist official told a congressional hearing Sept. 15 that the company had eliminated sex advertising for good in the U.S., he did not explain the decision. By discontinuing the ads, Craigslist stands to lose between $12 million and $15 million this year. Law enforcement officials in the U.S. had encouraged Craigslist to charge fees for sex-related ads. By charging, Craigslist was able to capture credit-card and other information that could have been useful to police investigating sex trafficking. Craigslist still publishes sex ads in other countries, including Canada, but sex-workers can post those ads for free.

Now that Craigslist no longer publishes escort advertising in the U.S., other sites are picking up the slack.

Overall, Backpage.com saw a 17.5 percent increase in the number of online prostitution listings. Backpage.com publishes classified ads from many alternative weekly newspapers, including the 14 owned by Village Voice Media. Other publishers who feed ads to Backpage.com include Creative Loafing, which publishes weeklies in Atlanta, Tampa, Sarasota, Chicago, Charlotte and Washington, D.C. Listings actually declined in the six cities where Creative Loafing is published.

The AIM Group also estimated listings and revenue for four sites that specialize in prostitution ads – Eros.com, CityVibe.com, MyRedBook.com and Escorts.com. The growth in revenue equaled or exceeded the growth rate for Backpage.com

Although it did not see a significant increase in listings, AIM Group estimated a 35.9 percent increase in revenue at Eros.com, which charges fees for basic listings and then up-charges for a “VIP” listing on the site. A researcher counted the different types of listings and multiplied by the applicable rates in each city.
CityVibe’s revenue increased an estimated 17.5 percent on a 63 percent increase in the number of listings. CityVibe has a relatively low price for basic listings, ranging from $1 to $5 depending on the city, and then charges additional fees for “featured” and “VIP” listings.

MyRedBook.com, which focuses on West Coast prostitution services, saw a 16 percent increase in monthly revenue. Its listings are found on “discussion boards,” and the site charges for enhancements to the postings such as adding a colored background and anchoring the posts at the top of the page.

The AIM Group estimated a 70 percent increase in revenue on Escorts.com, but for this report it expanded the count to include all 23 cities counted for the other sites (except MyRedBook.com, which only has listings for cities in the West).

When added to the Backpage.com gains, these sites in September collected an additional $420,730, 11.4 percent of the $3.7 million in estimated monthly Craigslist revenue.

Unique Visitors

The AIM Group also compiled information about traffic to a group of websites that advertise or list prostitution services. Unique visitors reflect the number of individual computers (IP addresses) that visit a site once or more during a month. A unique visitor may visit the site more than once, but that individual is counted just once in the total.

Here are “top 10” sites based on unique visitors during September and the percentage change from the previous month:

Craigslist in Canada

Meanwhile, the nature of prostitution laws is changing in Canada, where Craigslist continues to publish ads for prostitution in its “erotic services” category. An Ontario Superior Court in late September ruled that some of Canada’s prostitution laws are unconstitutional, and the country seems to be taking a new look at its rules.

While that is occurring, prostitution and Craigslist are making headlines in Canada. In a town near Vancouver, police charged the operator of four brothels with bringing girls from Hong Kong to Canada and forcing them into prostitution. The man advertised on Craigslist, police told reporters.

Also, the justice minister in the Canadian province of Manitoba said on Oct. 13 that he planned to ask Craigslist to remove its erotic services category from the site in Canada.

The AIM Group counted 150,520 erotic services ads in four major Canadian cities – Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Victoria – for a 30-day period in August and September. This was the first time the firm counted the ads in Canada, so comparisons to previous months were not available.

—
This monthly update report has been funded by a foundation that has asked not to be identified, in part because it does not want to seem to be taking credit for the Craigslist change in practice, nor promoting other adult-services advertising media.

The original Sept. 15, 2010, report can be purchased on the AIM Group Reports page, and proceeds will be given to report’s sponsor.

