In the automated space, we often hear the term "programmatic direct." We hear about how real-time bidding (RTB) has a low ceiling because it's associated with remnant inventory, and that programmatic direct is how the cool kids trade. I was at Tech For Direct last week where speakers happily displayed charts showing that programmatic direct would bring in piles of cash to the moon and back, sucking the money from RTB's measly spend predictions. One problem though...it seems to me that everyone trying to sell the idea of programmatic direct is actually a middle man.

I've had a couple of meetings with some ad technology leaders in the past couple of days that are starting to make me think that what's old in Madison Avenue media departments is new again with the tech crowd. Specifically, the way they are thinking about the structure of the business. It hit me first when I had a catch-up the other day with Aggregate Knowledge President Rob Gatto, and it hit me again today after meeting with Adly CEO Walter Delph. Both of them outline a business structure that begins with using data to target consumers, then implementing it, …

Jason Barnes, head of commercial development at News Limited, spoke with RTM Daily to let us know why News Limited went the programmatic route, challenges they've encountered in terms of ad sales teams mixing with ad sales tech, and where he sees RTB going in the future for everyone involved. News Limited is one of Australia's largest media companies with assets in subscription television, Web sites, magazines, and newspapers. The News Corporation company also happens to be involved with real-time bidding (RTB).

On the one hand, I think that native advertising is real-timey (even if the impression wasn't bought on an exchange) because if the ad blends with the surrounding content well, the user "consumes" the ad in a different, natural, and real-time way. So to me, native advertising done well counts as real-time from the consumer point of view.

Most agency trading desks boast about their real-time trading capabilities, but GroupM's Xaxis now literally trades throughout the day, thanks to a global expansion that has given it coverage across the planet. "Everywhere WPP is developing, Xaxis will be in that market, as well," Xaxis CEO Brian Lesser vowed during a presentation at WPP's Digital Day last week. Xaxis already trades in 22 global markets, is represented in every major region with the exception of the Middle East and Africa, which are coming soon, he said.

In the short time we've been publishing RTBlog, we've explored a number of temporal implications of real-time media and marketing, but mainly they have been business issues, like how it is changing the way media is bought and sold, advertising is created, targeted and served, and how consumers receive it. Something we have not looked at much, is how it affecting us as human beings. And by that, I don't mean as consumers or media pros, but the way we live. There have been a number of studies in recent years documenting the impact always-on media are having on our …

On a panel at Tech For Direct in New York yesterday, I tallied up the number of acronyms that were used. It ended up being less than I expected, but it was still a few too many. Before I go any further, let me say that it's next to impossible to avoid acronyms, and that's not unique to the advertising industry. Additionally, I probably type "RTB" (real-time bidding) more than anyone else.

There's a war being waged for control over the marketing stack, and RadiumOne has opened the latest salvo, unveiling a new platform it claims will "unlock the power of big data" in a way that reaches consumers "beyond old school ad retargeting." Like all things ad-techy, this battle is being fought with a fair amount of hyperbabble -- actually, it is fraught with it. In fact, RadiumOne calls its new offering an "omni-channel platform." Talk about the hyper-inflation of industry jargon. We've evolved from simple channels to cross-channel to omni-channel. The reason it's hyperbole, if you ask me, is the …

The real-time bidding (RTB) marketplace had a mixed month in May, both globally and in the United States, according to data from Rubicon Project's real-time marketplace app. On the global scale, spend was up 7% but impressions were down 7%. In the U.S., spend increased 10%, but just like the rest of the globe, impressions were down (8%). The top 5 spenders had a newcomer, with Food & Drink squeezing its way into 5th. Technology & Computing, Automotive, Personal Finance, and Shopping all remained in the top 5, as they have for the last year, while Travel was bumped out …

Media tech company PulsePoint today announced the launch of a real-time bidding (RTB) platform in Europe. The New York-based company is gearing up for a surge of programmatic in Europe, so RTM Daily spoke with PulsePoint's CEO Sloan Gaon about RTB, the new platform, and what the future holds. RTM Daily: What did your platform look like in the UK/Europe before this announcement? Sloan Gaon: PulsePoint is actually a merged company (Datran Media and Contextweb). Contextweb was a contextual ad network. Traditionally, it had a pretty big presence in the UK market, so we had quite a bit of a …