Monday marks the unofficial end of summer, and even though the dog days are coming to a close, there was no shortage of news in the programmatic space these past few months. From IPOs, to mergers and acquisitions, to new partnerships, and plenty of Hyperbabble in between, this post takes a glance at the programmatic summer of 2013.

"The Million Second Quiz," NBC's new-age game show, is a little less than one million seconds away from its premier, and the show's accompanying play-along app has people already vying for the Money Chair. Today's TV Board wrote that it is "clearly one of the most ambitious TV programs ever to make it to network prime time TV." The show's Executive Producer, David Hurwitz, agrees. He told RTM Daily that he believes the show is "arguably one of the biggest shows to be attempted in a very long time. And we simultaneously launched a game app." Which is why I'm …

Last week, Canada granted a patent to Invidi Technologies, giving our northern neighbors the ability to do what U.S. advertisers are also starting to do at scale: target TV ads to individual TV sets, in real-time. And that was a good enough reason for me to check in with the Invidi team so I could update some other Americans -- us more southern ones -- what the the addressable TV advertising technology developers were up to.

Digital video ad marketplace SpotXchange today announced that Nick Welch has been appointed Director of Publisher Development, UK, a newly created position. The addition of Welch comes just weeks after the company hired Ana Garcia and Sophie Davidas as business development director in Spain and France, respectively. Welch was involved with programmatic advertising as head of Orange Ad Market in the UK for France Telecom. Andrew Moore, SpotXchange's European Managing Director, said in the statement, "There is a real shift in the market from manual transactions to programmatic media buying," and the appointment of Welch is meant "to get more …

Mobile and programmatic are two of the trendiest topics in the industry today, with "programmatic" even being coined as the new buzzword by Wall Street analyst Brian Wieser. So what happens when they meet? RTM Daily was able to ask Victor Milligan, CMO of premium mobile ad exchange Nexage, some questions about the two topics. Milligan is one of the best people to talk to about mobile, programmatic, and mobile real-time bidding (RTB). In addition to his role as CMO of Nexage, he is chair of IAB's mobile programmatic working group. RTM Daily: Mobile and RTB are both hot at …

I asked News Corp.'s Greg Clayman to explain the upside of the new exchange., why it appears they aren't afraid of commoditization while others are, and what the discussions were like when deciding to include mobile inventory on the exchange right off the bat. RTM Daily: What kind of upside do you see from this? Greg Clayman: ...The upside basically allows us to operate both direct and programmatic for premium inventory. The piece that falls off is the low end. This gave us an opportunity to clean all of that up. Programmatic? Through us. Globally? Through us. Direct? Through us.

Speaking of time machines, let me travel back to a few weeks ago when I was sitting in Rubicon Project's nice new Playa Vista digs (a.k.a. "Silicon Beach"). It should've occurred to me then that there was a deeper News Corp. connection when I tried to battle my way past the hyper vigilant Fox offices security guard -- that this wasn't just any sublet. The offices were originally built for former Fox Digital properties Myspace, Fox Audience Network, etc. until they were sold off. But it didn't register why Rubicon got such a sweet deal until yesterday when News Corp. …

The appearance of numerous programmatic ad tech companies on the Inc. 500|5000 list is rosy and all, but why do I feel like something is hiding behind those quintuple-digit figures? I spoke with Adam Berke, president of AdRoll, which checked in at 13th on the list, and he reckons that a little bit of "selection bias" occurred to not only put programmatic on the list, but put it near the top with huge figures. No, Berke wasn't insinuating that the companies sitting atop the list conspired in any way. Rather, he meant that the methodology of the survey benefits programmatic …

The programmatic media-buying marketplace has long been a chicken-and-egg business -- as in, which came first? Without supply of premium inventory, demand will never rise from advertisers willing to pay for it. And without demand from advertisers willing to pay a premium, why would publishers contribute to the supply? To overcome that paradox, Interpublic's Mediabrands unit has partnered with an impressive lineup of suppliers who are not chicken and definitely are not afraid to break a few eggs.

I'm thinking a lot about Nasdaq today. And it's not just because programmatic media-buyer Rocket Fuel has filed to begin trading shares of stock on Wall Street's technology oriented exchange. It's because of something Frank Addante said to me while visiting New York City last week. "Why do you think the floors above and below Nasdaq are some of the most expensive real estate in the world," Addante, the founder and CEO of Rubicon Project, asked me somewhat rhetorically.