The advertising industry rallying around improving the quality of data to target ads continues to make improvements to processes and techniques. Google began rolling out a remarketing tool in Google Analytics on Friday to help marketers gain insight into targeting ads. But if the brand's data mixed with inadequate information from a third-party data seller, a company's retargeting strategy will deliver less than stellar results. At Guthy-Renker, Colette Dill-Lerner, vice president of Internet marketing, said she has looked at data files "where nearly 50% of the gender is wrong." Some marketers think this characteristic remains one of the most difficult to identify. Aside from gender, other discrepancies exist in third-party data that limit ad efficiencies. It led Guthy-Renker to create a scorecard with help from company partners like demand side platforms and data management platforms. The major gap between the person's actual characteristics and how they are portrayed online requires cross-checks. Dill-Lerner said data may give company marketers insight into the 35-year-old mother of three, but it's not clear how that translates digitally. Marketers need to identify accurate data providers. Leon Zemel, chief analytics officer at [x+1], also points to gender as a difficult attribute, suggesting that brands should focus on household rather than personal data. "User-level data is less accurate than household level data," he said. In general, data providers rely on cookies to retrieve data, but gender is a tough one because with multiple people in the household, the data could be accurate at the time retrieved, but then someone else uses the computer. "We don't have the total answer yet, but we're looking at it," Zemel said. On Friday, [x+1], which supports a data management platform, expanded capabilities of its Origin Enterprise Data Management Platform, adding Creative Decisioning across its audience and media types, including direct purchase media and real-time targeting for ad impressions. It uses first-party match keys, which means it's not dependent on third-party cookie data. Similar to data quality, cookie identification needs to improve, said David Norris, CEO at BlueCava, which supports device identification for mobile and desktop devices. He said the average U.S. site can only accurately identify between 10% and 20% of visitors because consumers delete cookies from browsers or Internet protocol addresses. Better identification translates into higher CPMs and better targeted ads. Quality inventory and data doesn't support real-time ad targeting, either. The need to protect brands and celebrities running campaigns prohibits Guthy-Renker from buying as much remnant inventory as Dill-Lerner would like. "We have a project to profile our customers and conduct attribution modeling against the profile before rolling it into a dynamic creative solution," Dill-Lerner said. "We're nowhere near ready for market." Data quality supporting ad targeting also challenges the industry's focus on "scarcity," the notion of reducing the number of ads served and available units on publisher sites to improve conversations, conversions and prices. The ad industry served more than 400 billion ads monthly on major U.S. publisher networks between June 2011 and June 2012, estimates Mike Rich, vice president of media at comScore. Since too much inventory drives down prices, Rich said online advertising can't survive unless CPMs rise.
With Facebook currently relying on Sponsored Story posts in-feed to monetize the smartphone platform, eye-tracking researcher EyeTrackShop says the social network needs a better model if it expects to maintain decent average revenue per user on mobile platforms. According to its tests of how people view the Web, iPad and smartphone versions of Facebook, the user has much less opportunity to view a sponsor’s message on the smaller screen. A Sponsored Story on a phone that falls below the fold on a screen has only a 3% to 13% possibility of being seen by a user, the tests show. Even if click-throughs on Sponsored Stories in mobile feeds are the same or much better than their Web-based counterparts, the incidence of them being seen is much lower than on desktop or tablet. “With the current business models Facebook mobile ads will decrease the current ARPU, compared to web ads,” the study states. Part of the problem is that the eye is heavily focused on the first screen of a Facebook feed and at the top post when EyeTrackShop studies user interactions on an iPhone. The reliance on being in the feed puts Sponsored Stories at a considerable disadvantage to their Web ad counterparts, which have a persistent presence in the right column of a Facebook page. On the Web, ads are the second-most viewed item in the eye-gaze analysis. On mobile phones, EyeTrackShop found that among its 400 survey respondents, fewer people saw the sponsor message on their phones