Over the past few days I’ve been at the IAB conference, and if the mood in the hallways (and bars) is any indication, the online media industry is in a much better place – better than anytime in the past two years, most certainly.
The IAB is an industry association which represents, broadly, “companies that sell advertising.” The Board (on which I serve) includes senior leaders from firms as diverse as traditional publishers (NYT, IDG, NBC) to ad networks (24/7) to portal/platforms (Google, MSFT, AOL). And, of course, innovative newer firms like FM.
The IAB annual meeting has grown to become a quite well attended event, growing 30% from last year to 650 or so pretty senior folks in the online media space. It’s pretty “sell side” in nature – more publishers than marketers – but the shift this year was in the number of senior agency people attending. It’s clear agencies are starting to understand the importance of connection to audience, just as publishers do. A shift that without doubt will continue over the course of this year.
Stories worth grokking:
It’s Twitter!!!!!!!! (Yahoo + Twitter) (SearchBlog) This won’t hurt Twitter’s growth.
Branding Sometimes Means Being Human (WebProNews) Yep. Who said that?!
At IAB Annual Meeting, Talk of New Money for Digital Ads (Clickz)
Google’s Microsoft Moment? European Antitrust Review Looms (Searchblog again)
Wired On Google’s Algorithm (SEL) A worthy S. Levy piece (link here)
Publishers: It’s Time for an Intervention (AdAge) I am not sure the problem is as B&W as Russ frames it, but worthy thinking here.
Can Twitter Make Money? (TechReview). Yes.
Everyone is talking “audience” but who wins at this?