Chris McCann, president, 1-800-Flowers.com, called data the world's next natural resource during his keynote presentation at OMMA DDM this morning. "If you look at it, you can say that data is the world's next natural resource. Some people...will have more than others, some places or business are better at mining that resource, and the winners will be those who utilize this resource to create competitive advantage. Simple as that," he told the audience.

Despite recent reports that Pandora is close to launching a Facebook Exchange-like infrastructure to automate sales of its Internet music users, don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I heard that directly from Chief Revenue Officer John Trimble during a conversation I had with him on stage at OMMA Mobile in New York this morning. When I asked him whether Pandora was close to launching such an exchange, Trimble demurred, saying the company is looking into it, but wants to focus on its "plumbing" first. That makes sense, because Pandora has effectively created a new category (make that categories) of …

On the "Is It Primetime for Video RTB?" panel at OMMA Video today, moderator David Goetzl, senior editor, MediaPost, posed the question: "Is an impression an impression an impression?" Another theme throughout the panel was anwering the question: "What is 'premium programmatic,' and what is the key to unlocking it?" Matthew Kramer, director of TV products, Accuen, does not believe that an impression is an impression is an impression. Kramer argued that "even if everything could go to RTB," it wouldn't. He doesn't believe that programmatic can replace contextual buying. "And I don't think it should," he added.

On the "Trick or Tweet: Is Real-Time for Real? Is It for Your Brand?" panel at OMMA Social this morning, the definition and origins of "real-time marketing" proved elusive. Has it been around forever, or is it something new? Or, somehow, both? Before we go any further, let's get this out of the way: real-time marketing did not start with, does not end with, and is not defined by the Oreo Super Bowl tweet. However, we can learn from it. Couldn't real-time marketing be described as any form of advertisement that takes advantage of knowing exactly what a potential customer …

Online Media Daily reported yesterday that Yahoo and Twitter have forged a partnership, allowing Yahoo to "incorporate selected tweets into the news feed on its" new home page. The Yahoo blog post announcing the partnership is annoyingly titled "@yahoo delivers #bestoftheweb," which underlines what I often think of Twitter outside of, well, Twitter. Just because people love the microblogging site and how useful it can be for real-time information doesn't mean it belongs everywhere.

API platform provider Apigee today launched the Apigee Institue, a research organization Apigee hopes will help Global 2000 companies in the app economy. The Institue will release monthly research notes. The first note, "Programmable World, Programmable Enterprise," became available today. I asked Bryan Kirschner, director of the Apigee Institute, what their definition of "programmable" was in this sense - as we all know that anything with a "program" prefix in the advertising world typically means automation. In this case, it doesn't mean automation, but Apigee's "Programmable World, Programmable Enterprise" note hits the nail on the head as to what advertising …

TV is going real-time. Yeah, I know that seems a little ironic, but think about it. TV has never really been distributed in real-time. Even live broadcasts are subject to the so-called "seven second delay" (a.k.a. the profanity delay, because broadcast licensees are subject to hefty fines from the FCC if they let an F-bomb fly, or a wardrobe malfunction live, in real-time). Even cable and satellite TV transmissions are subject to all sorts of latencies due to various gizmos, gadgets, set-tops, and servers, and the reality is that even when some cast member or host utters "Live From New …

Madison Avenue has been trying to get real about digital for a while now, but I think its time has finally come. The reason I say this, is an announcement this afternoon naming John Montgomery chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies' influential Media Policy Committee. The appointment is telling for several reasons. One is that Montgomery, COO of WPP's GroupM Interaction unit, is the first pure-play digital native executive to hold the post. Another reason is that the policy committee is one of only four "board" level committees at the 4As, and carries a lot of weight in …

After back-to-back months of increases in spend and impressions, both the global and U.S. RTB markets dipped in April, according to data from Rubicon Project's real-time marketplace app. On the global scale, spend and impressions were down 7% and 2%, respectively. In the U.S., spend was also down 7%, while impressions dropped 6% compared to March 2013. Ushering in baseball season and spring fashion, Style & Fashion (24%) and Sports (22%) had the largest increases in spend. Sports was also 13th in impressions, its highest ranking in the past year.

Digital ad spending "decelerated only slightly" during the first quarter, according to new estimates released this morning by a highly regarded ad tracker -- Pivotal Research Group's Brian Wieser -- but the big story is that once you strip out the performance of the online industry's biggies (Google and Facebook), there was "no growth for old display" advertising. Actually, that's not a deceleration. It's more like a cold stop. When Wieser did a similar analysis for calendar year 2012, he found total online display grew 3.8% after stripping Google and Facebook out. Why is this fodder for RTBlog? Well, Wieser …