than other platforms. They spent less time viewing the ads than on other platforms. And they had “significantly lower ad recall,” the study states. The iPad, on the other hand, indexed higher than even the desktop. The company finds that ads on the iPad are seen by 18% more of the viewers, and the units themselves get 29% more dwell time than Web ads. Ad recall was about the same as on the Web. EyeTrackShop results are not quite in line with some earlier metrics that suggested mobile Sponsored Stories had a much higher click-through rate than their Web cousins. Facebook ad API partners in June published results showing mobile Sponsored Stories received 13 times the clicks as Web Sponsored Stories and had eleven times the eCPM. On the other hand, EyeTrackShop’s research argues that these units are actually viewed less often and for less time. And of course, the desktop version of Facebook is monetized both from Sponsored Stories, which run on mobile, and the standard side rail ads, which do not currently run on smartphones. Regardless of any disagreement over the actual performance of mobile ads in feeds for advertisers, Facebook itself might disagree that the smartphone platform is not monetizing. On last week's conference call with investors over its Q1 earnings, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that half of the $1 million a day Facebook earns from Sponsored Stories is coming from mobile. The arguments over Facebook’s mobile monetization model are at the heart of its stock volatility and analyst uncertainty over the company’s future growth. Facebook’s otherwise positive financial report last week was mitigated by ongoing worries that revenue growth would slow as more usage of the social network migrated to mobile platforms where there was less overall opportunity to monetize users.
WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather is partnering with Chinese Internet company Sina to produce a London Olympics-related online sports game. It’s said to be the first online game in China that integrates marketing with a social-gaming component.The game was jointly developed by Sina and O&M’s in-house production and design unit, RedWorks Beijing.The game, which is played via Sina’s social network Weibo, allows players to earn virtual gold coins which they can “deposit” with one of the game’s sponsors, China Merchants Bank. The coins also enable players to compete for real prizes that include a range of consumer electronics. The game adds Olympic sports events that are popular in China, including Ping Pong, badminton and gymnastics.“We’ve been thinking for a long time about how to leverage our platform to create more effective marketing campaigns that go beyond microfilms, online raffles and posts that direct users to brand Web sites,” stated GE Jingdong, marketing general manager at Sina. “This game by RedWorks not only creates an expansive online community, but is also highly engaging and allows users to experience Weibo organically.”Lyon Zhang, digital director of RedWorks Beijing, stated that the game allows brands to “engage with their online audiences in a new way.”The so-called “Weibo Sports Game” will be actively promoted on the social network throughout the London Olympics, starting today. It will remain live on the site for an unspecified period of time.
Rafat Ali, a former media industry journalist and blogger who founded and then sold paidContent for millions of dollars, is back in start-up mode -- and his latest venture could well cause a rift in the travel industry. It’s called Skift, and it’s a new digital publishing platform that combines content and data aimed at travel industry insiders as well as active business travelers. Ali’s partner and the venture’s head of content is Jason Clampet, a veteran travel industry journalist who helped develop Frommers.com, and previously managed sites for Citysearch.com. The team were expected to announce a six-figure round of funding from a group of angel investors today, which might not normally rate a story in Online Media Daily -- but given Ali’s track record and the fact that he took paidContent from an out-of-his-bedroom blog to a multiple blog publishing company (ContentNext), which was sold to the U.K.’s Guardian Group for a reported $30 million, it might just be something to keep an eye on. (Earlier this year, ContentNext was flipped once again, when the Guardian Group sold it to tech blog publisher GigaOM.) In its boilerplate on Skift.com, the venture describes itself as a “travel intelligence media company,” and a spokeswoman said it will focus on content as well as data and analytics aimed at the $2 trillion travel industry, and presumably the travel industry trade and consumer publications that have historically provided information about it. As for its name, Skift says it is derived from Nordic languages and that it means “‘shift’ or ‘change’ or ‘transformation’.”
