CRUNCH blends Choicestream’s 10-year supply of proprietary intent data with third-party data from partner companies to create audience segments, and then target them using real-time bidding (courtesy of an AppNexus partnership). Word on the street is the company will be introducing some hot new features around the ad:tech NYC conference… Which is next week! Oh my…

But on the weekends, mobile consumers use their devices differently than they do during the week, according to data collected by Lightspeed Research. This new study of 1,000 iPhone and Android users found that as the weekend approaches, consumers substitute entertainment for business, and we see a rise in movie and entertainment app use (Flixster, Fandango, IMDb, MovieFone, Yahoo Movies, Netflix) at the expense of news (CNN, Fox News, NY Times, Yahoo!, MSNBC.com, NPR News, Huffington Post) and business information (Monster, Job Search, UPS, Cisco WebEx, Harvard Business Review, Box.net).

This primary weekend planning use of mobile has a ripple effect: When planning to go to a movie with friends, 58% use their mobile phone to research nearby restaurants. Another 36% will research shopping opportunities near the theater.  Four out of ten prefer their mobile device to coordinate with friends via social networking.

The Lightspeed Research survey shows that mobile phones are most commonly used for research (32%), comparing prices (27%) and reading product reviews (25%).  Consumers estimate that 35% of their research and purchase activity for big-ticket items is conducted on their mobile phone. And they go directly to their phones: 62% say they used their mobile phone at the beginning of the process, when they first thought about buying the product. Common sense says that mobile use in the purchase cycle will only increase as phones and connectivity get more sophisticated.

Weekend planners are already a very attractive audience for entertainment advertisers.
Every week movies studios load our site with trailers and visitors typically consume three or more of them before checking out show times and theater locations on our app. As millions of more consumers shift to a mobile-based planning and entertainment mindset, we expect other industry categories to take advantage of their “in the mood to spend” mindset.

Meebo will power IM “buddy lists” on various social sites so users can connect with friends on those services – right now, it’s dubbed Community IM. Partners include DanceJam, Flixster, SparkArt, Tagged and MyYearbook, creating a network of 54 million users worldwide and about 24 million in the U.S.

The idea, of course, is to boost viral reach, engagement and monetization opportunities by attempting to weave the Web together in one giant social graph.

Just last month, Meebo unveiled an ad network for the online chat world.

IndieClick describes itself as a publisher network that represents 200 vertical network sites that serve 50 million unique users and reel in 4 billion impressions a month. The agency reps a who’s who of hipster destinations, including Last.fm, PureVolume, deviantArt, Tokyo Pop and What Would Tyler Durden Do?

“We’re really focused on media planning; our audience is primarily the tail end of Generation X and all of Generation Y and they don’t like being marketed to,” Heather Luttrell, IndieClick’s president, told ADOTAS. “We’re product specific. We work with 2,000 advertisers to make sure the ad message we’re sending gets to the right audience at the right time. And every publisher approves every campaign to avoid the absolute nightmare – for publishers and advertisers – of having an audience publicly rail against a campaign on their site.”

So far, IndieClick’s psychographic ad-targeting model has worked out. Luttrell said that IndieClick sells ads on Facebook for $6 to $10 CPM – way above the alleged high-water mark of roughly $1.32 on social sites. But that’s just the way IndieClick rolls: in 2002, the company had just unfurled its welcome mat, (as an extension of the 3jane Interactive Agency), and it was already selling ads on MySpace for $4 CPM – when most people were charging $0.02.

“Our premise is, no ads are better than bad ads,” Luttrell said.

This month, Pandora and Flixster joined IndieClick’s network, primarily for its music and film expertise.

“We selected IndieClick as our music label representative due to the company’s expertise and passion in the industry,” said Cheryl Lucanegro, VP of advertising sales at Pandora, in a written statement. “They know the music scene inside and out, from independents to big labels, making them the ideal fit for us. We’re confident their dedicated team of experts will help increase our presence in front of the country’s most influential music and record labels.”

What’s next? A new level of behavioral targeting. Within 90 days, Luttrell said that IndieClick would be unveiling a tech prototype — a juiced-up cross-channel targeting method that could hit, say, only 18-year-old men who love gaming on only a handful of IndieClick’s sites.

The company is also rolling out three new ad products with video, viral and music components for shows like “Idol Tonight” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” In addition, IndieClick will be improving its client reporting. While the company has always gathered data on engagement, demographics, geographics and psychographic profiles, the information will be made available to all clients by the end of the year.

“We’re really excited about our new technological offerings,” Luttrell said. “But you know, nothing really replaces knowing the sites and knowing the audiences – which is how we got started and what we’ll always focus on.”

IndieClick is owned by 3jane Digital Holdings, an interactive development and marketing company.