 from Nielsen President Steve Hasker and the CEOs of both Rentrak and comScore, who all sat on the same Ad Week panel. Read it.
Breaking The Movie Trailer
Netflix is gung-ho on sequential creative in its programmatic media buys, as reported by Jennifer Faull of The Drum. “A typical movie trailer has a three-act arc: Introduce the story, bring in an element of danger and then the conclusion,” CMO Kelly Bennett told an Advertising Week audience. “Instead of trying to do that in two minutes and thirty seconds how do we split it up into five, 10 and 15 seconds [of video]? How do we combine that 10-second Instagram moment with a 20-second TrueView?” Read on.
Why Fraud Persists
In a LinkedIn post, former AppNexus CTO Mike Nolet explores the perverse incentives supporting online ad fraud. He takes the example of MichaelGolf.com, an English-language website with scraped content that Google AdEx lists as the top source of video ad supply. Google prevented advertisers from paying for this ne’er-do-well’s property’s impressions, but it’s likely some money got through anyway. “There is no downside in trying,” he writes. “Law enforcement doesn't do anything here so nobody is going to jail. What happens is that fraudsters just keep trying and trying and eventually make money. The only question is how much.” Read it.
But Wait, There’s More!
- Mobile Sales Will Exceed $252 Billion By 2020 - Adweek
- Adzerk First To Join New EFF ‘Do Not Track’ Coalition - press release
- More Ways To Sell Directly On Twitter - Twitter ads blog
- Netflix Turns Attention to Sequential Ad Targeting - The Drum
- Sizmek Joins Amazon Creative Partner Program - press release
- Marketron To Track Live Radio Ads - press release
- Facebook Embraces Old-School Media Buys - Digiday
- Engage:BDR Partners With Neustar - press release
- Can the Ad Industry Beat The Black Market In Ad Fraud? - Ad Age
- CBS Expands Ratings Program With Nielsen - press release
- Target, Kohl's Upping Their Digital Game - MediaPost
- A Case Study In Defeating Malvertising - engage:BDR blog
- Apple Devices Driving More Search Than Android In US - Search Engine Land
- Is Network Level Ad Blocking Extortionate? - Seeking AlphaThis is Cassandra and Nicholas, a couple that has been dating for the past eight months. Nicholas told BuzzFeed News that they have known each other for six years, and also dated in high school for about a year and a half.
However, Nicholas is not the only man in Cassandra's life. She is also completely in love with her dog Lucky, who she has had for 15 years.
"She loves two things more than me," Nicholas said of Cassandra. "Sleeping and her dog."
So this year for Christmas, Nicholas brainstormed ways to combine Cassandra's two favorite things. He came up with an AMAZING idea.
He bought Cassandra a blanket with Lucky's face on it, and bought Lucky a MATCHING one with Cassandra's face.
Nicholas said he had the idea to order the blankets and thought it was "hilarious."
"I just thought it was funny honestly...like who has that? It didn't have any profound meaning except to be extra," he said.
Nicholas said when he presented the gifts to Lucky and Cassandra, she started "laughing really hard."
"She didn't think I could actually get her something she would really like. A lot of people don't get her good gifts. So she was pretty surprised," he said.
A few days ago, Nicholas decided to post the gift on Reddit. His photo soon spread to Twitter, and people were obsessed.
My girlfriend loves her dog so I got her a blanket of her dog and her dog a blanket of her.
Everyone now wants their own BFF blanket with their pet.
And a LOT of people are dropping hints.
Enjoy your blanket, Lucky!Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) was sent as a source of mercy for the entire world. Every word he spoke and every action he did during his Mubaarak lifetime was a source of comfort for humanity at large and a means of acquiring the mercy and blessings of Allah Ta’ala.
May Allah Ta’ala bless us with the tawfeeq of emulating the Mubaarak Sunnah of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) in all facets of our lives.
UAE-based Saleh Bin Lahej Group, the franchisee of the Mexican restaurant El Chico for the UAE and Egypt, has recently opened its first outlet at Al Naeem Mall in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK).
El Chico, established more than seven decades ago in Dallas, currently has presence across the world. The UAE restaurant was opened in Dubai in 2008. Subsequently, two more restaurants were opened in Abu Dhabi and RAK becomes the fourth location for El Chico in the UAE. Cairo Festival City in Egypt will host the fifth restaurant shortly.
“We are pleased to be part of the launch of El Chico in RAK and aim to bring the much loved eatery closer to its customers across the UAE. Expansion plans for the restaurant are underway and we are delighted to be part of the growth and success of this chain. The new restaurant will add to Al Naeem Mall’s current offerings and an overall improved food experience,” says Mohamed Saleh Bin Lahej, group CEO of the Saleh Bin Lahej hospitality division.
El Chico is part of Dallas-based Consolidated Restaurants Operations, Inc (CRO), which operates more than 100 restaurants throughout the US, the UK, the UAE and KSA. “We are truly honoured that our esteemed partner, Saleh Bin Lahej Group, has chosen to bring El Chico to RAK. We look forward to the continued growth of El Chico in the UAE,” adds John D Harkey, Jr., CEO of CRO.To properly understand how to write a given script, we have to understand why we are writing it.
That's easy, you say. I'm writing this script to collect data about my servers. Or to perform daily maintenance tasks. Or to build new servers. Or to automate adding new users to our systems.
But those answers are incomplete. They don't address the big picture.
I'm writing this script to collect data about my servers so that I don't have to do it manually. Or to perform daily maintenance tasks more reliably and at a time of day when my staff is asleep. Or to build new servers quickly, consistently, and cheaply. Or to automate adding new users to our systems directly empowering my HR staff and freeing up IT support resources for more challenging tasks.
That can be generalized into a standard definition of why we do what we do.
The purpose of scripting is to assist in performing some function by optimizing the resources of the system in which the function is performed.
That sentence is a little dense, but it is important to let it all sink in, because this what we all do professionally, and it is what everything else here flows from. So let me say that again a little slower.
of the system in which the function is performed.
This allows us to analyze our purpose, and to develop a way of thinking about our scripting that will help us make better, easier decisions about our scripts.
The key to understanding what that means and the implications it has on us and our scripts, is the fact that the system is not just the box. It isn't just the box on our desk or the big box of a datacenter with lots of smaller boxes within. The system includes the people. It includes the people for whom the function is performed. It includes the people responsible for performing the function. And it includes the people who create and maintain the script. It includes us.
So when I sometimes say that scripters are lazy, that is just playful shorthand for saying we optimize the resources of the system.
Software developers do this as well, but they balance the requirements differently than scripters, resulting in different design decisions and coding styles.
Here are the four and a half guiding principles supporting the purpose of scripting.
1. The script needs to reliably perform the desired function.
2. The script needs to be easily writeable.
3. The script needs to be easily readable, understandable, and maintainable.
4. The script needs to optimize the resources it uses to run.
These are the requirements you need to balance when designing and writing your script. You can't do them all perfectly. You focus on just one at your peril. You can't balance them the same way on every script; each script is different, each function is different, and each system is different.
But once you understand the principles, and understand that they each only exist to serve the purpose, the reason we are scripting in the first place, it becomes much easier to make the many decisions and trade-offs we make with every script.
1. The script needs to perform the desired function.
The script need to work. It needs to work well. It need to work reliably. That's obvious.
But how well, how thoroughly, and how reliably? That's different for every script, as the balance with the other requirements is different in every script.
If a script is going