Yep, its that time of year again. AT&T’s Blue Room is streaming the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

All weekend long, The Blue Room will have live streams from the festival, now in its seventh year. First stream is at 12:45pm ET. The Blue Room also has an XM Satellite radio broadcast, a Twitter feed and ringtones available to download from the artists performing at the festival, so they’ve got a true cross platform effort going.

Kudos to AT&T overall for their continued strength in online video events.

Warning: This video may be the raciest thing we’ve posted, but since its branding, and technically there’s no nudity or anything “questionable,” I’ll save you the hassle of hunting for it.

In building anticipation for their XXX Party, being held in 17 cities around the world, jeans maker Diesel contracted The Viral Factory to create this “SFW XXX” video, which is sure to be a viral hit. In its first day, it has nearly 350,000 views on Break.com.

The Viral Factory, based in the UK, has a long history of creating viral hits, including one of my personal favorites, The Trojan Olympics series.

Someone will have to explain the videos on the Diesel home page to me. Other than an odd similarity to the whiteface worn by Bob Dylan in his Rolling Thunder Review, I flat out don’t get any of them.

Ok. You’ve been warned. Now enjoy.

Diesel SFW XXX - Watch more free videos

Continuing the hit parade of A-list actors making their foray into the online video world, former Friend Lisa Kudrow will be starring in “Web Therapy,” a branded entertainment effort for Lexus.

Unlike the “Smart Girls at the Party,” with Amy Poehler, introduced last week by ON Networks, Kudrow’s series is conceptualized, created and delivered by the brand. Sandy Blanchard, owner experience manager at Lexus’ marketing division told the Hollywood Reporter that the luxury cars will only be woven into the stories “when relevant and appropriate.” That said, there were no additional syndication partners mentioned, leaving us to believe that users will have to visit the L Studio to take in the show (and the brand), or rely on folks like us to embed it for you.

Oddly, she also told the HR that, “We kind of look at ourselves as a broadband HBO.” But as previously mentioned by OVW, HBO is broadband HBO.

The Associated Press has moved their Online Video Network back-end from MSN to thePlatform reports PaidContent, quoting Jane Seagrave, SVP for AP’s global product development unit:

When we got to discussing renewal, we jointly and very amicably agreed that it no longer made sense to have Microsoft handle both ad sales and technology. We’ve been pleased with Microsoft’s performance as an ad sales rep, so decided to stick with them.

In other words, MSN Video isn’t nimble enough to adapt to future technology changes. Even MSNBC saw fit to do away with the long-despised MSN video solution, and the AP despite a likely Silverlight pitch and the technical hurdles of switching their thousands of partners to a new provider, still opted to leave Microsoft.

A quick business school aside here, switching costs may be the least appreciated consideration in the online video business today. A number of media companies have gotten in bed with companies like Move Networks that hold very high switching costs; not necessarily a smart move in an industry where the threat of entry of new competitors and new technologies is so high.

This sentiment is summed up well in thePlatform blog:

Finally, AP is taking advantage of thePlatform’s open ability to adapt to our customers’ needs as they grow. As AP wants to take advantage of improving video technologies, or address new business opportunities, thePlatform will be there to support them.

Unlike the majority of mainstream media companies which continue to operate as if they exist in the same network and studio content-driven oligarchy, the AP’s video network and the many new media companies that rely on longer tail content are focusing on becoming more efficient.

By partnering with multiple specific technology partners - and playing the high number of content management, ad-sales, and content delivery competitors off of each other a content company can mix and match for a best-in-class, lower cost solution while ensuring that they leave their future options open.

With the launch of the G1, the first phone running on the Android OS, Google has officially entered the mobile market and at a price $20 below the iPhone. The phone looks cool, Walt Mossberg seems to like it, a pretty big endorsement, and Open Source is a big step in a positive direction for the mobile device market.

We made some predictions back at the New Year about the growth of mobile in ‘08 and reported delays in the release of Android had us tempering those a bit, but it looks like Google has pulled off their first operating system launch well. and taken another step toward Google controlling the media and advertising we consume on a daily basis.

