Upland Software, Inc. has acquired BlueVenn, a cloud-based customer data platform, for $51.9 million in cash, the firm announced on Tuesday.

BlueVenn helps firms access online and offline data sources including email, mobile and in-store, in one location, the firm says. It serves such brands as Gannett, Subaru UK, and The American Automobile Association.

Upland claims that with a unified customer database at the center of its CXM product suite, it will help clients engage consumers via email, mobile app, SMS or online.

“BlueVenn is a highly strategic acquisition and a big step forward for Upland in the Customer Experience (CX) category,” states Jack McDonald, chairman and CEO of Upland. 

“Over the last seven years, BlueVenn and Upland have built a very successful partnership, integrating our technologies to provide incredible value to our mutual customers,” adds Steve Klin, CEO of BlueVenn. 

We were able to unify our consumer database across our dealerships and then segment that information to create a stronger national marketing engagement strategy, which tripled our test drives and ultimately doubled our sales,” said Andrew Edmiston, managing director of Subaru UK, a BlueVenn client.

McDonald adds: “Centralizing customer data has been a persistent challenge for enterprises since today's digital consumer uses text, email, mobile applications, and websites to interact with the brands, products, and services they love.”

The purchase price at closing (net of cash acquired) will be paid out of cash on hand, with a $2.4 million cash holdback payable in twelve months (subject to indemnification claims), Upland says. 

Upland is a cloud-based software provider. 

Companies send an average of 68 email broadcasts to employees per month, achieving an open rate of 70% -- a number many marketers might envy. 

But only 60.5% of employees ever read the emails, and 9.5% simply ignore them, according to Corporate Communications: Internal Benchmarks for 10 Industries, a study by PoliteMail. 

However, the email pace picked up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting in March 2020, corporate communications teams sent 72% more email, containing 58% more minutes of content than in the prior year. 

Despite the volume increase, read rates declined by only 1.3% and the click rate by 4.2%, while employees clicked 82% more links than they did in 2019. 

The average corporate email is 475 words, and takes 1:54 minutes to read.  However, of those who open it, 20% will read less than 30%, while 40.7% will red 30% or more. Another 36.3% will read over half.  

And 16% will read such emails on mobile devices. 

Overall, each employee receives 16 emails per month, containing 34:50 minutes of content and 121 links. These emails will engage 76% of email openers and 43% of the total audience. They will spend 29:23 digesting the content.  

In general, recipients will click on at least one link 8% of the time, and openers will do so 11% of the time. 

The read  rate has averaged 33.9% and the “engaged read” rate 28.2%. 

Email readership peaked last summer, but fell off slightly in December. 

PoliteMail analyzed over 1.3 billion internal emails to over 8.5 million employees worldwide. 

McClatchy, the local journalism publishing network, is partnering with MGID, the native advertising platform, to supply content commendations across all McClatchy assets, serving over 65 million readers per month.  

As part of the exclusive contract signed by the firms, MGID will provide content recommendations to The Kansas City Star, The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer and to 35 websites in total. MGID will monetize the sites, targeting all GEOs and devices.

“McClatchy is known for its high-quality journalism and is constantly striving to keep its readers better informed of the world around them,” states Michael Korsunsky, CEO of MGID NA. 

Korsunsky adds that it seeks to provide readers with “better user experiences that will help McClatchy grow and maximize value, while maintaining their high standards.”

Founded by James McClatchy in 1857 during the California gold rush, McClatchy now serves readers in 30 U.S. markets via print, digital, mobile apps and other channels. 

McClatchy recently announced a collaboration with Gannett, in which advertisers will be able to reach readers in over 300 local communities. 

“With over 200M monthly UVs in our combined network, we can help brands fulfill a mission of supporting local journalism with the business impact of reaching our valuable audiences in our highly engaging content,” stated  Kevin Gentzel, Chief Revenue Officer, for Gannett | USA Today Network. 

McClatchy’s titles also include The Sacramento Bee, The Fresno Bee, The Idaho Statesman, The Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Wichita Eagle, The Olympian (of Olympia, WA), The Sun Herald (of Biloxi, MS) and The Sun News (of Myrtle Beach, SC). The company has a Washington, D.C. bureau. 

MGID targets 850 million readers with 185 billion recommendations per month. It provides publishers with a variety of yield-optimization models, ad placements and formats, it says. 

 has named Simone Sebastian as America editor. Formerly deputy America editor, Sebastian will lead the

America desk, guiding coverage of the cultural and political trends now shaping American life. 

Sebastian joined the WaPo in 2014 and has served in a variety of roles. She mobilized coverage of the 2019 mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, as well as other disasters and crisis. And she has driven coverage of racism, police brutality and the far-right backlash, including a George Polk Award-winning series on the life of George Floyd. 

Prior to joining the WaPo, Sebastian covered the energy industry for the Houston Chronicle and public education for the Columbus Dispatch.

The newspaper has also announced several newsroom appointments in recent days.

In one change, Timothy Bella joined the general assignment news desk after serving as deputy editor of its "Morning Mix." Bella will cover breaking news, write features and edit stories.

In addition, Marianna Sotomayor has joined the national politics team from NBC News and will cover Congress. 

