• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, December 9, 2013

Programmatic needs to keep working on the me's before people are ready for the we's.

General consumer: "I'm being targeted on my computer.This is my cell phone. These are my Hulu and YouTube accounts. This is my Pandora station. I've become more and more okay with being targeted here. But if I'm targeted on our radio? Or by that billboard we all share? Slow down there, partner."

As programmatic technologies step out of the me zones into the we zones, it might lead to some people wigging out.

After the recent Digital Place-based Advertising Association conference in New York, MediaPost's Steve McClellan called place-based media "ubiquitous." He wrote, "You see it in health clubs, food courts, airports, gas stations and many other out-of-home locations across the country. But according to agency executives, the challenges to growing ad sales revenue for the sector are numerous."

Per a new ScreenMedia report -- "Programmatic Buying and Digital Place-based Media" -- that's partly because "the medium is simply too difficult to plan and buy." But could programmatic media-buying technologies help solve some of its challenges? That's the question the report explores.

Joe Esposito, vice president of product and operation at Spafax Networks, WPP's digital-out-of-home ad network for programmatic trading, is quoted in the report as saying, "Most people don't even know that the technology is here, so we have to go out and advocate and educate about video everywhere." He added, "All of these things will only advance when everyone realizes what's really possible in this space."

My take is that programmatic needs to spend a bit more time finding its footing in online display, mobile and video before it can truly take hold in the more futuristic spaces, like digital place-based media or location-based mobile.

I call those mediums more futuristic not because they are so far down the road -- after all, Esposito said the technology is already here -- but because using programmatic technologies in those areas will lead to a transformation of our world. Minority Report style.

That, ultimately, is where I think real-time media is taking us; it's all about reaching the "Always On" consumer. But when you think about it, people have been "Always On" since, well, always. It's only just recently that the technology has existed to make them "Always Available."

That takes us back to my theory that programmatic trading needs to keep focusing on display, mobile and video before it moves outside (literally) in any significant way.

I would say people understand they are "Always On," but they are still getting used to the fact they are "Always Available." And if they are like me, they want to be "Always Available*," with the * meaning "on my own terms."

"Global Grid" photo from Shutterstock.