In a blog post Google Product Marketing Director Marc Vanlerberghe pitches Android as a universal solution for bringing everything anyone could want on a single mobile device.

For those of us in mobile, it’s tough. Not all products work the same on all devices, and although we try and optimize for each device, we often run into challenges specific to certain mobile phone platforms. I, for one, used to carry three devices with me all day. I love my iPhone for its powerful browser and music player. I use my BlackBerry for Gmail and Calendar (and occasionally Brick Breaker), and I carry a Nokia N-series phone because of its camera and YouTube application.

Of course while the open source platform may bring together the best of all worlds, you will need a Google account to even use the phone, locking in mobile users in much the same way that iTunes controls device interactions for Mac users, giving rise at least in my mind to privacy concerns.

Mobile device interactions if tracked carry immense value, the recent launch of Chrome has been challenged for its questionable privacy practices, and at the end of the day, how much privacy are you willing to give up in exchange for a mobile device that does it all?

For anyone who missed it, Comcast laid out a new plan for managing the volume of its network traffic on Friday. (Ed note: Ben normally rants about this stuff, but he’s been swamped, so I’m crimping off an email from him.)

At first glance, it seems as if the new plan clearly violates the principles of net neutrality.

Comcast said on Friday that under the plan designed to give all users their “fair share” of bandwidth it would focus on managing the traffic of customers who are using most bandwidth when the network is congested.

It said it will use software on its network to determine if particular subscribers have been the source of high volume of traffic and will temporarily give traffic from those subscribers a lower priority status.

It said that when a subscriber’s traffic is assigned a lower priority status its traffic could be delayed if the network is congested but would not be delayed if there is no congestion.

Seems like they are punishing their users based on usage. The issues of usage-based pricing models has also been up for debate and tested in other markets by other providers, but will probably turn off heavy users. And what defines a “heavy user” anyway, especially in these days of P2P delivered legal content, Hulu, and streaming from Netflix?

However, upon further inspection and reading, the plan is much closer to what Vint Cerf has proposed - that usage only matters at peak times. If a network is getting close to capacity, and the top 5% are using more than 80% of the bandwidth, thus slowing down the entire network for everyone, the need to manage bandwidth outweighs the adherence to strict net neutrality.

As Ben said, “There needs to be balance between net neutrality and the need for ISPs to manage their networks to provide equal access. If it violates net neutrality then net neutrality is an impediment to quality of experience for internet users and needs to be adjusted accordingly.”

Well said, Ben.

UPDATE: I received an email from NeuLion correcting the information contained in Mel Adler’s email. NY & LA sales offices are still open, and Mel is no longer an employee of the company, and was not an employee at the time he sent the letter. NeuLion and JumpTV are still very much in business, and in growth mode.

In a letter to not-sure-who, Mel Adler sent the following note:

As some of you may now know, JumpTV/ Neulion decided to close their advertising sales offices in NY, LA and Chicago last Tuesday. Until further notice, please direct any sales inquiries to their Sanford Florida office at 407-936-0800.

Over the past year, working with so many talented online media professionals has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my career. So, thank you all!

When Jump decided to insert advertising into its paid subscription streams last year, there was little research with regard to audience acceptance and possible churn. What evolved was a state of the art, in-stream marketing experience. At our height, comScore ranked JumpTV as the most engaged video sports site, reaching 3-4 million monthly uniques (don’t get me started on video measurement panels). For perspective, four million people is about how many the Yankees draw to the Stadium in a season. And although I have no delusions about my two loves - baseball and streaming media, becoming equally popular, it’s still a nice coincidence.

