• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, January 16, 2014

The one-year anniversary of RTM Daily and RTBlog passed on Tuesday, and Joe Mandese and I thought it would be a good idea to look back at the coverage.

Tens of thousands of words have been written in this space over the past 12 months, most of which revolved around real-time bidding (RTB) and programmatic media-buying in general. The topics moved from display to mobile and video, with a bit of radio news scattered in throughout the year. Bigger news -- like IPOs and M&A activity -- was also explored. And of course, Big Data played a major role.

The 800-pound gorilla in the advertising room -- television -- has begun toying with programmatic trading. But while the fourth RTBlog touched on TV and real-time targeting, the big screen was the least talked-about channel when it came to programmatic. That could change in the coming months.

The “M” in RTM Daily displayed its flexibility. In general, it stands for media and marketing. But over the past year -- over 235 RTBlogs -- it has stood for mobile, money and more. We even made the “B” in RTBlog stand for “beard.”

There have been over 45 “Real-Time With”s, the RTM Daily version of a Q&A. We look forward to dozens more.

As noted yesterday, real-time analytics are currently winning the race for most talked-about topic of 2014 in the RTM space. So what does this indicate? It could mean that marketers are looking for ways to take back some control -- not by reducing the amount of automation, but by learning how to work side-by-side with it.

Whether or not that ends up being true is something we’ll keep tabs on here in RTBlog for the next 12 months, along with everything else in the industry. Thanks for sticking with us this past year; we’ve enjoyed your company.

"Cupcake" photo from Shutterstock.