In the first RTBlog exploring the ultimate DMP debate, I spoke with champions of both the hybrid data management platform (DMP) and standalone DMP approaches. This time, I asked Rob Gatto, president of Neustar's Aggregate Knowledge, to do something harder than simply explain why he think his offering is better: I asked him to spell out the pros and cons of both sides of the ultimate DMP debate.

Viewability has been the topic of the week here at RTM Daily, with Undertone co-founder Eric Franchi sharing his thoughts earlier in the week and the Media Rating Council then announcing its plans to lift its viewability advisory in 2014. It's the week before Thanksgiving, but for brands looking to do more than flirt with real-time bidding (RTB), this news might make it feel more like Christmas.

"RTB could potentially motivate media buyers to erroneously pay lower prices to advertise online while still expecting equal performance." That's what ExactDrive, a self-serve ad platform, derived after analyzing the performance and bid price of hundreds of online advertising campaigns. But judging by the recently concluded OMMA RTB in Chicago, the industry already knew that. It's not just focused on cheap, cheaper, cheapest, and cheaperest.

One of the most surprising insights gleaned during the opening "branding" panel discussion at OMMA RTB Seattle was the discussion about how the "rest of the organization" is reacting to programmatic, particularly the most senior strategists, planners and, well, creative type people.

Buyers and sellers alike are more aware of "viewability" than ever before, and I recently exchanged emails with Eric Franchi, co-founder and chief evangelist of Undertone, on the topic. Franchi said he believes all ad networks are auditing their publishers for viewability, and expressed concerns over advertisers asking for viewability from their media partners despite the Media Ratings Council (MRC) cautioning them to wait. I asked Franchi if viewability means something different to sellers than it does to buyers, what it might look like in 2014, and who holds the most responsibility when it comes to this hot topic.

I learned a lot about transparency at OMMA RTB in Chicago today -- or at least I think I did, because the more I learned about it the more confusing it became. Considering the topic, that's not a good thing.

The old proverb says that curiosity killed the cat, but in the case of programmatic advertising, curiosity is proving to be the lifeblood. The IAB hosted a panel on programmatic earlier this week, and what stuck out to me was that so many panelists started sentences with phrases that, when scrutinized, underscore the industry's burning curiosity of the space.

A new study has revealed that real-time marketers might not be so good at the whole real-time thing, after all. In fact, the CMO Council study gives "Real-Time Delivery of Sales Intelligence and Breaking News" a big, fat "F" for a grade. And it's not even close to "D" range.

In light of the dominant performance by programmatic companies on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 list, RTM Daily speaks with Keith Eadie, TubeMogul's vice president of marketing. Eadie explains why the Deloitte list is different than other lists, why sell-side-focused companies are easier to spot on the list than buy-side companies, what the chain of programmatic adoption has been like on the buy-side, and more.

AdExchanger ran an interview last week with AppNexus CEO Brian O'Kelley. In the interview, O'Kelley called sell-side platform (SSP) PubMatic "dead," saying, "there's not enough money in the pure publisher business." PubMatic responded the following day via a blog post. They called O'Kelley's comments an "outburst," and likened them to a 3 year old standing up and dropping an F-bomb. One industry expert says the entire situation is "not good for anyone."