If you didn’t notice this morning (and well, I didn’t notice either), MediaPost published a long article of mine about the future of advertising networks. I was hoping that with all the work put into it, it was going to be a featured piece – instead it was regulated to the “opinion columns” along with the article “I love me some advertising, long time.” That being said, I’m still happy that MediaPost published it. However, you might not have also noticed it because it generated so much buzz, that it crashed the MP servers!

I wanted to give a little background on the story, which had to be removed before you giddy-up to read my masterpiece. Originally I was asked by ImediaConnection to write this article, which was going to be published as last week’s centerpiece. For whatever reason, someone over there canceled it last minute and I was told it was because of scheduling conflicts with their editorial board. As a former employee of the company told me, it was most likely because it was in direct conflict with some of their major advertisers, who are touting “technology” as the key to everything. Who knows, I’m just happy that people are reading my stuff again.

I started this article, really curious about the future of ad networks. I started in this industry in 1998 as one of the owners of a company called Cybereps, probably the first interactive advertising rep firm on the planet. In my early 20’s, I wasn’t that familiar with advertising in general, but I knew that the key to anything was engaging audiences and forming relationships. Cybereps was gobbled up by Interep Interactive, became Winstar Interactive and everyone but me received money for the stock. Thus, writing this article meant a lot to me, and brought a lot of the things back that I was saying over 10 years ago about audiences and the key to interactive advertising.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the article at MediaPost:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123560