If you’re an automotive maven, we’ve heard about two openings recently. Neither is on our job board yet but both companies are actively looking.

One’s a sales management position, and another is a sales and strategic role. One’s a company you probably don’t know too well; one is a major company you’ve certainly heard of.

Both want extensive knowledge of the automotive category, especially dealerships but also the media landscapes. So if that fits you, or you know someone who might be a good match, let me know.

The two companies are keeping the openings quiet for now, so you’ll have to e-mail me (pzollman@aimgroup.com) and I’ll try to put you in touch with them.

And, of course, make sure your resume (or your friend’s resume) is in our resume database because employers are looking there for good candidates.

“Sex ads: Where the money is,” is a 24-page report from the AIM Group published for release prior to a hearing on domestic-minor sex trafficking scheduled by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

“Ads for prostitutes generate a ton of money, especially since our estimates are extremely conservative,” said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group. “The ‘dirty dozen’ sites we reviewed offer tens of thousands of ads for sex services every day, and many of the second-tier sites are working hard to grab revenue that Craigslist has given up.”

A free summary report is available for download.

When Craigslist eliminated its adult services advertising on Sept. 3, it was on track to generate almost $45 million in prostitution advertising in 2010. By dropping the category, the company gave up $12 million to $15 million in revenue this year, although it had already generated $30 million on sex ads during 2010, the AIM Group estimated.

The AIM Group, which has been tracking Craigslist’s revenue since 2003, researched prostitution ads on 12 websites in the United States at the request of a private non-profit foundation that fights trafficking in children and women as one of its key initiatives. The AIM Group projected that nine of the sites will generate almost $33 million this year in ads for “body rubs,” “escort services” and similar thinly disguised prostitution services.

Backpage.com, operated by Village Voice Media, will generate an estimated $17.5 million in online and print prostitution advertising in 2010, the AIM Group projected. It was a distant No. 2, behind Craigslist. Two other sites generated estimated listings revenue of $5.4 million and $2.6 million, with still more revenue from banner ads and other “erotic” services.

“While Craigslist has apparently pulled out of the business of prostitution ads, it’s still a lucrative field. There are hundreds of websites where prostitutes advertise, and many of them are likely to grow as the effects of the Craigslist decision play out,” Zollman said.

The AIM Group cited the example of one ad published on Backpage.com that promoted a three-step process for posting ads for $5 on a relatively new site for “adult services.”

Download the free summary report here.  (PDF)

The full report will go on sale later today for $395, with all of the revenue going to the foundation that sponsored the research. The foundation actively combats trafficking in children and women, and declined to be identified because it does not want to seem to be taking credit for the Craigslist decision nor promoting other adult-services advertising media.

Jim Townsend

We’ve moved off of our old content-management environment onto WordPress MU. It allows us greater flexibility — especially when it comes to designing on the fly and moving the furniture around.

We hope we’ve made navigation more intuitive. (If we haven’t, we’ll soon discover and we’ll be able to fix it faster.)

●  Here on the homepage, in this space, our consultants and analysts will blog about events and trends we find to be important, comment-worthy or just plain interesting that we want to bring to immediate attention. Think of it as our “editorial page.”

●  You’ll find our global news and analysis by clicking the Classified Intelligence Report tab in the header. We cover classifieds and interactive advertising like no one else does — or can.  Sure, you can spend all day picking over the Web for your own competitive intelligence (at the expense of other things you probably should be doing). We’ll not only tell you what’s going on. We’ll tell you what you can do about it. If it’s important to your business, you’ll find it here.

As it was in the old site, some of the headlines in the CIR section are clients-only and password-protected. (We’ve also made it much easier for clients to access: We generate a new, global password with each issue of our cornerstone Classified Intelligence Report, which clients receive twice monthly as a PDF via e-mail.) This section will include the text from our PDF reports, as well as all our reporting between publishing cycles.

●  The About us tab above takes you to a much better designed section about who we are and what we can do for you. Foremost, we’re consultants. There’s lots we can do to help you build your business.

