Let me be upfront about this: When it comes to covering the advertising marketplace, I have some personal biases, and they come mainly from covering the upfront. I try not to let them influence the way I cover news about the marketplace, but I definitely try to use every editorial opportunity I can -- especially blog-like commentaries like this one -- when I can. So today's RTBlog is about some analogies people have been making between the way Madison Avenue buys network TV, and the way it buys digital media, especially programmatically.

One thing I love about reading on an iPad is the ability to define a word without switching apps. Chango, a demand-side platform (DSP), has brought the same type of technology to marketers via Contradictionary, an ironically named Google Chrome browser app released this week.

The other night I was chatting with my fiance while she mindlessly browsed the Internet, unaware that I was about to witness why native advertising and audience-targeting via real-time bidding (RTB) are the trends that they are. It's one thing to be shown statistics while insiders explain why said statistics affirm a trend, but it's another thing to observe it in the "real world."

What do you get when 200 brands and agencies advertise on millions of sites using 300 trillion bytes of data? Zero masters. At least not yet. Perhaps that's one reason GroupM is tipping its hat goodbye to the open ad exchanges -- so much hype, so much opportunity, such little mastery. No mastery, in fact.

Nearly one year ago, "Real-Time Daily" made note of WebSpectator, a real-time ad exchange that uses its own "guaranteed time slot" (GTS) advertising metric to facilitate trading. The company later received Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation for its GTS metric. Real-Time Daily caught up with Andre Parreira, the company's founder and CEO, to see how the unique technology is being used by buyers and sellers today.

No, not "mobile-ization," but that's part of it. Chris Karl, chief strategy officer and head of market development at Sonobi, a supply-side platform (SSP), on Wednesday wrote an email to the premium publisher community, titled "A Call To Arms for Publishers," citing an "inflection point" that's no mirage.

Just before the holiday weekend, Miguel Rios, data science manager at Twitter, posted a blog showing how Twitter users behaved during the penalty kick shootout during the Brazil vs. Chile match on June 28. It's possible that you have seen the graphic, which has been floating around the Internet for a few days -- but what does it tell real-time marketers?

In a recent interview with Beet.TV, GroupM Chief Digital Investment Officer Ari Bluman dropped a bombshell on the programmatic marketplace, announcing that by year-end, GroupM was pulling out of RTB altogether and would deal exclusively with publishers via private exchanges. In the following candid Q&A, Bluman opens up on going private, asserting that it will give GroupM and its clients more leverage in the marketplace that will translate into higher quality and more cost-efficient reach of digital audiences.

Pandora, a large company that has been relatively quiet in the programmatic space, has made a big move toward embracing ad tech with the appointment of Jeremy Randol as its vice president of programmatic sales. Pandora tapped Randol from NBCU, where he served as director of programmatic ad sales since 2010. Randol is also on the IAB's Programmatic Council and was a founding member. Randol answered a few question via email about Pandora, his new position and what drew him to ad technology in the first place.

"Meet Albert," the PR pitch read, "the best artificial intelligence friend an advertiser can have." Whoa -- talk about anthropomorphism. Despite the pitch that Albert is omnipotent in the world of ad-buying, Adgorithms' CEO Or Shani said the platform is "designed only to enhance performance, not undermine an advertiser's decision." Shani -- like others -- pointed to mankind's perception, creativeness and ability to strategize as reasons the machines aren't taking over. "Data-driven machines," he pointed out, "will have a hard time figuring this out."