Robert Andrews

Nevermind TV — is the opportunity for online video larger outside of the conventional mediascape? That’s what video  services firm Kaltura’s CEO thinks. “By 2016, every employee of large companies is going to consume 16 hours a month for work-related activities,” Ron Yekutiel tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “As the workplace becomes consumerized — people […]

AMSTERDAM — Is this the end for “end-to-end”? It often seems like every online video technology vendor is flaunting its “end-to-end” credentials. But, whilst they have boasted of offering content clients every single video function under the sun, the big video services Brightcove has gone in the opposite direction. “The single biggest strategic pivot that […]

COLOGNE — It may be a global industry, but advertisers in the US and Europe exhibit different approaches to the programmatic, automated ad targeting prospect that is now revolutionizing video ad buying, says one company in the know. “In the US, it’s all about performance,” Mark Grether, COO of Group M’s in-house data targeting agency […]

AMSTERDAM — Is corporate split personality syndromestopping online video advertising from reaching its potential commercial heights? That’s what one sector exec thinks. “Digital video is managed by the digital teams on the buy side, whereas, at broadcast linear TV, buying is managed by a completely different team,” says Tal Chalozin, CTO and co-founder of interactive […]

AMSTERDAM — Video services like Netflix thrive on learning about viewers and giving them targeted recommendations about next viewing opportunities. Now those recommendations are becoming more advanced. In this video interview with Beet.TV at the IBC show, Rovi product sales and marketing SVP Bob Shallow christens “search and recommendation 2.0 – effectively going to prediction as […]

COLOGNE — After buying specialist tag management service Satellite just this summer, Adobe has already integrated the outfit’s product line-up in to its own Marketing Cloud service suite. Satellite claims to speed up clients’ website load times by consolidating external analytics and other server calls in to a single call. “We focus on helping customers […]

COLOGNE — In Germany, top-tier publishers still exert more collective power over online rivals – but that doesn’t make them immune from their own empowered customers. In this video interview, video ad management company Videoplaza CEO Sorosh Tavakoli tells Beet.TV ad blocking is a big problem in the country: “We’re seeing up to 50% of […]

COLOGNE — Microsoft wants to make its entire product line-up a billboard opportunity. The company wants brands to ride its many platforms and products to reach users, whether that’s via Windows 8, smartphones, gaming or Skype. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in a homeworking scenario, a stay-at-home mom scenario, an auto researcher scenario,” says corporate […]

COLOGNE — Simply running ads to monetize online video is not enough, according to one figure in the space. “One of the things we’re addressing is the fragmented device space,” Adobe’s senior technology evangelist Jens Loeffler says in this video interview with Beet.TV. “This is not the desktop browser anymore. You’re dealing with a very […]

COLOGNE — The UK’s TV networks have spent the last few years building up their distinct cross-platform catch-up services against which to sell pre-roll ads. Now they are showing interest in letting some of those ads be bought by programmatic, real-time bidding algorithms. Speaking to Beet.TV, Danny Hopwood, the EMEA platform head for ad group […]

COLOGNE — “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed,” wrote sci-fi novelist William Gibson. And that’s exactly the landscape for so-called programmatic and real-time automated ad bidding techniques. “The way publishers have engaged with the programmatic space in Europe has been much more careful – they’ve thought about it much more,” […]

When Matt Prohaska joined The New York Times as programmatic advertising director in May, it was clear The Gray Lady intended to open up her ad inventory to newfangled programmatic ad bidding technology. Now that process has started in earnest. “In the last few months, we’ve directly engaged our sales force and integrated programmatic in to […]

AMSTERDAM — Online video technology supplier Rovi’s top priority is helping clients pump out video in the next-generation video compression standard. Succeeding the popular H.264 standard, High-Efficiency Video Compression (H.265) promises up to 50 percent smaller video sizes for cheaper online transmission. Rovi has been amongst the few to commit early support for the standard, in […]

AMSTERDAM — Akamai may be best known for helping speed up the flow of internet packets of all kinds using its distributed network technologies. But the Cambridge, MA-based outfit is also zeroing in on the booming online video industry. In this video interview with Beet.TV at the IBC show, EMEA product director Stuart Cleary says […]

COLOGNE — Automated, programmatic ad-buying technologies are disrupting the display advertising market. And, increasingly, they will do the same for video ads, says one exec. “From an advertiser point of view, the idea of audience targeting is something they’re extremley keen to do across video as much as they are across other places,” Caspar Schlickum, […]

COLOGNE — The US PRISM data snooping controversy has hampered efforts to argue against European ad-targeting rules that are already too onerous, says GroupM Interaction COO John Montgomery.   GroupM is the media agency  holding unit of WPP. “The US is trying to support self-regulation – we’re trying to avoid any form of legislation by regulating […]

COLOGNE — Don’t call it “Rise Of The Machines”, but AOL’s new ad chief reckons real-time ad bidding algorithms will soon do much of the grunt work currently done by Mad Men and women. In this video interview with Beet.TV at the DMEXCO industry conflab, AOL Networks’ Bob Lord says: “Traders on the floor (of Wall […]

AMSTERDAM — The upcoming successor to the popular H.264 video standard could save video content owners money on encoding by reducing file sizes by up to 50 percent. But, so far, adoption of High-Efficiency Video Compression (HEVC) has been slow. “The key challenge around HEVC today is to put all of the pieces together,” says […]

COLOGNE — The emergence of real-time, programmatic online ad buying is usually seen as a race toward cheaper ad pricing and, therefore, appealing more to lower-tier publishers. But, speaking to Beet.TV at DMEXCO, the CEO of AOL’s ad server business, AdTech, says he is hoping to appeal to bigger publisher brands, some of which are […]

COLOGNE — Earlier this year, AOL launched Marketplace, a supply-side ad platform allied to its Adtech ad-serving business that helps premium publishers sell their non-reserved ad spots. Then, the launch happened only in the US and UK. But now AOL is green-lighting Marketplace across Europe. “This is about giving publishers the controls and the choices […]