Google on Friday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the company's book digitization project infringes on authors' copyrights.The search giant argues that its project -- which involves scanning millions of books that are available in libraries, and then displaying snippets of text in search results -- is protected by fair use principles. "Google’s use of books is fair because it provides vast public benefits without any demonstrated harm," Google argues in a motion for summary judgment filed with U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin, acting as a trial judge in this case.The company's motion addresses a lawsuit first filed in 2005 by the Authors Guild. That organization, as well as the Association of American Publishers, alleged that Google infringed copyright by digitizing books. Google argues in its 46-page motion that the book digitization initiative "gives people a new and more efficient way to find booksrelevant to their interests."The company adds: "The tool is not a substitute for the books themselves -- readers still must buy a book from a store or borrow it from a library to read it. Rather, Google Books is an important advance on the card-catalogue method of finding books."The Authors Guild is expected to also file papers arguing for summary judgment against Google on Friday, but they are not yet publicly available.Google previously reached a settlement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers, but Chin scuttled it last year. That deal called for Google to fund a new book rights registry, and sell digital downloads at prices it sets with the registry.But the deal raised concerns that Google would have a monopoly over so-called “orphan works” -- works under copyright, but whose owners are unknown. The agreement would have protected Google, but not other companies, from copyright infringement liability for publishing those works.
Samsung is the engine driving smartphone sales globally. If there were any doubt of that, the Taiwan-based manufacturer swept it away by shipping a record-setting 50 million smartphones in the second quarter. That's nearly twice the number of iPhones sold (26 million), helping Samsung nearly double its lead over Apple in smartphone market share, 32.6% to 16.9%, according to new data from IDC. Samsung overtook Nokia in the first quarter to become the top smartphone maker worldwide. One concern for Apple and other competitors is that the second-quarter figures do not fully reflect strong early sales of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III phone. The Android-powered device launched in June had sold more than 10 million units through July 22, according to a statement from a senior Samsung executive. Samsung and Apple together claim nearly half the market and put more distance between themselves and other manufacturers. The two tech giants have taken different approaches toward the same end. Kevin Restivo, a senior research analyst at IDC, explained that Samsung has employed a “shotgun” strategy -- creating a variety of models covering a range of market segments. Apple, by contrast, offers a small number of high-profile devices. Many consumers are believed to be holding off buying an iPhone until the next version of the iconic handset comes out in the fall. “While both companies have expanded their geographic presence in pursuit of market share, the two companies will inevitably come into greater conflict as both try to generate additional gains,” he said. Unlike Apple, Samsung also kicked off an extensive Olympics-related campaign, including sponsorship of the Olympic torch relay, a specially designed logo for the London Games and an Olympics-edition of the Galaxy S III featuring the Union Jack. Nokia finished the quarter a distant third behind Samsung and Apple, with 10.2 million shipments -- equal to just 6.6% market share, down from 15.4% a year ago. IDC said sales of Nokia’s Lumia phones have remained steady, despite the prospect of next-generation Windows Phone 8 devices arriving this fall. AT&T made a big push around the $99 Lumia 900 this spring. “Nokia, however, has a long path to travel before it can reclaim previous volume levels and challenge Apple and Samsung for smartphone supremacy,” warned the firm’s report. Rounding out the top five smartphone vendors for the second quarter were HTC, with 8.8 million phones shipped, for 5.7% share, and China-based manufacturer ZTE, with 8 million, or 5.2% share. The overall mobile phone market grew just 1% in the quarter as global economic conditions continued to dampen sales. Companies shipped 406 million units compared to 401.8 million in the year-earlier period. "With half of 2012 behind us, vendors are looking ahead to 2013 and how key markets -- particularly Europe and emerging markets -- will play out," said Ramon Llamas, a senior research analyst at IDC. Unlike Europe, emerging markets have been a bright spot for manufacturers, offsetting declines in other regions by virtue of their size and the shift toward higher-end phones.
