The ad tech industry seems to have become obsessed with speed. The ability to pull ads faster to serve up in search results or on publisher sites, and to more quickly integrate offline data into online systems, have become critical components to support brands.

The company formerly known as Motricity is taking four key data points -- location, time of day, content and device -- to target and optimize ad campaigns in real time.

Microsoft and Oracle announced a partnership Monday allowing some of Oracle's software to work more closely with Microsoft's. The deal aims to help clients embrace cloud computing, by allowing Microsoft Windows Azure cloud-computing service to run Oracle's database software, Java programming tools and application-connecting middleware.

Big Data and real-time marketing channels, ironically, may force companies to face their own humanity and think harder about what it means to relate to people.

Consumers want to know that brands value customer preferences and behavioral data by treating the information with respect. Etiquette will become more important this year, according to research released Tuesday. It's become a way to create trusted customer relationships.

Americans appear to be of two minds about the use of their data by institutions both public and private. But a generational divide over these issues is unmistakable.

Both social and mobile have a strong following, but Siemer & Associates, an early-stage investor in advertising and media startups in Los Angeles, identifies several emerging related trends, subsets of the smartphone and the tablet markets.

Business leaders complain that big data is prohibitively complex and costly. But at the same time using these tools to improve customer experiences does not seem an overwhelming priority either.

Ad targeting requires accurate data. Have you heard of Enliken? The company's business model aims to show people the data advertisers sell about them online. The site offers a survey of more than 50 data points. In my case, the survey gathered data from about nine data tracking companies.

A number of panelists at last week's OMMA DDM mocked marketers who understand data-driven marketing only superficially. Too many people still think it is a fix unto itself rather than a tool that needs to be assigned for specific tasks.