• by Tony Silber , Staff Writer, January 14, 2022

The large ad-management company Mediavine, which serves nearly 9,000, publisher websites -- mostly small media companies -- has become an official member of the World Wide Web Consortium.

The move, which became effective in December, is significant because it will enhance the voice of publishers -- especially small and independent media companies -- in setting global web-development standards.

The consortium, also known as W3C, is the international community where member organizations and others work to develop global web standards.

W3C standards affect virtually every aspect of web development, including design and applications for building and rendering web pages, such as HTML, CSS, SVG, device APIs, Java, graphics and audio and visual.

W3C also establishes standards for meta formats, such as XML, identifiers such as URLs,  and protocols such as HTTP.

In its membership role, Boca Raton, Florida-based Mediavine is aiming to serve as an advocate for small, independent Web publishers and collaborate on programmatic solutions as third-party cookies dissipate, the company said in a press release.

It will work with publisher partners and other W3C members, including Google, Amazon, Yahoo, TheWashington Post, TheNew York Times, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and Intel.

In all, the W3C has 458 members.

“We’re glad to take our place in a community advocating to protect publishers and their audiences," Mediavine cofounder-CEO Eric Hochberger said. "Mediavine proudly supports the W3C’s mission of establishing modern web standards that offer equity and opportunity for all, and looks forward to contributing our unique insight to further the organization’s goals.”

W3C’s vision for “One Web” brings together thousands of dedicated technologists, representing dozens of industry sectors.

The organization is jointly hosted by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, Keio University in Japan and Beihang University in China.

It is headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and the browser.