The Web is making the world an even scarier place for brands. Hoping to protect them, Thomson Reuters has agreed to buy online brand protection firm MarkMonitor. Financial terms of the deal, which remains subject to regulatory approval, were not revealed. Thomson Reuters is counting on MarkMonitor to bolster its intellectual property services. "Thomson Reuters already helps thousands of companies create, manage and protect hundreds of billions of dollars worth of intellectual property assets," said David Brown, president of its intellectual property and science division. The addition of MarkMonitor will help keep clients one step ahead of “brandjackers and reduce the enormous risk posed to brands online," he added. If and when the deal closes, the MarkMonitor team -- led by president and CEO Irfan Salim -- are expected to join Thomson Reuters. Currently, MarkMonitor claims to provide online protection services for more than half of all Fortune 100 brands, including Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. In late 2010, MarkMonitor acquired anti-piracy firm DtecNet Software. With the deal, MarkMonitor sought to improve its platform with the addition of pinpointing and monitoring capabilities for illegal download activity on P2P networks, blogs, video streaming sites and Usenet services.
Another worrisome sign for Adland emerged Friday as the U.S. Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at a rate of just 1.5% in the second quarter, down one-half of a percentage point from the first quarter, when Gross Domestic Product grew 2%.Economic growth has picked up in recent quarters, but the April to June period slowed to a pace not seen since the third quarter of last year, per the Commerce Department.The news follows less-than-robust financial reports from two agency holding companies: Interpublic Group and Publicis Groupe. Both companies reported weak organic revenue growth for the second quarter. On Thursday, IPG reported organic growth of less than 1%, while earlier this month, Publicis Groupe reported 1.6% organic growth for the period.Adland forecasters such as ZenithOptimedia and GroupM and others saw the slowdown coming and recently downgraded 2012 marketer ad spending estimates.Commenting on the ebbing pace of economic growth, Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank said that it “shows that our economy continues to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but there is much more work to be done."Blank did note that while growth has slowed, there has been at least some growth for the last 28 consecutive months. “However, our economy continues to face several headwinds, including a drag from a decline in state and local government activity and the economic slowdown in other countries, especially in Europe.”Blank urged Congress to take action, including a tax code overhaul that would spur small business activity and eliminate tax breaks for companies that “ship jobs overseas.”
Let’s keep the Twitter chatter down out there, please. Olympics officials at the London games asked that spectators limit their mobile Twitter posts to “urgent updates” on Sunday when an overabundance of Tweets jammed the wireless networks. According to a report in The Guardian, the BBC commentators on the cycling road races were unable to get current racer positioning and timing information because the Olympic Broadcasting Service could not get the data across the network. Apparently the number of people in the crowd posting to Twitter with their cell phones so clogged the networks that even the OBS could not get the GPS data it needed from the cyclists’ bikes. Commentators were reduced to using their own watches to estimate the timing of the racers. The Communications Director Mark Adams was quoted by the Guardian saying that one of the networks used to transmit the standings and timings to the BBC was oversubscribed and that the OBS was trying to distribute the data across more networks. “We don’t want to stop people engaging in this by social media, but perhaps they might consider only sending urgent updates,” he said. No word yet on what qualifies as an “urgent update” from a crowd of cycle race watchers.
SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO – One of the joys of discovery is that it’s recyclable. For instance, this sprawling city of pyramids and temples -- “The place where gods were born.” I've lived my whole life in North America, yet somehow had missed this wonder of the world. It is an astonishing (and somewhat horrifying) testament to the labors of man in service of belief. The Avenue of the Dead is not named for the generations of pre-Columbian laborers sacrificed to its construction, but it could be. Yes, quite a find. Of course, I didn't discover it. The Spanish conquistadors did, back in the early 16th century. And more than a century before Cortés, Teotihuacan was discovered by the Aztecs. And God knows who stumbled across its ruins over the previous five centuries since the civilization's collapse. The place dates to 100 BC. When the vendors of jade masks, silver jewelry, textiles and popsicles arrived is unclear -- but it was before me. Anyway, the most popular archeological destination in Mexico is one of the two previously noted works of man I became acquainted with on a visit to Mexico City. The other, somewhat more modest in scope, was a 2011 campaign honoring the 15th anniversary of Hotmail. Granted, Teotihuacan it isn't -- but it sure was a delight for me to run across it, however after the fact. That's because I am utterly absorbed in Relationship Era marketing, and this initiative from DoubleYou for Microsoft just warms a relationship evangelist’s heart. "The client wanted to make a celebration," says Luis Gaitán, executive creative director at DoubleYou. This was last fall, and there were two obvious obstacles. 