I look forward to working with each and every one of you again in my next ‘Excellent Adventure’

Session Description:
When will supply of premium inventory become outstripped by demand? What effects will this have on the online video marketplace? Some advertisers would argue there is a glut of quality, premium inventory online. Some would say there is almost infinite inventory. Who is correct? Can premium video actually command a premium on price? Are video ad networks killing the price and creating a low cost marketplace for video that hurts the chances for growth? These will all be discussed in this session.
Moderator:
Jason Glickman, CEO, Tremor Media
Speakers:
Steven Comfort, YuMe, VP, Advertising Sales
Carrie Kelly, VP Ad Sales, Funny Or Die
Christine Peterson, VP Digital Media Director, Carat
Shoba Purushothaman, CEO, The NewsMarket
Lewis Rothkopf, Network Development, Brightroll

A: Peterson: The question isn’t whether or not it was produced by a professional company, but whether or not there is a technology to alieviate their fears of being associated with pornography or inappropriate language. They don’t really care about the resolution of the video.

Q: If the content were determined to be safe, would that warrant a higher CPM?

Peterson: Sure. If we could have the same reach, then yes. A consumer may be even more passionate about that content.

A: We also need to look at things in the broader context. The super-premium content is usually a byproduct of a broader TV deal, and not really a true measure of CPMs .

Christine: Some of the models for super-premium content is built around purchasing a block, as opposed to the majority of digital content which is purchased on CPM or per stream basis. While that sounds nice, it most cases, they are just repurposing their TV spots. We’re seeing frequency of 7 exposures per session, not just when they come back. We’re looking for 1-2 impressions in an in-stream environment. Overall, those super-premium buys have a negative impact. As someone who tried to catch up on a season of 30 Rock, I hope I never see an ad for super scrubber again.

Glickman: Publishers need to balance the frequency capping with their ability to make money.

Q: From a supply and demand standpoint, there is a lot of noise that all of the video inventory is UGC. When you look at the volume of video inventory on tier-two sites, often times it exceeds what you can find on top-tier sites. What is the roll of video ad networks in a supply demand and value?

A: Brightroll: You can’t possibly overstate the value of video ad networks in this environment. The goal is to supplement what the publisher is doing on their own, and help the agency get the buys across a broader array of quality publishers while avoiding the pitfalls that comes with trying to do that. But you’ve got all of these different player types, formats for them to deal with. As far is the publisher is concerned, you get very competitive CPMs, but not what you’d get if they sold it themselves. But what often happens is “The Spitzer Effect.” You get a huge spike in traffic, and then you have a ton of unsold inventory.

Carrie: As a publisher, there is a need for ad networks. When we did the Paris Hilton video, we had a 16x spike in traffic. But nobody has the chance to pre-sell something like that. What we need to figure out is how to have something in-house that we can use to take advantage of that, and work together to increase the efficiency. We need to open up the dialogue on how the publishers and agencies can work together.

The behind the scenes is that we have to think about the end user. As a start up, we’d rather sacrifice some revenue to make sure that user comes back to us again. We want the right brands because we are building an audience as much as we are building the site.

Q: Are video ad networks hurting the CPMs?

Glickman: I think most of us would disagree with that. For standard ad networks that may be true, but not for video.

Brightroll: The people who run the video networks have been there before, and seen what happens. So we are determined as both former publishers to not go down that road again. We only sell on a CPM basis to make sure that CPMs don’t go down.

YuMe: We give our technology to the publishers we work with, and 99% of the time it is better technology than they already have. And that gives their sales team the ability to sell formats and analytics that they couldn’t deliver on their own.

Q: When it comes to formats, price and inventory, formats obviously play a role. How do we see the formats play into the conversation?

Carrie: On the day I started at Funny or Die, we said that there will be no pre-roll on our site, ever. We have to go back to the user experience. As Christine said, she was so annoyed that she’ll never buy a product. So we need to keep the user in mind and how we protect that experience.

Christine: Just to play devil’s advocate, the advertisers spend an enormous amount of money creating a :30 second spot. Not to say that it is the end all and be all, but they are still working. They still drive a brand message, equal to and above the performance on TV. Users are less annoyed than they are with TV, and we don’t see TV changing their ad model. When I say to an advertiser, “I need you to spend more money for the web,” they say “Forget it,” and spend the money where they know it is working.

