Adnetik Indexing Ad Exchange Inventory; Google The Media Company; Device Fingerprinting Friends Privacy

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Adnetik Indexing Inventory

Adnetik appears to preparing itself – as well as positioning for its clients – for a cookie-free future as it announced the new AIM Index, a part of the “Audience Investment Management (AIM) system” at Adnetik. The index has nothing to do with cookie-based audiences but rather “the inventory seen within the exchanges on the basis of 35 proprietary attributes.” Read the release. Adnetik CEO Ed Montes tells Adweek, “We don’t know of any other [agency trading desk] that can do this besides us.” Fightin’ words! Read about it.

Agencies Better Than Brand Safe Tech

Underscore Marketing’s Tom Hespos writes, “How to Keep Your Ad Out of the Digital Ghetto” in a think piece on Ad Age. He’s not convinced that ad verification tools will provide everything a brand truly needs to keep their ads in brand-safe territory. Hespos, who’s on the agency-side, argues, “Nothing can replace a diligent agency when it comes to keeping brands out of inappropriate areas. (…) Humans, not robots, run the tightest ship when it comes to brand protection.” Read more.

Google The Media Company

Google is getting to media and The New York Times’ David Carr wants us to not believe Google, who may not admit to the reality. Nevertheless, he warns the search giant, “Before Google gets in too deep, the company may want to compare its valuation over the past decade with that of, say, Time Warner or just about any newspaper company in the country.” Media isn’t filled with search ad-like profits. Read more.

Value Prop Of Ease

On the ad:tech blog for creative best practices, editor Jim Nichols features Spongecell. Nichols identifies the different media elements that can be placed in Spongecell creative tech and writes, “Yes, yes, designers can incorporate these things into banners without Spongecell. But Spongecell’s value prop is ease, coupled with back end reporting that offers both high level and granular analysis of metrics well beyond click and interaction rates.” Read it. And, view examples here.

Attributing The Spend

DelMonte digital marketer Doug Chavez told MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan last week that his company is on the verge of using attribution modeling from Encore Media Metrics. Chavez, who is an advisor to Encore according to its site, tells Sullivan, “Attribution continues to be a piece marketers need to figure out.” Among the channels he hopes to quantify is Facebook along with his display media. Read about it. And, see Encore’s entire list of advisors.

Real-Time Bidding Scale

Turn account strategist Chris Kane offers a few thoughts on the real-time bidding trend on iMedia Connection. In regards to RTB’s scale today, he offers, “the key metrics that matter for advertisers are the reach and frequency that they can achieve among their target audiences. RTB is already delivering against these metrics, with near-100 percent penetration of North American consumers.” Read it.

Salad Days

Mediaweek’s Mike Shields points to a new Adweek PDF that highlights all of those portals we once knew and loved. Some are still cranking out profit. And some are not cranking at all. For example, Shields writes, “Infospace, which owns Dogpile, MetaCrawler and WebCrawler, pulled in $250 million in 2010 with a profit of $27 million. Not bad for properties that claim less than 1 percent of the search share in the U.S.” Not bad at all. Read more. And, get the PDF.

Add Effectiveness

Ed Montes continued to spread the Adnetik love over on ClickZ with a think piece titled, “Optimization – Chasing a False Positive.” He writes, “If we aim to improve the quality and effectiveness of online display advertising, we need to accept that there currently exists no perfect measurement. We have to be bold enough to move away from the detrimental ‘view through’ or ‘last ad’ model, or what I call the ‘false positive.'” Read more.

Local Digital Doubling

Research firm BIA Kelsey says that if you’re in the local ads business, hang on tight as your industry is taking off. According to a release, the firm “expects online/interactive advertising revenues to climb to $42.5 billion by 2015, almost double 2010’s $21.7 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.4 percent.” Read more.

Publishers Getting Audience

According to their company blog, Lijit updated its publisher analytics for its network of publishers using its search and media offerings. Lijit’s Daniel Weiss promises, “You can drill into more detail on ad performance, audience statistics, and search behavior to better understand your reader’s and how to monetize your site.” Read about it.

Not Fingerprinting For Life

In spite of the fact that the company has been transparent about its fingerprinting goals, BlueCava (AdExchanger.com Q&A) still runs into concerns about its long term plans. But CEO David Norris and Ringleader Digital CEO Bob Walczak tell ClickZ, “[Fingerprint technology] improves on cookies in one crucial area: keeping users opted out. Cookie-based opt-outs are fundamentally flawed because when a user deletes her cookies or switches to another browser, she is effectively opted back in to ad tracking.” Read more.

But Wait. There’s More!