1) Who among Mexico's 40 million Hotmail account holders would possibly care about the anniversary of an email service? Because, 2) As Gaitán informed Microsoft: “Guys, you’ve got to realize that Hotmail has become the biggest trash email box on the internet.” Yeah, G-mail had relegated Hotmail to secondary status. The brief thus was to connect Hotmail somehow with Mexican culture and to establish an emotional connection, so that users could discover how much the service has improved. To accomplish this, the agency then hit on the idea of 15th birthdays. In Mexico, quinceañera is a central rite of passage for girls on their 15th birthday -- the moment when they are deemed to become women. It's like a Bat Mitzvah, only with many more tortillas. So the idea emerged: what if Microsoft asked account holders to submit emails that documented, or triggered, critical changes in their lives? What happened next was 8000 submissions of varying degrees of drama and poignancy. “We had all kinds,” says Gaitán. There were a lot of stories about love. Others announced that they were pregnant. Job offers. University acceptances. One that especially brought a tear to my eye was a notice of approval on a car loan. To a professor: “From your mouth I learned that to live is not just to be breathing.” To an unrequited love interest: “If I could be your blood today, opt for the poison to take me to your heart.” And from an immigrant in Detroit to those at home: grim news of a rapidly spreading cancer. He did not get back to Mexico alive. If you believe, as I do, that the future of marketing resides not in promulgating brand image or slogans on the back of paid advertising, but rather in the cultivation of interests and values shared with the brand’s constituencies, what more could you ask for? This effort became a true celebration of what was deeply important to Hotmail and Hotmail users alike. It wasn’t some self-aggrandizing and pointless brand anniversary, but a national archeological expedition, unearthing not ancient tombs and temples but the epistolary artifacts of contemporary existence. Never mind that many users reactivated dormant accounts to participate, or that the emails were so resonant that a book compiling them immediately sold out. What matters is that for one month last fall, the vaunted information superhighway became the Avenue of Life.
Google is Goliath, and in many people’s eyes, Facebook (especially after the drubbing it took following its lackluster IPO), David, despite that fact that Facebook passed Yahoo in U.S. display ad revenue in 2011 to become the top ad-selling company, according to eMarketer. A February 2012 report from eMarketer found that Google had also passed Yahoo to settle in at the No. 2 spot at $1.71 billion in revenue to Facebook’s $1.73 billion. And by 2013, the projections indicate Google will begin to leave Facebook and the rest in the dust, with Google’s revenue from u.s. display predicted to reach $4.76 billion.Google has, of course, long dominated search, and the growing display part of its business accounts for just a quarter of its revenue. Facebook’s dramatic revenue growth is expected to drop off just as dramatically, sinking to 27.6 percent in 2013, while Google’s display revenue is expected to continue to surge, with its 2013 revenue growth rate predicted at 45.3 percent. eMarketer reports: “Google is expected to surpass Facebook in 2013, when the company’s U.S. display revenues grow 45.3 percent to $3.68 billion, eMarketer estimates. us display ad revenues at Facebook will grow 27.6 percent to $3.29 billion that year.” At this point, the revenue expectations can be plainly seen in the perception of the companies’ display ad offerings. The Google Display Network is The Predator, stealthily cloaking itself, observing its prey and then targeting it with deadly accuracy. And, as one character famously puts it in Predator 2: “There’s no stopping what can’t be stopped — no killing what can’t be killed.”By comparison, with its soft ad approach of “Let’s be friends” and “I ‘like’ you, you ‘like’ me,” Facebook’s display ads are more Barney the purple dinosaur. And there are signs that the approach is becoming as grating to brands as a toddler screeching Barney’s theme song incessantly is to most people over the age of 6.