Separately, WaPo is seeking a replacement for executive editor Marty Baron, the just- retired editor credited with leading that paper, The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald to numerous Pulitzer Prizes and other awards.  

Media reports state that Cameron Barr, one of four managing editors at WaPo, will serve as acting executive pending completion of the search.

In another development, the paper announced on Wednesday it had appointed Kristine Coratti Kelly as its first chief communications officer, and Shani George as vice president of communications, which it says is a masthead-level position. 

Coratti has served as general manager of Washington Post Live, a programming channel that features top leaders in government and business. She has worked on building The Washington Post Freedom Partnership. George, who reports to Coratti, manages day-to-day PR operations.  

Dish Network has made a deal with DraftKings, the sports wagering/gambling company, where viewers can directly access its platform, viewing betting odds or initiating the placement of wagering, on Dish’s set top box Hopper.

Dish Network says this is the first of its kind app integration.

After a viewer starts a bet, they'll get a mobile prompt to complete the transaction on the DraftKings app. Initially, Dish customers can wager on NCAA basketball, NBA and NHL games. The deal will extend to Dish Network's Sling TV and Boost Mobile platforms in the future.

Linking up with this activity, viewers can set recordings on the Hopper to watch specific live sports event, connected with that wagering.

Many TV networks and distributors believe recent sports wagering partnerships will be significant revenue enhancer, especially helping to combat rising sports TV content right fees.

Online sports gambling is growing in many states. Just over 24 states have now legalized gambling or have introduced bills to legalized sports wagering. Only those Dish customers in legal states will be able to make wagers.

Initial Wednesday stock market trading, just after the announcement, had DraftKings stock up 3% with Dish Network 7% higher.

Verizon used last month’s Super Bowl in Tampa Bay to play another game using 5G technology and a few fans in stands.

With help from Amazon’s AWS cloud computing service, Verizon initiated its first mobile edge computer-enabled (MEC) mobile game, NFL Ultra Toss.

The object of the game was for players to virtually toss a football into the back of a virtual pickup truck positioned at midfield.

Fans in the stands with the NFL Ticketholder app received a push notification during the second quarter with an invitation to play.

The game players were instructed to point their phones, equipped  with Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband, to see that truck spring into being with the help of augmented reality technology, and then make the toss. As they did, they were able to see other fans making the same attempt, which Verizon touted as a great social accomplishment during the keep-your-distance pandemic.

By using Verizon 5G Edge and AWS Wavelength, the gameplay resulted in reducing latency (or lag) for the players. Verizon said the combination demonstrated how 5G can greatly shorten lag time, which, Verizon says, will allow innovators to develop applications with faster speed, ultra-low latency and massive bandwidth.

That translates to nearly instantly for large numbers of users. Presumably those next entrepreneurs will use it for much more meaningful endeavors -- or just more exciting games -- than tossing a virtual football into a virtual pickup truck.

Nicki Palmer, Verizon chief product officer, touted that community-building aspect in a prepared statement, and then got a little more technological in a hyphen-laden blast:  “The super-fast speeds, massive bandwidth and low latency provided by 5G and MEC lets players have a console-quality multi-player gaming experience on the go and allows developers to rewrite the rules for creating eye-popping, graphics-rich multiplayer action. The future of gaming is happening right now.”

Verizon has used the Super Bowl as a giant 5G experimental lab for the last few seasons, at least in part because Verizon’s Ultra Wideband millimeter wave-based 5G is super-fast, but doesn’t travel too far, like a few blocks, or the length of a stadium. It has or is the process of installing 5G in NFL stadiums throughout the league. The technology should be useful for other more practical uses at stadiums and in myriad other applications.

Though Verizon now offers 5G versions that are less fast with far more ability to travel, Ultra Wideband is what it’s used to attract consumers via ads, even if most of them can’t get Ultra Wideband now.

Separately, Verizon had an awkward Twitter moment last weekend.  VZW Support, the Twitter account for the company’s consumer support team suggested on Sunday that if users with Verizon 5G noticed their batteries were drawing down “faster than normal,” one of the options they should consider is turning on 4G LTE--which in other words, means shutting off 5G-- when they can. That tweet was quickly removed.

Trendline Interactive is continuing on the acquisition track, announcing the purchase of LeadMD, a performance marketing agency, on Tuesday. Terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition was facilitated with financial backing by Growth Catalyst Partners.

Justin Gray, founder and CEO of LeadMD, will take responsibility for Trendline’s sales, marketing, and business development activities.

The combined firms will support clients with “enhanced business and service offerings to meet the unique demands of the B2C and B2B markets,” states Morgan Stewart, CEO of Trendline. 

That includes help with strategy planning, process, technology, people and tactics, the company says. 

This follows the February purchase of Canadian data and analytics company Data Insight Group. In addition, Trendline acquired email agency Inbox Marketer in 2019, and Inbox Pros, an email deliverability, privacy and compliance firm, in 2018.

Founded in 2019, Trendline has focused on helping Fortune 1000 clients with email, MS and mobile push notifications. 

Investment banking advisory BrightTower served as exclusive advisor to LeadMD in the transaction.