The IAB conference just occurred, and John Battelle of Federated Media made the following comments about Wenda Harris Millard’s comments during her IAB speech:
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Monthly Archives: February 2008
Should Advertising Become an Algorithm?
Welcome Caiden James McCarthy!
Our family welcomed a new member on February 12th as my wife gave birth to Caiden James McCarthy. Everything went smooth and the whole family has been enjoying the past week together playing with him and adjusting to having five of us in the house now.
I can already tell it’s good having some more testosterone in the house, and I’ve already noticed some subtle and not-so-subtle differences between having a baby boy after having two baby girls before. It’s also amazing how quickly you fall in love with your own kids, it’s instant. Such a fascinating thing, but it also makes sense.
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An Overview of an Ad Exchange
Over on the YPN Blog, Jerri Gillean here in the Eugene Right Media/Yahoo! office contributed an overview of what an Ad Exchange is and some important questions to ask when comparing ad exchanges.
When you’re looking at joining an exchange, ask these questions:
1. Does it work in real time? Using historical data is like checking yesterday’s weather to predict what to wear today.
2. Is it neutral? A neutral exchange simply provides a technology that allows for buying and selling, and doesn’t attempt to hold all the relationships with the buyers and sellers.
3. Is it scaleable? If your site goes from 100,000 to 100,000,000 impressions a month, will that exchange be able to handle that volume?
4. Is it secure? How does the exchange protect you as a publisher? (This is key: It isn’t as easy as you may think.)
5. Is there open competition? Does the exchange allow non-members to compete with exchange members?
6. Is it a community? Sure, there’s competition, but are there also forums so that people can communicate with each other and form partnerships?
7. Is it a technology platform? Is it open, with APIs that anyone can connect to?
8. Does it have publishers, advertisers AND networks?
9. Is there a solution for me? Does the exchange offer a solution for both enterprise and non-enterprise publishers?
10. Are there strings attached? What else does the exchange require you to do?
In my opinion, not everyone claiming to be an ad exchange today really is one. So the questions Jerri lists are definitely interesting to ask across all the companies who say they are operating an ad exchange today.
2008 Online Advertising Predictions
Even though anyone who actively reads blogs is sick of them by now, I must admit I’m a sucker for yearly reviews and prediction articles and blog posts. Even though most of the time I realize the writer is just guessing, it’s interesting to get the perspectives of others on where they see the world going. In past years I’ve made posts with predictions on Web 2.0 companies, and have also weighed in with web analytics predictions. Since the advertising market has really been my intense focus this year, I figured it was long past time to make my own 2008 Online Advertising Predictions.
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It’s Been a Wild Few Days, and Looks to Be a Wild Year
I can’t really comment on all the Microsoft and Yahoo! news as a Yahoo! employee, but I’m not sure I really have anything terribly interesting to say about it anyway. It’s just been an interesting few days reading all the news and analysis, and it looks like it will be an interesting 2008 to see how everything shakes out.
I’m working on an Online Advertising Predictions for 2008 post, and what’s funny is how rapidly some of my predictions change depending what happens. It may be a tough year to predict now.