Since acquiring Tumblr for $1.1 billion, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has hinted at launching an ad exchange for her new social media property. But will increased advertising cause typical Tumblrs, digerati, and other variety of hipsters, to slam shut their MacBook Air before tossing their red plastic sunglasses at their ironic Kenny Rogers poster?

We're probably going to find out, per industry players, who say an ad exchange will be a big piece in how Yahoo-Tumblr ramps up revenue. They point to Tumblr's meager 2012 earnings ($13 million by most accounts, though at least one report says that figure should be much lower) as well as Facebook's resounding success with FBX in the last year and Twitter's alleged plans to follow suit.

"I think it almost seems inevitable," said Thomas Knight, senior product manager

Twitch.tv, one of the principal players in the growing eSports genre (i.e. watching people play video games), will stop selling its ad inventory through CBS Interactive's sales team and will instead build its own all-new advertising team headed by chief commercial officer Jonathan Simpson-Bint. 

Simpson-Bint told Adweek that the decision to part ways with CBS was driven by the gameplay streaming portal's rapid growth over the past year—uniques have increased from 15 million to more than 30 million since last June, with engagement numbers up as well. Internal data from Twitch says the average view time on the site has gone up from 60 minutes a day to more than 90 minutes. Senior members of the team will include svp Kym Nelson (formerly of IGN), vp Andy Swanson, and sales manager Christina Grushkin.

For the uninitiated, eSports viewing is the fine art

Consumers apparently have a lot of blind faith in Apple.

The tech giant, per the New York Times, is expected to enter the Internet radio space as early as next week, taking on established players like Spotify and Pandora. And according to a survey of 1,000 Internet radio users, it could be a big opportunity for Apple.

The study, conducted by GroupM Next, found that 34 percent of respondents would switch from their current Internet radio provider to Apple, without even seeing the product. Forty-nine percent said they would at least be interested in checking out Apple's service.

"Consumers express faith in a product experience that steps outside of Apple’s mainstream product offering, based on brand name alone," wrote Jesse Wolfersberger, director of consumer insights at GroupM Next. "And for that, Apple has the competition to thank—Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify and

Federal Trade Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen sees no need for Congress to pass new laws to protect consumer privacy from targeted advertising.

“I do not agree with everything in the FTC’s report that calls for baseline privacy legislation,” Ohlhausen said to about 100 attendees at the Digital Advertising Alliance’s first summit in Washington on Wednesday. In fact, Ohlhausen said she was “amused and frustrated by some of the voices in the [privacy] debate.”

Ohlhausen’s speech was music to the ears of the advertising and marketing organizations, which have been fighting off repeated calls by privacy groups and some policymakers for new privacy laws, especially so-called Do Not Track bills like the one sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

The DAA’s self-regulation program “is one of the great success stories in the [privacy] space,” Ohlhausen said.

In her keynote address, Ohlhausen stressed that the FTC

EBay is launching virtual stores called "shoppable windows" in New York,  Reuters reported.

The nine-by-two-foot screens will be seen in visible shopping areas like Soho. The stores will sell 30 items from Kate Spade Saturday, a women's fashion retailer owned by Fifth & Pacific Companies.

For Fifth & Pacific, the screens are a way to maximize retail space. The company plans to integrate the technology into existing stores such as Juicy Couture and Kate Spade New York.

"This gives us the ability to produce more from our retail space," Fifth & Pacific CEO William McComb told Reuters. "My nickname for it is the Wall as a Mall."

EBay previously experimented with digital shop windows in late 2011, but those screens did not allow consumers to purchase items. The new displays will allow shoppers to order items via touchscreen and have them delivered within

Bloomberg L.P., the parent company of Bloomberg News, has launched a $75 million venture capital fund on Wednesday. The fund, VentureBeat reports, is called Bloomberg Beta and will focus on startups that produce insights from data and make the experience of work better.

Bloomberg Beta has already invested in nine fledgling companies like Codecademy, a website that produces coding tutorials and Newsle, a social media news tool launched by two Harvard sophomores.

The fund will be led by Roy Bahat, chairman of videogame startup Ouya and the former head of News Corp's IGN Entertainment. He will partner with Karin Klein, ex-head of new initiatives at Bloomberg and James Cham, formerly of Trinity Ventures.

In response the Bloomberg Beta's launch, The New York Times raised the question of journalism ethics.

"This puts Bloomberg News's credibility at issue," Edward Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School

Ever stood slack-jawed on a street corner with a friend trying to figure out where to go to throw back a beer? Or debated whether it'd be better to hop on that approaching bus or descend into the subway to catch a train? The latest nifty gadget from the hardware and software engineers at Breakfast offers a slick solution to those problems, and others. Called "Points," it's a rotating digital street sign built to display a flexible range of data, from which favorably reviewed restaurants are within walking distance to nearby tweets. And it comes with an at-hand, interactive menu of options that can be programmed to change based on the time of day (are you hungry for breakfast or dinner?) or the needs of a particular setting (sports scores at a stadium).

Feats of