Kate Burns is joining Bebo as European vice president and managing director (the hire is close on the heels of Bebo’s president Joanna Shields’ promo to president of AOL’s People Networks). Burns hails from Dailymotion, which she joined just four months ago.

Adap.tv, creators of OneSource, a platform that helps publishers monetize online video content, has hired Dakota Sullivan as its vice president, marketing and product. She will run the company’s global marketing communications and product strategies. Previously, Sullivan was chief marketing officer at BlueLithium.

MIVA Direct, the homepage, toolbar and content arm of digital media company MIVA, has appointed Mark Ribaudo as vice president of direct marketing. He will be responsible for direct marketing and advertising across MIVA Direct’s portfolio of toolbars, homepages and destination sites. Ribaudo joins the company from Scholastic, where he was group director of Internet marketing.

You might already know, the answer, but let’s look at the list again adding more context.

If someone had shown me these lists and asked the original question, I would have guessed – Valueclick first (only due to the on again off again talk of Microsoft taking them), Tremor third given their video expertise, and next I would have gone smaller and looked for those with the buzz (Centro) that might be a value or those that have backers with deep connections (Adbrite). Given the recent acquisition of Right Media by Yahoo, Doubleclick by Google, and Avenue A/Razorfish by Microsoft and 24/7 by WPP Group, I probably would have not guessed any of the other survivors that have garnered little mention by analysts and pundits – Tribal Fusion, Blue Lithium, Specific Media, Casale (numbers five through eight respectively). If a company wanted to pick up an ad network, they would have already, correct, especially since we are talking about one of these on the list buying another? Still, who would have guessed that Yahoo would have acquired Blue Lithium, price $300 million cash. On Tuesday, they did, or at least they announced that both entered into a “definitive agreement,” one that will most likely not have any issues or Microsoft trying to call foul.Getting back to why, not having an inside connection, I can only speculate. It certainly came as a surprise given that in April, they completed their $850 million purchase of Right Media, whose business feels like a network of networks. Reading through the quotes from Yahoo execs, though, we can start to make a guess as to why. Let’s start with new CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang. He says, “”BlueLithium’s products, technology and team will be an integral part of our drive to build the industry’s leading advertising and publishing network.” Not much there. The release also attributes him with, “This acquisition will extend our ability to deliver powerful data analytics, advanced targeting and innovative media buying strategies to our customers, who are increasingly looking for these insights.” There’s a hint of something, a suggestion that Yahoo’s targeting isn’t there or that Right Media somehow doesn’t give them what they need. We’re getting somewhere when he adds, “By leveraging BlueLithium’s complementary expertise and tools, we will be able to better address the needs of our performance-based display advertisers and enhance the value of our publishers’ inventory.”Here’s president Sue Decker, “The combination of BlueLithium’s network and Yahoo!’s engaged audience will provide an unprecedented buying opportunity across what we believe will be one of the world’s leading online display ad networks, and BlueLithium’s expertise in network management will better enable Yahoo! to manage supply and demand across our network, by balancing advertiser goals with publisher value. Building on our acquisition of Right Media, this transaction demonstrates our commitment to increasing our investments in areas which can most contribute to Yahoo!’s long-term success.” Now, Todd Teresi, SVP, Yahoo! Publisher Network, “Advertisers seek essentially three different outcomes when they buy display (or graphical) ads online — either to build brand awareness, promote something new, or drive some kind of transaction (a lead, a sale, a new customer). The latter, known as performance marketing, has been exploding online over the past year because it’s typically served around social media content, where there’s no shortage of inventory. It’s an area in which our teams have been working feverishly to provide better solutions. Their jobs just got easier.” Blue Lithium provides “access to valuable audiences and increasing our ability to sell performance-based campaigns both on and off our network. They provide the dashboards and insights our performance customers have been asking for — capabilities that have been a bit of an Achilles heel for us. This is the logical next step as we build what we believe will be one of the world’s leading online display ad networks, which includes inventory on Yahoo!’s owned and operated properties, our affiliate network (our partnerships with eBay, Comcast, and our consortium of nearly 400 newspapers, the Yahoo! Publisher Network, and the Right Media Exchange.

