Media Prediction 2011: Who is Admantx and why will Google buy it?

Admantx was born only 6 weeks ago during the last Semantic Web Summit, but here is why it really is a game changer for advertisers and publishers alike.

But first, let us look at the industry problem it aims to solve. For those who are not familiar with the current contextual advertising space, here is an example of a infamous campaign for a cruise which was matched with the wrong content, in this case a ferry crash. 

 What you want to avoid in contextual advertising...

So how does a company such as Admantx propose to address this issue?

Well, the secret sauce lies into what we call Semantic Web and Linked Data. And it is pretty easy for Admantx since it is actually a spin-off of Expert System, a 15-year old Semantic Intelligence provider.

Semantic technology can help marketers derive meaning, emotions and motivations from the content & user behaviors. In this particular case, webpages would be semantically processed & tagged using methods similar to human comprehension:

• in order to display relevant ads and avoid a ferry-crash-type ad mismatch
• and of course, to enhance the content relevancy and the overall media consumption experience. 

This goes beyond the sentiment analysis tools that have been implemented over the past few years.

Don't get me wrong, the semantic advertising space is not new. Five years ago, Ad Pepper Media had bought Crystal Semantics. But 2011 will definitely bring us some exciting news, such as acquisitions made by publishers and media groups in need of rapidly embracing the Web 3.0 wave... Stay tuned :) 

Apple blocks location-based advertising within apps

Mobile Marketer's Dan Butcher agily details the ramification of Apple's stance against location-based advertising within applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

This decision will definitely impact most players of the mobile advertising industry. Yet I do not think it will presents itself as an issue for companies like Foursquare or Buzzd, whose location-based feature is not only part but beneficial to the user experience.

Indeed, according to Apple's advice to the developer community about its CoreLocation framework:
If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user's location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.
You can learn more about using Core Location by reading the CLLocationManager Class Reference and downloading the LocateMe sample code available in the iPhone OS Reference Library.

To learn more about the potential repercussions from a marketing and advertising stand-point, please read Dan Butcher's piece here: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/5430.html

Is Wired ready for an Apple iPad launch?

Mind-blowing, Wired presents us with an intuitive way of interacting with its content, while experimenting with cool features such as the 3D spinning of products, which opens new avenues for advertising and product reviews.

That said, it seems that this groundbreaking app may be incompatible with the Apple iPad :( according to the word on the street (of the blogosphere). Garysky at AppleSky writes that "interactive Wired issues probably won’t be compatible with the iPad due to its inability to run Adobe’s proprietary technologies like Flash and AIR".

Yet according to Cult of Mac yesterday, Wired's EIC Chris Anderson said: "The app is designed to run using Adobe’s Air, but can be easily repurposed for the iPad and other devices"...

Does anyone know which team built the app anyway? Feel free to email/comment.

A friend tells me it has been developed internally for months way before anyone was sure there was going to be an iPad.