Overnight, the Internet has turned the role of the trafficker into one that takes center stage. An entire $20B+ industry of Internet advertising now trades on an ad-serving platform that assigns power to advertisers, with the trafficker as their gatekeeper. That power is irrevocable.

Artie Bulgrin, SVP Research and Analytics for ESPN, has also worked on the vendor side at Nielsen Research and CAP Cities/ABC in National Television Sales. His current work at ESPN includes research studies on the sports fan experience and analyzing media and new technology trends through his company's Media Lab, based in Texas.

Marketers rely on geo-location to correlate demographic data (income, psychographic, profession) by community or neighborhood. In the TV realm the promise of one-to-one household addressability (interactive TV apps inclusive) delivered by front running technologists Invidi, Navic and Visible World, privacy protecting dataminers Acxiom, Claritas, Allant and Experian coupled with predictive TV viewing modelers Admira, Adsvantage, Google TV Ads, and Invidi Media, measured by set top boxers Nielsen Rentrak, TNS, and TiVo/ Quantcast, and supported by infrastructuralist cablers, satcasters and telcos has again excited the imaginative telescopic product targeting of the ad industry.

Verification of ad buys has always been important. Making sure you get what you pay for is a pretty elementary metric for the agency world, considering the fiduciary responsibility we have to our clients. The recent controversy that erupted when some advertisers claimed their ads had run in error during Fox News host Glenn Beck's controversial show further underscores the importance of ad verification. But in a quickly changing media landscape where measurable results are becoming the reference point for agency compensation, ad verification can become vital as agencies fight to sustain the business model.

Starting this week, research veteran Charlene Weisler will analyze current trends, interview top researchers and advance opinions pieces on strategic research. This week she interviews Horst Stipp, NBC Universal's SVP Strategic Insights & Innovation. Stipp is a 40-year veteran of the company, currently involved in all aspects of sales research, social research and strategic insights for all the NBC Universal properties.

Up until the end of August I felt pretty confident that I had a handle on the Time Warner Chairman & CEO Jeff Bewkes' TV Everywhere concept and how it comfortably fit into the pay TV and free TV eco-system. Essentially, it would create an authentication system that will allow cable TV subscribers to access cable programming online, and down the road, possibly, via mobile phone. Then, in the last week or so, things started to get murky for me when satcasters and telcos jumped into the mix. Not to mention the broadbanders, whose domain TV Everywhere might be perceived …

Cookie, anyone? If you mention the term "cookie" to anyone outside the Internet business they will likely begin to salivate. If you mention the term "cookie" to anyone inside the Internet business they will immediately know you are referring to a small piece of information that is dropped on a user's computer by a Web site or Web server on the Internet.

Last week's announcement about a potential competitor to Nielsen seemed to shine a spotlight once again on the thorn in everyone's foot known as three-screen measurement. One could even surmise that the latest volley might be more about leveraging the power of the customer over the vendor for pricing concessions. But I think the underlying truth is that data fusion is challenged, and this frustration is manifesting itself through announcements like this one.

The world has moved forward since the creation of the ratings systems. Today all television advertisers have sophisticated enterprise-reporting (ERP) applications that optimize their product pipelines and distribution networks. Yet as an industry we so far have failed to synch our TV ratings data with the enterprise data of the advertiser. Direct response advertisers have been linking sales data to commercials for decades, but the large brand advertisers still need a more robust application. Canoe is taking shape to be our industry's first effort to help solve this data issue. However, at the beginning of its rollout, we should be …

When I started my career in the media business at ad agency BBDO in the national buying and programming department, around the mid-'70s, the media community's attention was focused on reach. Mass reach. Broad reach. Television. Network television. The cult of the horizontal.