Waste Not….
There may be no better indication of the rising cost of digital advertising than a little missive Google sent out earlier this month to its ad buying customers. In a number of countries that are taxing digital ad placements, the big ad firm will be adding surcharges to cover those increases. Sounds pretty standard, huh? […]
Circus Maximus Confusing Us
Looks like Google’s first attempt to shut down the circus known as “ad tech” was more clown car than Big Top. Pretty much every publisher is confused – with reason. It’s not often that a big company reverses a much-ballyhooed announcement creating a dramatic and irreversible change in its primary marketplace. But that’s what Google […]
When The Circus Left Town
Looks like Google’s first attempt to shut down the circus known as “ad tech” was more clown car than Big Top. After months of saying that cookie-based ad targeting – used to support voter file matching – was going away, the tech giant pushed that transition back by almost two years. Google’s substitute, something called […]
Editorial Guidance
Over the past few months, using some new online tools, editorial outfits across the country have started to parse lots and lots of publicly available data. Here in San Francisco, the Chronicle, has created a new data reporting team. It’s regularly serving up stats, graphics and analysis for COVID vaccine rates and other info. The […]
The Wonderful World of Colorful Data
It’s late. It’s likely to be questioned for the next 9.5 years but – finally – the 2020 U.S. Census data is getting kicked out for review and analysis. The re-allocation of Congressional districts got the headline but lots of folks are digging around on more granular data. The results are interesting. The tables and […]
It’s So Cool, It’s Private
Wanna be seen as a kewl kid in the online ad world? Use the word ‘privacy’ in a sentence when you’re talking about online advertising. It’s getting to the point where it’s hard to tell which of the massive platforms which depend on mining of user data is now – suddenly – the most concerned […]
Private Opportunities
First ‘context’ now ‘privacy’. It seems the buzzword fest in online ad tech is always going back to the future. Which, as we’ve said before, is good news for local publishers – especially when it comes to reaping political ad dollars. The three big platforms – Facebook, Google and Apple – are spending a fair […]
Advantage Local
Silicon Valley has a saying: Live by the platform, die by the platform. Translation: If your business relies on anyone else to exist then your livelihood is subject to the whims of that that provider, which can change at any time. Their business is more important to them than yours. Publishers learned this – painfully […]
The Cookie Crumbles
Silicon Valley has a saying: Live by the platform, die by the platform. Translation: If your business relies on anyone else to exist then your livelihood is subject to the whims of that provider, which can change at any time. Their business is more important to them then yours. So, when Google – the Mississippi […]
Rug Sales Made Easier
There’s a story on Politico Pro that should be required reading in every ad sales room in every local news site in every state of the union. The ‘rug has been pulled out’: Campaigns flop amid Facebook,Google Ad Bans That’s right. With Facebook’s much vaunted voter targeting no longer freely available, political campaigns are scrambling […]