●  We’ve made it much easier to make an inquiry under our Become a client tab. If you are not already a client, you should be. We tailor-make our projects and programs to your business. You also gain access to our critical analyses in Classified Intelligence Report.

●  The Media jobs tab takes you to our new job board, where you’ll find more than 1,800 careers at dot-coms, newspapers, broadcasters and elsewhere. For the moment, it’s got the old AIMGroup.com header and navigation, so we apologize for any confusion. That will get changed in a few days.

We’re working on some other parts that weren’t quite ready for launch.  So, please pardon our dust while we continue to build.

In its latest detailed report about the worldwide “free classified” site that has changed the landscape of classified advertising, Classified Intelligence Report from the AIM Group estimated Craigslist’s revenue will grow 22 percent in 2010, up from $100 million in 2009. More than half the company’s revenue comes from recruitment advertising, while 30 percent comes from “adult services” ads — thinly disguised advertising for prostitutes — and about 17 percent (almost $21 million) comes from apartment ads in New York City, the AIM Group estimated.

The 47-page report includes the first detailed published analysis ever of Craigslist’s expenses, which include technology, bandwidth, personnel and legal fees. Craigslist Inc., parent of Craigslist.org, is locked in a fierce legal battle with EBay, its only outside shareholder and its largest direct competitor in the U.S. and Canada.

“Craigslist claims to have a ‘relatively non-commercial nature, public service mission and non-corporate culture,’ but in reality it turns so much profit that it’s a gold mine for its owners,” said Peter M. Zollman, founder of the AIM Group. “Per employee, it generates more than $4 million in revenue and profits of $2.9 million to $3.2 million — staggering numbers any way you count.

“By taking a comprehensive look at Craigslist’s revenue and expenses, and the many issues the company is facing, we illustrate the lucrative and changing nature of the classified-advertising industry.”

The AIM Group’s annual report on Craigslist, which is available at AIMGroup.com for $395, provides revenue estimates for Craigslist’s “adult services” ads; recruitment ads in each of the 19 cities where the company charges for job postings, and for apartment ads in New York. It outlines the company’s revenue growth; analyzes Craigslist’s costs, opportunities and challenges, and provides extensive background on the company’s legal fight with EBay. It also takes a detailed look at EBay’s U.S. and international classified advertising operations and growth, along with more than a dozen other competitors to Craigslist.

“We’re astonished at the explosive growth Craigslist continues to show, even in a very tough economy,” said Jim Townsend, editorial director of Classified Intelligence Report and the AIM Group. “For 2010, its ‘adult services’ revenue will be three times the revenue it generated in that category in 2009.”

Click here to buy the report.

The report also includes:

— An extensive overview of Craigslist, which grew from an e-mail list founded by Craig Newmark 15 years ago.

— A 15-point prescription for successfully competing with Craigslist and other classified publishers.

— A recap and timeline of the ongoing legal battle between Craigslist and EBay.

— A review of Craigslist’s plans, scuttled in early 2001, to become a community much like Facebook, which launched three years later. (“Oh, what could have been,” the report notes.)

— A look at other successful classified advertising sites and companies, including Oodle and Kaango in the U.S.; Kijiji, Loquo, Gumtree, Marktplaats and others owned by EBay as it expands its classified footprint; Schibsted’s successful Blocket marketplace model, now in 10 countries, and more.

The AIM Group began estimating Craigslist’s revenue in 2003, when it projected revenue of about $7 million. The company, parent of consulting group Classified Intelligence, tracks Craigslist’s revenue through the most basic approach — counting ads. Its complete methodology is detailed in the report.

*    *    *    *

About the AIM Group: The AIM Group, formally known as the Advanced Interactive Media Group LLC, is the world’s leading consultancy in interactive media and classified advertising. It publishes Classified Intelligence Report, a continuous advisory service often called “the bible of the classified advertising industry.” The AIM Group works with leading media companies, broadcasters, dot-coms, yellow-page publishers and technology companies. It provides strategic and tactical consulting; sales training; proprietary and published research about interactive media, and other services. Founded in 1998, it is based in Altamonte Springs, Fla. For more information call (407) 788-2780 or see http://AIMGroup.com .

