Execs and Accounts for July 7, 2003

Robert Leathern has joined NetRatings as the Nielsen//NetRatings Commerce Analytics group director and senior analyst. Leathern was most recently a lead senior analyst with the Payments and Retail practices division of Jupiter Research, a unit of this Web site’s parent company. Prior to Jupiter, he was an investment banker at Furman Selz, later a part of the ING Group.

“Rob’s comprehensive expertise and industry experience in online commerce made him the ideal candidate to lead our e-commerce practice,” said Charles Buchwalter, vice president of client analytics for Nielsen//NetRatings.

Tacoda Systems, a data integration platform that helps online publishers segment their audiences, has picked up Media General as a client. The media conglomerate, whose publishing assets include The Tampa Tribune, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and the Winston-Salem Journal, will install Tacoda’s Audience Management System (AMS) on 17 of its Web sites in three states.

“With Tacoda’s AMS, [Media General] will be able to deliver finely segmented audiences to local, regional and national advertisers,” said Dave Morgan, Tacoda’s CEO.

Audio and video search engine Singingfish has entered a distribution deal with software developer Jibe to let developers of online music and video better market their content.

Under the deal, Singingfish will offer customers of Jibe’s EdgeBurst software paid inclusion advertising opportunities within Singingfish-powered search engines. Jibe will also add Singingfish audio nad video search capabilities to its EdgeBurst Web site.

“As a result of our relationship with Singingfish, we can now provide a huge marketing value-add to our EdgeBurst customers by ensuring their content is reaching a larger audience via search engine results,” said Jibe President Greg Schmitzer.

For more breaking news on account action and executive moves, visit ChannelSeven.com.