[X+1] Introduces Data ‘Bridge’ Across Platforms

As companies try to improve consumer messaging around online ad targeting in anticipation of new privacy regulation, technology platform company [x+1] this week released an application giving marketers and agencies the ability to integrate customer and third-party online and offline data to target ads. The platform, Open Data Bridge, supports targeting data across multiple channels, such as display ad, Web site and email campaigns. The service, being offered as part of [x+1]’s trading desk platform, has been tapped by several undisclosed “large” clients.

Read More: MediaPost

Does Apple’s iPad Take A Bite Out Of Web Advertising

We’ve known for quite some time about the iPhone’s inability to render Flash content within the mobile Safari browser, and based upon Apple’s announcement of the iPad today, it looks like that device isn’t going to do it, either. Touted as a savior for the publishing business, this device will potentially revolutionize the delivery and commercialization of content. But most publishers are publishing their content to the web. Via websites. And for those that don’t yet have paywalls, they support their websites with advertising. Those ads are almost 100% rendered in Adobe’s Flash. So when people use the iPad’s web browser to visit their favorite newspaper (as Steve Jobs did in his keynote; see photo at right, courtesy of Engadget), they won’t see the ads at all. That either means advertisers will need to stop building ads in Flash (no chance) or publishers will need to build app versions of their publications upon the iPad SDK (software development kit), resulting in a lot more work, a lot more time, a lot more resources.

Read More: AdAge

Sick of Ad Networks? Start Your Own

Last month media giant CBS Interactive announced that it would stop using third-party ad networks to sell inventory across media properties and instead use its own internal ad serving platform, dubbed “Madison.” It’s not the first time a publisher has openly rejected the use of ad networks, which are sometimes considered a necessary evil for publishers that can’t sell all of their inventory. (After all, some revenue is better than none.) ESPN, Weather.com, Turner Networks, Forbes and Gawker have been very vocal about their refusal to do business with them, noting that they can greatly devalue inventory and create channel conflicts. But as consumers’ media consumption becomes even more fragmented, single-domain publishers are finding it more difficult to provide adequate reach to advertisers, both in quantity and quality. A website with just a few million unique visitors and no sophisticated behavioral or contextual targeting capabilities is all but invisible to big brand advertisers, who will just turn to ad networks to deliver large, targeted audiences for their campaigns.

So what’s a publisher to do?

The answer is simple: reject the ad network, not the ad network model.

Read More: Adotas