The AIM Group, which publishes Classified Intelligence Report, surveyed 20 executives in the automotive-advertising industry globally, and found that 17 expected improvement in online advertising revenue this year, while only one expected a continued decline in 2010. Several said they projected “significantly better” advertising this year, and some noted that a rebound began in mid 2009.

“Our research shows that a substantial recovery is under way in auto advertising, but that it varies widely by market,” said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group and publisher of Classified Intelligence Report. “Most of the growth that’s likely in 2010 will be online, with declines likely to continue in print advertising, especially listings.”

The 62-page report, “Revving up: Online Auto Ads Rebounding Globally,” is one of a series of annual reports published by the AIM Group, including automotive, real estate, recruitment and an annual revenue estimate for Craigslist, the free-classified site. The report has been distributed to clients of the AIM Group’s “continuous advisory service,” Classified Intelligence Report, and is available for $495 through this link. A free preview is available here.

The report includes extensive statistical data about auto advertising markets in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the U.K. The data were published in conjunction with Autobiz, a classified-advertising data analysis company based in Paris.

It also includes a section for auto-advertising publishers, “Ten things you must do to improve your revenue.”

Executives who participated in the research included Chip Perry, president and CEO of AutoTrader.com in the U.S.; Genevieve LeBrun of Trader Corp. / AutoTrader in Canada; Dr. Nikolas Deskovic of AutoScout24 in Germany; Stephen Browning of CarsGuide.com (News Ltd.) in Australia, and Tim Peake of Trader Media Group in the U.K., along with representatives of sites in Italy, India, Finland, Australia and China.

After such a dismal year in 2009, it’s terrific to see optimism returning to the automotive-advertising marketplace. There’s a lot of work to be done, but dealers are increasing their spending and smart publishers can make sure they get their full share of growth this year.

The launch support program will help new Wave2 Media Solutions clients market the self-service option, target potential accounts, set up procedures and pricing, and help drive sales and acquire new advertisers.

“The sales and interactive media experience offered by the AIM Group will help our customers see a quicker return on their investment once they’ve deployed AdPortal,” said Brian Gorman, vice president of sales for Wave2 Media Solutions LLC. “The launch support program will help them maximize our industry leading solution for creating advertisements.”

AIM Group will offer several levels of customized launch support, ranging from a one-day series of meetings with key executives and managers to a full week of training with sales executives and special “kick-off” presentations for advertisers. The program will also introduce clients to the best practices of companies already using iPublish AdPortal.

“Allowing advertisers to create and submit their own ads helps newspapers grow their advertiser base as well as revenue,” said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group. “But it’s important to create a good experience for advertisers by keeping the process simple and by making sure real people are available to help and follow-up.”

The launch support program is an option being presented to purchasers of iPublish AdPortal, and Wave2 Media Solutions is providing information about it to all of its prospective customers.

The AIM Group, formally the Advanced Interactive Media Group LLC, is the world’s leading consultancy in interactive media and classified advertising. 

Wave2 Media Solutions opened a US office in October, 2006 to bring its leading self-service advertising solutions to the US newspaper market. Founded in the UK in 2004 it has quickly taken a leading position in both markets for self-service advertising. Wave2 is Adobe System’s leading developer of InDesign Server solutions in the newspaper market worldwide.

Wave2′s iPublish AdPortal is the only self-service solution available today that supports print and on-line ads as an integrated system. For Wave2′s hundreds of customers, AdPortal has become their central platform in reaching their goals to decrease the cost of sales and find new advertisers. Wave2′s AdPortal has become the standard self-service platform at Gannett, Media News Group, Freedom, Hearst and other leading publishers in the US and UK.