• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, July 15, 2014

One thing I love about reading on an iPad is the ability to define a word without switching apps. Chango, a demand-side platform (DSP), has brought the same type of technology to marketers via Contradictionary, an ironically named Google Chrome browser app released this week.

Contradictionary is a plugin that highlights the majority of buzzwords seen in digital marketing posts today. As I’m writing this, the words or phrases “bot,” “marketers,” “real-time bidding,” “RTB” and “creative” are all highlighted on the MediaPost home page. If you hover over one of the highlighted words, you get a definition provided in part by the IAB.

“RTB,” for example, is “a data-driven programmatic buying model allowing Advertisers or their Agencies to bid on digital media (display, video, mobile, social, etc.) in real-time, at the impression level.”

(No, the words inside the definitions aren’t highlighted.)

It’s no game-changer -- and I doubt that’s what Chango was going for -- but it has the potential to be a useful gimmick. After using the tool for several hours just for fun, one quickly realizes it fails to take context into account. Words such as “reach” and “acquisition” have more than one meaning, after all.

The simple fact this plugin exists is telling because it’s representative of the industry’s (seeming) desire to be more transparent and streamlined. The ad industry lives and dies by LUMA charts, so we know standard “definitions” are welcomed.

The real potential, in my opinion, is to turn the plugin (or something like it) into a wiki. A collaborative dictionary created by marketers for marketers would be a great way to simultaneously give everyone a voice and shut everyone up. Chango lets its plugin users suggest words that should be defined, but it doesn’t let users submit definitions. There would be challenges to overcome in doing so, but there’s power in crowdsourced information.