“One of the problems with Internet advertising is that users have tuned out banner ads. It’s a huge problem,” says Larry Kim, founder and chief technology officer of WordStream, a digital marketing company focused on search marketing, which conducted a much passed-around study comparing Google Display Network to Facebook Ads. “In order to combat that ad fatigue, advertisers are looking to advertise on the venues that have the most support for the most rich and engaging ad formats.” And when it comes to providing rich and engaging ad formats the numbers certainly do not favor Facebook.“Facebook, while it has a significant audience, does [not] have very engaging ways for advertisers to engage with that huge audience, nor does it have very sophisticated ways of targeting the exact people they want to engage with in that audience. Nor does it provide any way of really reporting on the effectiveness of those advertising campaigns,” says Kim.It’s a challenge to get consumers to click on ads, and Facebook is lagging in a head-to-head comparison. “Our study showed that Google is way ahead here,” reports Kim. The independent analysis of 11,000 Facebook campaigns (Facebook does not publish a ctr) showed an average click-through rate of 0.051 percent.Google supports industry-standard banner formats with a variety of rich media like Flash and video ad formats, offering what Kim calls “engaging experiences, not just dumb static images.” Facebook has two static ad format products. (The recently introduced sponsored-story format is still unproven and has already been the subject of a class-action lawsuit by users who objected to being used to “endorse” a product.) Google has a tremendous amount of support for mobile, whereas Facebook has, by its own admission, little or none (in its S1 filing to the sec in anticipation of the ipo, Facebook reported it did not “generate any meaningful revenue” from mobile — a glaring deficiency for a service that is accessed via mobile device by over half its users.) This spring Facebook did roll out the ability for brands to purchase “sponsored stories” that display in mobile newsfeeds of friends of fans — so that expansion of the sponsored story program, at least, is something. “If an ad platform allowed an advertiser to deliver a meaningful ad experience to a targeted audience, you would expect users to click on that ad, right? But conversely, if you did not provide advertisers rich and compelling advertising options, if you did not provide them with sophisticated targeting methods to connect with the right audiences at the right time, you would expect your ads to be ignored,” reasons Kim. “And I think that’s what’s happening on Facebook, where we can see the click-through rate of .005 percent. That’s half of the click-through rate of the average banner ad on any Web site in America, and it’s a tenth of the click-through rate of the average ad on Google Display Network [which is reported at 0.4 percent].” And, for good measure, let’s also consider that it’s a hundredth of the CTR on a Google Search ad.If you need further proof: See gm’s hissy fit over Facebook Ads. This is more complicated than gm just not getting the rich media ads it would get on, say, Yahoo or YouTube, though. Could it have been just that gm is not used to being told no? Well, that would explain the timing. Someone at gm really wanted to screw Facebook over, pulling their $10 million in ad budget the very week of Facebook’s ipo, but the fact remains that gm must have seen its Facebook ads were not performing even at half if industry standards.“These ads are being ignored, and that is indicative of challenges with the ad formats and targeting options they offer their advertisers,” Kim says.Facebook is a closed system. Facebook advertisers using the Facebook ads are doing it to drive “likes” to their fan pages — essentially using paid media to drive something akin to newsletter sign-ups. And the roi of having a big fan page following is yet to be determined. “We don’t know what the value [is] of having 1,000 fans or 2,000 fans. If you spend $2,000 to get that, what is the value of that?” asks Kim. And then, once a fan base is established, there is the time, effort and money to maintain it and continually reach out to fans. “Buying ads on Facebook was always a very easy way to check the box on ‘doing’ social media, even if it was just buying other types of advertising,” says Michael Greene, a senior analyst at Forrester. “That’s allowed Facebook and other marketers to kind of gloss over the fact that you are essentially competing in a very cluttered environment —we’re still very uncertain if it’s even a very good environment for consumers to be receptive to advertising.”There are serious doubts about whether Facebook ads, as they are currently constituted, will ever be able to perform up to satisfactory levels. And many assume that much of the money that has been dumped in so far has been exploratory or experimental dollars. Further, says Greene, “you have none of the deep analytics in tracking that you’d get with a more conventional type of media buy. Facebook almost seems like an ecosystem in and of itself … It’s very hard for marketers to prove that this is an effective use of their marketing dollars. As opposed to buying more traditional display advertising where they have a lot more flexibility, not only from a creative standpoint, but they have much deeper tracking and analytics, and they can actually drive traffic to their own Web sites, which offers them higher prospects for ultimate conversion.”The old concern, once common in interactive circles, that Facebook might be the answer to a trivia question in 10 years, all of a sudden seemed very real again after an ipo that was widely perceived to have been bungled, intense Wall Street scrutiny of the company, and in the face of Mark Zuckerberg’s assertions that Facebook was on a “social mission” and never designed to make money. Statements like “Simply put: We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services,” while they may sound good to some, don’t fill investors or potential advertisers with confidence. “He’s saying [advertising] is like a side project just to pay the bills,” says WordStream’s Kim. “Until that mentality changes, I don’t see how they’ll ever catch up.” While Forrester’s Greene brings a healthy skepticism to the topic of Zuckerberg’s altruistic “we-just-want-to-make-enough-money-to-do-cool-things” pose: “What’s enough money and what’s doing cool things?” Greene asks. “It’s a posture that sounds really cool in pr pitches, but at the same time gives them enough flexibility to pursue whatever they deem to be ‘cool’ or whatever they deem to be ‘enough money.’ These are things that can easily be redefined over time.”By virtue of its remarkable scale, Facebook will continue to be a top player in the display ad space. But, asks Greene, “can it really become integrated into the larger media-buying world? Can it stop being a separate experimental budget and really hold its own as a line item in the broader media plan?” And to do so they’re going to have to deliver advertising experiences that are well beyond what they’re offering today, say Greene and other analysts. To stave off Google, “Facebook would have to embrace the idea that advertising isn’t something that will potentially ruin Facebook,” says Kim, “but that it can be something that could potentially — if it were relevant and targeted and compelling — be additive to the user experience on Facebook.”What would it take for Zuckerburg, the boy ideologue, to become pragmatic? What if Barney puts on the Predator’s armor? What happens to the market if Facebook does become open — does become part of the larger media-buying ecosystem? “If you can start buying it through conventional advertising methods and measuring it holistically with the rest of your media buying, then a substantial amount of inventory floods into the market all at once,” says Greene. “This also potentially opens up the use of Facebook’s vast amounts of consumer data to be used on a much broader scale outside of just the Facebook walled garden.”Reps at Facebook had no comment on the company’s plans for future ad products.Yahoo, despite seeming like an afterthought in much of the digital world, has a strong reputation among ad buyers and figures to remain somewhat competitive in the space. “Yahoo is pretty good at the large account management. They treat their big accounts well,” says Kim. “Yahoo has carved out a niche in providing display advertising to the big brands.” Yahoo’s interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn, is a media guy, and we can expect him to steer the company toward emphasizing proprietary holdings and continuing to build the company’s relationship with advertisers. And with the most recent name bandied about to take over the ceo post being former nbc honcho Jeff Zucker, you can bet that the company will continue to further morph into the online equivalent of a traditional media company.Of all the portals though, perhaps Microsoft is in the best position to become a larger factor. Of all the major players, Microsoft has been the most aggressive in terms of pursuing opportunities in the exchange channel. “Microsoft has the right partnership strategy and the right resources internally to take advantage of a space to be able to capture dollars there,” says Greene.AOL may shape up to be little more than a hitchhiker in the ad space. Its quarterly display ad may finally be pulling out of the nosedive it was in for the past few years, but even in the three-way deal between it, Microsoft and Yahoo to sell each others’ remnant inventory, aol seems like something of an afterthought.Yahoo and Microsoft will take their pieces, and aol and the exchanges will lick up the scraps, but Google and Facebook will have their whole faces in the pie. It’s no foregone conclusion that Google becomes the behemoth of display, but it certainly looks likely. It would take a dramatic move by Facebook, whose ad revenue may actually be atrophying, to knock Google from its trajectory — and the social network’s track record of having introduced three ad formats in seven years certainly doesn’t suggest a propensity for a shift in its game plan.