• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, August 6, 2013

In May, RTM Daily reported that five companies - TubeMogul, BrightRoll, Innovid, LiveRail, and SpotXchange - partnered to launch Open Video View (OpenVV), an open source video viewability tool spearheaded by TubeMogul. RTM Daily wrote then that the tool "lets advertisers or companies see the view stats for specific impressions. It asks the most basic…questions: Was the ad seen? For how long?" The tool can be demoed here.

The OpenVV group has recently announced that 15 new companies have joined the consortium, quadrupling its members to 20 in total. The idea behind OpenVV is to create industry-wide viewability standards for in-stream videos ads.

The 15 new companies to join are: 24/7 Media, Adap.tv, Adconion Direct, Blinkx, Brainient, DataXu, DG, Extreme Reach, Media6Degrees, Meetrics, Mixpo, Nielsen, PointRoll, SourceKnowledge and TRUSTe. A TubeMogul representative told RTM Daily that outside of the original five members, which TubeMogul invited after the code had been developed, OpenVV relied on people proactively joining.

According to the release, the data that the OpenVV group has been collecting since May has been shared with the Media Rating Council (MRC), which will use the data to "help inform the final definition of viewability for in-stream video advertising."

The TubeMogul representative told RTM Daily that "reception from agencies is incredibly positive." However, there are still some noticeable companies absent from the consortium. While OpenVV has proudly displayed the addition of Nielsen, comScore is absent. The company was invited to join but declined. "It is worth noting they have their own solution," the TubeMogul representative said.

Additionally, YuMe and Tremor Video are not part of the group. Both are among the few ad tech companies that have gone the IPO route, so it's not uncommon for the two companies to do things their own way. The TubeMogul representative noted that while YuMe and Tremor were not "explicitly invited," anyone can join OpenVV, or even download the code and use it without joining.

Rob Schneider, SVP corporate strategy and platform development at 24/7 Media, stated, "24/7 Media is joining OpenVV because we recognize that our industry needs a standard for measurement of digital video advertising vieawbility." DataXu's GM of video advertising solutions Mukund Ramachandran stated, "The concerns surrounding viewability must be addressed with a standard measurement framework...."

TubeMogul's representative concluded, "Our view is that [with] an open approach the industry gets closer to a standard by being available to everyone, leading to data sharing, transparency, and open dialogue."