motoChristo

A clever little mobile development tool

This tool is very useful to learn how your page is being interpreted by your device.

http://demo.ta-da.mobi/index.php?more_details

Specs are a-Changin’

With the weight of “Billions” in potential low-hanging ad revenue and a lack of specs to communicate where to sped it and why the bottom line with web video these days is that something’s gotta give.

David August has a few ideas on the topic I found interesting…

from - http://www.viciousconcepts.com/details/2009/02/iab-seeks-web-video-ad-standards.php

“Companion ads bundled with video ads mean lost audience.”

He’s got a good point and a handful of others too like…

“Whether legal or otherwise, people will find a way to view what they want on the device on which they want to view it.”

Personally, I think companion ads should be an add-on to a media buy, not part of the core purchase - and definitely not required by agencies.  I also think that in order to make sure ads are viewed it needs to be easy to get to the content with even less obtrusive ad inventory than before.  Otherwise users WILL find a way to get right around it.

And above all - video ad specs should be open source compatible regardless of the player, i.e. be integrated with leading Open Source ad server OpenX to start.  There are plenty of developers world wide that would do the integration and documentation work, we just need video player companies to warm up to the idea even if it means they need to alter their business model away from sharing ad revenues.

In my opinion that’s the only way to ensure fairness and spur innovation in this obviously insanely lucrative niche of web video - especially as it grows wings with mobile.

Related:
1.) IAB’s Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST- http://www.iab.net/vast

2.) Free Open Source Standards Based Video Ad Delivery (BETA) Project - http://code.google.com/p/openx-iab-vast/