Brighroll: One of the things that is really tense right now is the :30. In terms of branding and recall, they are the most effective unit out there. So you have the opportunity to do more than repurpose what you’ve got on TV. If you are targeting techies, they know the benefits of having more RAM, so you can exploit that opportunity to spend the time with them because you can deliver a much more targeted opportunity.

Christine: Coming from a media buying perspective, there’s only so much you can do and say to get them to test the waters in the space. Now we’re seeing interactive video, and we can create ad units for the space. But we need to create more case studies to prove that they work.

Q: How do we feel about formats as they pertain to the content? YouTube said they wouldn’t do pre-roll but would do overlays.

Christine: its less about who created it and more about length.

YuMe: The biggest problem is seeing a :30 second ad before a :15 second piece of content. But it is rare that we get more than one piece of creative. But technically we have the ability to do that.

Q: If you can create content that is an ad, but also something that is content and can stand on its own, is that something we see as the next big thing or is it a fad?

Carrie: It will continue, but it is really difficult. If you, the publisher, are doing everything from the script to the talent to the editing, then we are playing the agency, the producer and the publisher and then we need to go do the distribution as well. It’s a lot easier, like with the Dove campaign, where the agency did it, and seeded it. We can’t try to trick the consumer.

Brightroll: Trailers are a great example. They are entertainment, they are high def. There’s a burgeoning market for literary trailers, where they hire actors to create a commercial. Its entertainment that meets everyone’s need at once.

Q: Content doesn’t exist just on one site anymore. How does syndication, and hyper syndication, affect price?

A: YuMe: When you look at the widget world, where content appears on a blog or on facebook, the issue will become addressability. Can you tell who I am?

Q: Do top-tier sites warrant a higher rate than the same content farther down the tail?

Carrie: yes. If you can buy a targeted audience, if you can buy them in that bullzeye, then you should pay a premium for reaching them in a premium environment.

Brightroll: If you are having your content associated with premium, adjacent content, then you should pay for that association. But advertisers don’t necessarily see it that way.

Why?

Brightroll: One is safety. Advertisers pay to be associated with your brand.

YuMe: Demand and true scarcity will play a huge roll. Auto content, business and finance, travel, that will support higher prices across the board.

Q: With regards to TV, there is a comparison of CPMs. In general, people think that online CPMs are higher than TV. Should they be?

Christine: No. We don’t have the metrics to prove that we should pay higher prices for online. But you can’t compare them. Broadcast buyers buy cost-per-point.

Brightroll: Broadband should always be higher CPMs than TV. You have a lean forward audience. On TV, you have a cost-per-maybe. On the interactive side, someone is actively engaged.

Glickman: We’ve heard that the CPMs on TV have been watered down to address that cost-per-maybe.

Q: Is it an issue of education?

Peterson: Maybe, but what we hear from TV buyers is that they turn on the TV faucet, and the sales come in.

YuMe: When I worked in TV, we knew that we’d get exactly how many number of calls into a call center, exactly what time the spot will air. TV can be extremely precise. But when you are looking at an ad that is in a video player, you are waiting for that content to play, and you are very engaged. With TV, the push has been on to move away from show ratings and towards commercial ratings, and that cracked about two years ago. They are getting close to figuring out who watched the ad vs. who watched the show. But if you are on the Web, you are one click away from engaging with the advertiser. On TV, you have to get up, turn on the computer, etc., You are much farther away from that engagement.

Audience Q: What about convergence when TV and the Web come together?
Brightroll: All of the set top boxes run off of basic IP video. But there is no barrier to getting the same kind of ads and metrics off of the living room TV than off the computer. The technology is there. The convergence has happened. Its just a matter leveraging the data.

Audience Q: What goes into CPM rates, and why are they so much lower for UGC? What are the other inputs?