The takeaways:

1) Yahoo admits help. They should have purchased Advertising.com, but that’s not available. Valueclick would have been messy and tarnished their brand. Tribal didn’t (a guess) have the tech. They mention performance advertising multiple times, and that’s just what Advertising.com did extremely well, they could lift up the value of premium inventory using performance based campaigns; that gave them the quality and the scale to obtain the highest payouts from advertisers. There has been no shortage of praise for that purchase and its impact.

2) Watch out Q3 numbers. The mortgage bust has only recently swung into gear. This purchase might not connect to the mortgage issue, but the continuous mention of performance advertisers leads me to think something is up.

3) Yahoo Ad Network. They are looking to diversify away from their own internal inventory in a hurry, and now we see them start to use language like online display ad network. They can make arrangements to represent other sites inventory, but with this purchase they say there is no better way to manage it than through an ad network platform (as opposed to simply putting all inventory on an exchange).So, who’s next?

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DM Confidential

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Voter Network offers very specific targets which include profiling features such as gender, age, geographical location, income and topics of interest. The network will allow candidates to run rich media, display ads or video ads.

The network reaches about 65% of the U.S. online population which comes to about 119 million users. BlueLithium not only provides real-time click rates, but can be used to test messages that, once proved successful may be released in a full-scale campaign.

Raising funds, driving votes and recruiting volunteers are all possible through Voter Network. Direct link to call centers, info-capture and surveys are among the services offered. Should the ad network be successful, BlueLithium may consider keeping the network in business during future campaigns.

The election year is four and a half months away and already this election has been a landmark for the online advertising industry, with various campaigns from YouTube, MySpace and BlueLithium.

The firm will disclose the entire list of the available publishers in the Voter Network to candidates and allow them to choose sites where the campaign messages will appear, but there will be certain limitations to this. BlueLithium’s CMO Dakota Sullivan said, “Part of the benefit of behavioral targeting is finding potential voters on one site and following them around to wherever they choose. It creates a new level of precision targeting and persuasion on the Web—something that’s never been done before.”

Founder and president of E-Voter Institute, Karen Jagoda states, “The Internet is no longer an afterthought in planning a winning campaign.” Front-running candidates, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain already have spent over $5 million on online efforts according to PoliticalMoneyLine.com.

Additionally, with only a year under its belt, BlueLithium’s UK offshoot boasts the fourth largest ad network in said nation, with a 63 percent reach and 18 million unique users.

“In December, BlueLithium required just 37 targeted messages on average to each unique user on our network in order to meet our advertisers’ back end goals,” said BlueLithium’s founder, chairman and CEO Gurbaksh Chahal in a statement. “Compare this with ValueClick which required more than 100 messages and Advertising.com, which saturated each user with 337 ads on average during the month. In my eyes, efficiency is the hallmark of next generation, data-driven ad networks and we’re delivering on it.”

BlueLithium gives the example of a customer who visits the web site of a mobile phone provider. When that web surfer visits another site on the BlueLithium network, that person will see streaming video ads related to that same wireless provider.

According to BlueLithium, behavioral targeting for streaming ads increases click-throughs and conversions by 300%. “It’s the first video streaming network that also leverages the power of behavioral targeting, which advertisers have been asking for, and we’re pleased to be the first to deliver on,” said BlueLithium CEO Gurbaksh Chahal in a statement.

Streaming AdRoll ads can be displayed both as banner ads and as in-stream advertising. In-stream ads appear during the playback of streaming video either before or after the content. AdRoll in-banner ads can appear as part of a standard leaderboard or skyscraper. AdRoll customers also have access to BlueLithium’s network of 1,000+ publishers and its demographic targeting technology.