🌯 LA Times Woes Signal It’s Time to Reinvent the Newsroom

The news business is on the ropes in general, but what’s been happening lately at The Los Angeles Times is particularly grim. How are publishers responding to all of this instability and disruption?

Read More

🌯 Did Publishers Waste Time Playing in the Privacy Sandbox?

Now that Google hit pause on its grand plan to kill third-party cookies in Chrome, publishers can breathe a sigh of relief (for now). But was the time spent testing the Privacy Sandbox worth it?

Read More

🌯 Ad Dollars and Google Antitrust Drama: 2024’s Banner Year, 2025’s Bumpy Ride

Digital ad revenue in the U.S. hit an all-time high of $259 billion in 2024—a 15% year-over-year surge and the fastest pace of growth since 2021. But was is the outlook for 2025?

Read More

🌯 Tariff Timeout: Can Publishers Make the Most of the 90-Day Reprieve?

Trump's tariffs caused economic chaos, even after the 90 days pause, but working through change and economic uncertainty is nothing new for publishers.

Read More

🌯 Can the EU Rein in Big Tech While Avoiding a Trade War?

The European Commission is set to issue fines against Apple and Meta for violating the DMA—its first levies under the law.

Read More

ISP Data Use Is More Worrisome Than Pokemon Tracking

Since the tech world can’t get enough of the Pokemon Go phenomenon – it seems a nice distraction from a lot of the other dire news this summer – it was about time for some backlash: safety concerns (maybe catching Squirtle in the middle of the highway during rush hour…

Read More

What’s In Your Header? Yield Optimization… Transformed!

As header bidding becomes increasingly commonplace, the initial thrill of ramped-up revenue has started to drop off a bit. That’s not to imply anyone who’s really seeing positive results via header is going to take those results for granted—in fact, almost as soon as header bidding itself became commonplace, so…

Read More

Leash the Beast: Automating Programmatic Reporting

While it once seemed the domain of the demand side, publishers are increasingly feeling more empowered when it comes to programmatic channels – in their wallets as well as their minds. Recent evolutions in programmatic have improved publisher relationships with demand partners and succeeded in bumping up CPMs and overall…

Read More

#OPSPOV: Pokémon Go and Augmented Reality’s Comeback

In a recent column about the creative slump, I commented: “At Cannes, the talk of the town was virtual reality; yet remember when augmented reality via smartphones was supposed to be the next big thing? It was a neat gimmick, but not one that scales (or keeps consumer interest). How…

Read More

#OPSPOV: Header Bidding Unifies Google Bashing

Here’s an experiment I’m dying to try out: At the next industry event (AdMonsters or other), I want to see how quickly the conversation about header bidding turns into potshots aimed at Google. Based on what I’ve seen lately, my guess is that it’s almost as fast as the response…

Read More