MarTech Today: Our ‘Naughty & Nice’ list, cross-device ad tech & more

Here’s our daily recap of what happened in marketing technology, as reported on MarTech Today, MarTech and other places across the web.

From MarTech Today:

• Hey Santa, here’s our 2016 “Marketing Naughty & Nice” list
  Dec 22, 2016 by Barry Levine
  Check out our choices for those in marketing, ads and search who deserve a candy cane — or a lump of coal.
• Cross-device ad tech: How to vet potential partners providing this critical stack element
  Dec 22, 2016 by Chuck Moran
  The need for cross-device tracking is so acute that marketers are vulnerable to charlatans whose solutions are more hype than reality. Contributor Chuck Moran advises on the questions to ask and the considerations to weigh.

From Marketing Land:

• Improve search rankings and increase productivity with local marketing automation software
  Dec 21, 2016 by Digital Marketing Depot
  Managing online citations, claimed and unclaimed listings, reviews and ratings, landing pages and data feeds for hundreds or thousands of locations has become time-consuming and costly for enterprise brands. Automating these processes can improve search rankings, increase productivity and lower CPCs due to better SEO.

From Around The Web:

• Facebook’s secretive hardware team signs rapid collaboration deal with 17 universities, TechCrunch
• Better Website Testing – A Simple Guide to Knowing What to Test, vwo.com
• Conversational Design Essentials: Tips For Building A Chatbot, www.smashingmagazine.com
• Performance optimization in an HTTP/2 world, yoast.com
• ICANN gives Whois privacy services breathing room on new transfer policy, domainnamewire.com
• Google will launch two flagship smartwatches early next year, www.theverge.com
• High-speed Wi-Fi rolls into 100th railway station in India , https://blog.google.com
• How Facebook’s Homegrown Data Centers Serve Billions Of Users, Now And In The Future, www.fastcompany.com
• PlayStation VR now supports YouTube, www.theverge.com

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.