John Battelle's Search Blog May 2014

Programmatic Needs Context

Today Digiday published a piece I wrote about the lack of context in the display advertising marketplace. Check it out, I’ve posted it below as well for posterity.

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Before the rise of programmatic buying and “audience retargeting,” most quality brand media was purchased based on a very particular contextual signal –- even if the market didn’t really call it that. Back then, “context” was code for a publication or television program’s brand, and for the audience that brand attracted. If you wanted to reach moms at home, for example, you’d buy Ladies Home Journal or the soap operas. If you wanted business executives, you’d put Fortune or Forbes on your plan, maybe with a dose of golf or baseball broadcasts.

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Else 5.19.14: I Too, Shall Be Forgotten (At Least By Europe)

Oh-Im-sorry.-I-forgot-I-only-exist-when-you-need-something.

(image) If ever you wanted proof we are renegotiating our social contract in the Internet age, this week’s roundup of the best links provides plenty of fodder. Onwards…

The Myths & Realities Of How Of The EU’s New “Right To Be Forgotten” In Google Works – MarketingLand Google and other search engines will have to hew to new EU rules. But how they will be implemented is a big unknown. This looks to be a huge issue moving forward – what is a person’s right to ‘dignity’? In the US, it’s not much. In the EU, far more. But at what price to free speech?

Transparency Reports Database – Silk A roundup of the ever increasing number of transparency reports from digital companies subpoenaed by the US government. This promises to be one fat file a year from now.

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Do You Have a Mission or…Are You On A Mission? On Being a NewCo

A sampling of NewCos from our 2013 NYC festival.

(Cross posted from the NewCo blog…)

About a year ago I wrote a piece outlining the kinds of companies we were looking for as we began the first full year of the NewCo festival circuit. Back then, NewCo was called “OpenCo,” and we were just starting to understand our mission of identifying and celebrating a major trend changing businesses everywhere. In a way, we were exploring a story that had yet to become fully expressed, and that post was my first attempt at declaring the narrative.

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Viacom v. Cable One: A Foreshadowing of Things To Come in The Battle for the Open Web?

BmaaeguCIAI5AWg — Viacom’s rather one-sided POV on why its blocked web access for Cable One providers. Image via @TheLadyH86

So it’s come to this.

We’re all familiar with disputes between cable providers and their content partners – it happens all the time. One party claims the other party is demanding too much in a carriage negotiation, and in retaliation, the offended party pulls the programming in dispute. It might be the programmer who refuses to allow its content to run, or the cable company who refuses to put it on the air. The last big one I recall was between Time Warner and CBS back in the Fall, when many major markets looked to be losing football coverage just as the season was starting.

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Month: May 2014

Programmatic Needs Context

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Do You Have a Mission or…Are You On A Mission? On Being a NewCo

Viacom v. Cable One: A Foreshadowing of Things To Come in The Battle for the Open Web?

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