Christine: There is definite value to the body of content that we can trust. A lot of the established rates for the super premium placements happened because they were bought by broadcast buyers without being negotiated. They were set without any real rationale. There is also a lot of value added research that can help you prove whether or not something worked. With a lot of the premium content, you can do a lot more than with UGC. You can brand the entire environment if you’d like, which has a much longer impact than a UGC environment.

Is the flip side of better ad targeting a nosier, intrusive marketer who knows more about us than we care to share? It seems clear now that digital media must confront and resolve its natural tensions with privacy and security concerns before the industry can move forward. The weird science of behavioral tracking now snoops into our browsing, search, shopping, e-mail, and perhaps even online social network habits and physical location. Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are consolidating networks and technologies in order to link together many of these user habits into deep profiles that allow precise targeting with scale. Have private companies ever been entrusted with so much information about private citizens? Despite industry assurances that personally identifiable data are not involved, marketers now have privacy advocates, the FTC, and legislators taking a hard look at whether a new age of marketing science requires new levels of regulation. What hurdles will the industry need to vault? Could digital marketing really survive if the fully opt-in system that many advocates propose is adopted? Are the best laid plans of marketing science going to hit a wall called privacy rights?

MODERATOR:
Wendy Davis, Senior Writer, MediaPost’s OnlineMediaDaily
SPEAKERS:
Eileen Harrington, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission
Jeff Hirsch, President & CEO, Revenue Science
Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law, Seton Hall Law School
Ari Schwartz, VP and Chief Operating Officer, The Center for Democracy and Technology
Mike Zaneis, Vice President, Public Policy, Interactive Advertising Bureau
Q: For years, BT campaigns have collected data anonymously, and used it to serve people ads. If it is anonymous, whats the problem?
A: Ari: We don’t consider it to be anonymous. If you have data about someone over time, that isn’t anonymous. The consumers show interest, and the debate is about how much data is being collected about them.
A: Frank: The tailoring of the user experience is important. Users want to know they have control over what is being collected about them. Users should have a persistent opt-out opportunity to maintain privacy for as long as they want.
A: Mike: There is a danger in collected info about people. Just because you can track someone over time doesn’t mean that its not anonymous. If it is not trackable back to a specific individual, there is less to be concerned about.

Q: Aren’t there instances where people who have been identified?
A: Mike: Yes, but lets not brand an entire industry because there is a potential for that to happen.
A: Hirsch: The debate is about what is PII and what isn’t. And that’s where the line is.

Ari: But you are taking your business model and applying it to policy. I’m suggesting that there are business models that definitely have something to fear. And that’s where you start to run afowl of the benefits of interactive media.
Q: Who owns the data? And does it matter from a privacy point of view?
Hirsch: Who owns it is partially a business issue. Whoever created the data should own it.
Eileen: The issue is also about control, not just privacy. The issue in the policy arena is that the facts are obscured. Congress and the FTC have continued to try to collect really good factual information about exactly what is being collected and how it is being used. Businesses that do this are obviously reluctant to be forthcoming in ways that have been meaningful. And the practice is constantly changing. Trying to define what is PII is a red herring. We just want to know what is being collected, how it is being used, and how it can be combined with other data. Those are the questions. The longer the debate goes on without really good, candid, reliable information, the more probable it is that policy wont be made. There’s a game of chicken being played. The longer businesses refuse to come forward, the more likely it is that policy will develop that people will complain about.
Frank: but there is also an issue about what is information and what are business and trade secrets in order to conduct business. There needs to be a lot more computer scientists and engineers in order to get at the guts of this.
Eileen: The FTC has a pretty good record for maintaining the confidentiality of trade secrets.
Mike: The process the FTC has undertaken has been the right one, and has been very deliberative. Private meetings and town halls have been a deliberative process, and been focused on what the business model is and what is the right approach. We get in to trouble when we start to speculate what might be possible in the future. There are a lot of things that are possible in an open-architecture environment. We need to focus on what IS going on vs. what we can imagine in our wildest dreams.

