After finalizing the acquisition of Overblog (acquired by eBuzzing in 2010) to Webedia (acquired by Fimalac in 2013), co-founders Frederic Montagnon & Julien Romanetto are not waiting long to start on what will be their third startup built together, Secret Media (nothing more than a landing page today). After starting Nomao & Overblog, both of which were acquired by eBuzzing, Secret Media looks to combat a subject his media businesses have been confronted with in the past: Ad Blocking.
“The use of Ad Filtering and Ad Blocking softwares is on the rise: Browser’s bars, plugins, firewall, add-ons.
It’s becoming a major problem for premium publishers. We help publishers with a unique technology.” – Secret Media LinkedIn Company Page
Mention of the company first appeared on Montagnon’s LinkedIn profile following the announcement of Fimalac’s acquisition of Overblog (reportedly for less than €5 Million, according to sources).
Secret Media aims to combat Ad blocking technology like Adblock Plus, which counted more than 4 Million users in France as of January 2013; many advertising-driven media pure players are seeing 30-40% of their traffic lost to ad blocking technology, which targets images/ads coming from servers identified as ad servers, thus disabling a media’s ability to monetize.
For now, there isn’t much about Secret Media’s “unique technology” that is public; however, the team is currently staffing up in New York & in Paris, so don’t expect to wait long to hear what they’ve got cooking.