OPEN SOURCE SDK IS FINALLY READY FOR PRIME TIME:  Mobile publishers have had a growing SDK (Software Development Kit) problem over the past few years.  Every time a new Viewability and Verification vendor comes on line the publishers must embed a new SDK in their app.  This creates the problem of slowing down or even stalling the app, and that totally defeats the purpose of adding the new SDK in the first place.  The industry solution to this problem, which has been in the works for years, is something called an Open Source SDK.  It’s a neutral SDK which can house several tracking vendors.  Think of this as an all-you-can-eat tracking buffet all under a single SDK.  The beauty of this solution is that publishers only have to install the one SDK, which reduces their risk of app latency.  The IAB is behind the Open Source SDK effort, as outlined in the attached AdExchanger link.  Most of the major trackers like IAS, Moat, Nielsen, etc., are included.  And publishers like Pandora have assisted through the working group to bring this breakthrough to market.  Notably absent from this conversation are Google and Facebook – they’ve traditionally resisted allowing 3^rd party tracking within their walled gardens.  But something tells me if Open Source SDK takes hold as the new industry standard the duopoly may be pressured to participate.

NIELSEN GOES 360 ON MUSIC:  For the last five years Nielsen has produced a research piece called Music 360, which aims to show consumption patterns across broadcast, streaming, satellite, downloads, etc..  Keep in mind this is the same Nielsen who can’t figure out how to accurately measure audio streaming (Tuesday’s blog post), but that’s a separate issue altogether.  Since Nielsen is a critical part of the audio measurement ecosystem I dutifully sold my data soul to them to gain access to the full report – Nielsen Music 360.  Most of the Music 360 data is around the rise of playlisting – either custom playlists created by individual listeners or prepackaged genre playlists.  There are also plenty of pro-radio stats around music discovery, which Nielsen attempts to correlate to relevancy for AM/FM stations.  For me the most interesting stat is on the right hand side of the graphic below.  Social sharing of music is way up – increasing from 24% to 32% in just one year.  Feels like even music streaming sites are getting into the Social game.

NIVAs TURNING UP IN RERUNS . . . WTF?:  Native product integrations in TV shows and movies are getting more and more common.  That’s when that can of Pepsi prominently placed on a TV show’s kitchen table happens to be turned label out so the viewers can see it.  These are called NIVAs – Native In-Video Ads.  Pepsi plays a small placement fee for the native integration, and the producer makes a little extra money without changing content’s storyline.  But what about previously produced shows which are now running in syndication?  There hasn’t been a way to retroactively insert NIVAs into existing video . . . until now.  Thanks to some new technology described in the attached Media Village link, future tech companies like Mirriad are able to insert product images into previously recorded video.  For an example of what I’m talking about check out the Geico ad on the TV screen in the upper left corner of the screen shot below.  Our lizard buddy wasn’t in the original version of the show, and instead was inserted by Mirriad after the fact.  As the article points out, there are natural limits to the products which can be inserted.  For instance, you can’t put an image of a smartphone in an old Happy Days rerun, because no such product existed then.  Regardless, the whole idea of retroactively inserting NIVAs into video content could open up a whole new frontier of native integration.

Have a great Thursday guys!