Q: But who would have imagined that AOL would have released search data?
Mike: But people knew they were collecting it. They just didn’t expect that it would be released.
Jeff: My mother didn’t understand that AOL was tracking all of her searches.
Ari: its about user control. If you run a business model that is counter to user control, policy makers will look into it. I’m not picking a winner or a loser, that’s just the reality of the process.
Eileen: There are types of information that are very sensitive, like searching for information on health conditions and then serving ads against it. I don’t think that most people know much about how data is being collected and used, or that it is explained clearly in a privacy policy. The difference between online vs offline is the volume of data, and the potential of aggregation that simply isn’t possible offline. What has changed since we started looking at behavioral targeting? Everything. The volume, the usage, the techniques, all of it. This is a very juicy policy issue in Washington, and business models are going to develop in a way that give consumers clear notice and a meaningful choice or it is going to get dumped.
Q: There has been self regulation for years, so why are we still having this discussion?
Jeff: Not everyone follows the guidelines, and the new BT companies that leverage ISP data raised the issue again and proved that people weren’t following the guidelines.
Eileen: Meaningful self regulation means policing. There are excellent examples of meaningful policing. Most advertising policing is done through self regulatory policy with real sanctions.
Q: how do you sanction a company that says it isn’t going to follow that self regulation policy?
Eileen: If companies don’t comply, then we take enforcement action.
Frank: I have a lot of worries about self regulation. There are a lot of opportunities for a bottom to happen.
Eileen: The reason it makes sense, if it worked, is that the technology and practices change so quickly that the policy to regulate will be static and out of date.
Ari: We’ve had 8 years of self regulation, and we’re still having these problems. We’re going to need a backstop legislation. If we can get at a self regulatory model, and back that up, we’ll be much better off.
Mike: We have that already. We have that around email and children’s spaces. But it is a harm based model, and we haven’t come up with a definition of harm. But the industry recognizes that we have a relationship with customers, and we need their trust in order to have a business. That’s why we need a broader initiative than just the NAI.
Q: how do you compete with companies that don’t follow the practices?
Jeff: We see business models where the data is being used without a publisher’s knowledge. But that is a business issue, not a privacy issue.
Q: Does the technology involved change the standards? Does ISP targeting require different policy?
Mike: The same piece of data in the hands can be tracked back differently than if it is in the hands of another company.

We have the technology. We have the platform. We have the audience. The promise of digital technology for marketing is to benefit all links in the value chain. Tracking consumer wants, needs and behaviours will target them with fewer ads that are so relevant as to be more useful than intrusive. Publishers will realize the true value of their context with heartier CPMs that reward target-rich, well-lit environments. And digital media will knit these audience pockets together in networks that offer marketers necessary reach and scale with none of the waste of less accountable platforms. This perfect eco-system of digital media will deliver right-message, right-time, right-place marketing that serves all constituencies. Is marketing utopia just over that next ridge? Or is the “perfect eco-system” actually delivering reduced ad budgets that cannot support current marketing infrastructures or continue to underwrite good content?
MODERATOR:
Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau
SPEAKERS:
Margaret Clerkin, Executive Director, MindShare Invention
Russell Fradin, President, Adify
Gian Fulgoni, Chairman, comScore, Inc.
Eric Wheeler, Chief Executive Officer, 33Across
Dave A. Yovanno, Chief Operating Officer, U.S. Media, ValueClick, Inc.

Q: Is targeting helping or hurting our industry?

A: Are we really delivering targeting the way we claim we do. There’s a lot of room for improvement.

A: ValueClick: Currently, it is hurting the industry. Targeting should bring more dollars into the online market place, but what it is actually doing is allowing advertisers to cherry pick.

A: Mindshare: One of the issues is around who actually owns the data, who is using it, and who is gaining the knowledge. The advertiser is paying for that, but the knowledge is also being gained by the publisher, who is using it to sell to other advertisers to the benefit of the publisher. There are advertisers who believe that the data belongs to them, and should be portable.

A: There are issues around cherry picking, but behavioral targeting allows us to analyze social networks like never before, and it’s the data that marketers have been craving for.

A: Adify: It’s a continuum. Without all the targeting, we probably don’t have an industry like we have. But you can’t just look at the targeting part of the equation. But it is very hard to deliver mass scale of micro targets. For any individual publisher, it is dangerous to get too targeted. If you are trying to target someone who traded a quarterback for a running back on their fantasy football page, you are going too far.

Q: If you look at the world of publishers and marketers, who is really benefiting?

A: comScore: If targeting was working the way we think in terms of accuracy and benefit, I’d think that what advertisers are willing to pay would be much higher than we’re getting. Ad networks should be able to charge much more than a single publisher. Targeting raises two promises to an advertiser. 1) I promise that I’ll deliver the audience that I’m selling you , and 2) I’m getting something significantly better than non targeted advertising. Direct response advertisers have an easier time of measuring that return. That’s much more difficult for brand advertisers.

Q: DR and branding used to be looked at completely separate entities. Are they coming together? Is there a blending?

A: Mindshare: Its definitely blending. No agency has just a single objective. So you need to be strategic about moving both or multiple objectives, and you need to allocate your dollars to do that.

A: 33Across: Being performance based is the only tangible metric that you can feed to the higher-ups that is measureable. Advertisers will pay a premium to have their brand associated with specific content. If their objective is DR, then they can turn to a network.

A: ValueClick: We’re seeing a widening of the gap in CPMs. The premium branded sites can still command a premium CPM, but there is very little going on in the middle. Thanks to social media, there is a driving down of CPMs. We’re seeing clients with their budgets in two or three chunks to spend against different objectives.

Q: Because social media is designed to engage people at extended periods of time, why isn’t it seen as beneficial for branding?

A: The way social media is structured, there is a titanic amount of inventory. It has nothing to do with the page views in social media. When you translate that to a CPM, it becomes miniscule on a pure CPMs. We are awash in low CPM inventory because a lot of social sites have a frequency of 10 million.

A: 33A: that is absolutely right. We’re moving away from marketing to customers to having conversations with them. Its not that social media is bad, its that we’re using the wrong metrics.

A: Mindshare: You can advertise in social media. But you need to find the people that will engage and influence other people.

A: 33A: We built ad systems for scale. How many of the IAB standard sizes are good for having a conversation with an audience.

Q: Are CPMs no longer an effective way to sell online advertising?

A: comScore: No. You don’t expect an immediate response from an ad in a magazine ad. To big brands, the things that are important are how many people am I reaching and am I influence them. If we want people to move money from traditional media to online, we need to give them the proof. If you show them a 2% click-thru rate, that isn’t going to happen.

A: 33A: You need to have some form of currency for people to trade on. For marketers with savvy, that doesn’t really matter. All advertising is held to some action globally, no matter what the pricing model is. In the DR world, there is either a sale or a lead. What is the equivalent in a branding model? That’s a much more complex question than a pricing model.

Q: Are you finding that you are customizing objectives for each individual client?

A: Mindshare: You have to figure out your clients objectives and the action that you want the user to take. You can do performance based deals with large publishers, but we aren’t going to move to one or the other. It isn’t black or white. If your goal is to increase your reach, that is going to be sold on a CPM basis.

A: ValueClick: This is one of the most self-loathing industry, but we’re the fastest growing advertising medium every. And we’re the only ones making money. But there are two kinds of fragmentation that hurts the business. The fragmentation of publishers makes it impossible to plan, so you need aggregation. The other is to date, advertisers have been able to get a return with nearly every new technology or method to do something. The media planners are deluged by all of these options.

A: A:33: Peter Naylor had something interesting to say. When you sell a deal on TV, you get high fives. When you sell a deal online, people say, “You sold that?” and then need to figure out if they can deliver it.

A: Mindshare: There is a lot of attribution given to search that isn’t rightfully there’s. There is a lot of research being conducted right now that is going to dramatically change that.

A: comScore: If you look at the consumer electronics market, you need to look at latent data for 90 days before you will see a conversion and that’s just online. 70% of the conversions happen offline.