What Do Big Data and Butchers Have in Common?

May 03, 2013 - - 0

More words of wisdom from Krux Solutions VP Dave Smith.  In his latest op-ed in Adotas, he gives us his take on what Big Data really means.  Or will mean in the long run.

ADOTAS — There’s been a lot written lately about what Big Data means.  Some have linked the concept...
read more

News & Views from Krux - March 2013 Newsletter

March 20, 2013 - Gordon McLeod - 0

Greetings!

From time to time, we at Krux like to share some current thoughts, reflections, and opinions from our crew and from others across the industry. 

Here's our latest installment, touching on the ongoing Mozilla kerfuffle, the challenges inherent to programmatic sales channels,...
read more

Personalized user experiences & user data privacy

February 25, 2013 - Jos Boumans - 0

Today's guest blogger is Krux Big Data Whisperer Jos Boumans.  This piece originally appeared on his personal blog, here.

As our lives become increasingly intertwined with the World Wide Web, the battle between personalized user experiences and user data privacy is more acute than ever. On the one hand, personalized content is an expectation for...
read more

Krux’s Vision for Web Data Routing

February 01, 2013 - Krux Engineering - 0

At Krux we believe user web data is valuable, ultimately more valuable than ads.  In simple terms, who’s looking at the screen is more valuable than what’s on the screen. We think the industry is crying out for infrastructure that serves up data in a managed way and treats it as...
read more

NYT’s Carr on the Digital Success of “Old” Media - He Nails It

January 08, 2013 - - 0

This is a great article by David Carr about the state of the state, essentially reinforcing the fact that the reports of "old" media death's are greatly exaggerated.  Disrupted?  Yep.  Changing fast?  Certainly.  But YouTube does not yet rule the roost just yet.  The most salient passage is as follows:

...
read more

Big Data and the Power of the First-Party Consumer Relationship

December 24, 2012 - - 0

Today's blog comes from Gordon McLeod, Krux's president.  Gordon has spent years shaping digital media from the industry's earliest days, most recently at News Corp. as President of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network. As we close out 2012, he shares his thoughts on the power and potential of the first-party consumer relationship. This post was...
read more

Pixel Delivery Best Practices

December 13, 2012 - Krux Engineering - 0

Today's guest blog is from the Krux engineering team, here to drop some wisdom on pixel best practices.  This post is aimed at both web site owners who are looking to create better experiences for end users, and Analytics/Ad Technology companies who are looking to be good net citizens.  So...
read more

Welcome to the PostScribe Revolution

October 15, 2012 - Krux - 0

Enormous amounts of intellectual horsepower have been pointed at one of the most enduring – and most pressing – problems on the web: how to make web pages faster.  Countless hours have been spent trying to crack the code for making the...
read more

synchronous vs. asynchronous tags - what’s the big deal?

September 21, 2012 - Krux Engineering - 0

Today's guest blog is from the Krux engineering team.  Read on...

If the web is a human body, JavaScript tags – the bits of code governing the execution of web pages – are like its nerve endings.  They are the means by which websites sense, respond, execute, measure, and remember.  They issue commands...
read more

Guest Blog:  Measure All The Things!

July 13, 2012 - Jos Boumans - 0

Today's guest blogger is Krux's own Big Data whisperer, Jos Boumans.  You'll remember him from some recent DNT-related posts, like this one and this other one too.  He's smart guy, and he's forgotten more about data most of us will ever know.  So, we're delighted to feature his latest musings....
read more

publisher who leak data leak revenue - and customer trust

June 04, 2012 - Krux - 0

In a recent post on AdExchanger, iCrossing’s CTO, Peter Randazzo, offered very perceptive thoughts on the concept of data leakage.  It’s a topic that is near and dear to Krux, and we’re always delighted to see others calling attention to it.  We’ve been blathering...
read more

thriving in a data driven marketplace

May 15, 2012 - Brian Buizer - 0

The Internet has changed publishing forever – not just how people consume information, but also how marketers reach those consumers.  Marketers can now build cross-web consumer profiles across sites and devices.  And they can target those consumers on interests, purchases, actions, and inferred or explicit demographic details without the publisher ever being involved.  For the first...
read more

musings of a data scientist

April 18, 2012 - Roopak Gupta - 0

Today's guest blogger, Krux data scientist and all around good human being, Roopak Gupta, shares his reflections on how Big Data is changing the world. 

There’s no doubt about it.  We’re living in the era of Big Data.  And as a data scientist, I can honestly say I&rsquo...
read more

Be “Do Not Track” compliant in 30 microseconds or less

March 28, 2012 - Jos Boumans - 0

Recently, I blogged about the state of Do Not Track on the top internet properties, advertisers and widget providers. If you haven’t read it yet, **spoiler alert** the results aren’t encouraging.

In my experience, many of the top web operators are in fact concerned with your privacy, so it might be hard to...
read more

The State of Do Not Track

March 05, 2012 - Jos Boumans - 0

Today's guest blogger, Krux's very own Big Data savant and resident Dutch person, Jos Boumans, goes long on the state of DNT on the web.  He revisits some thoughts he shared recently on his personal blog, here.

Over the last few weeks, “Do Not Track” has been getting a lot...
read more

Tom reflects on Gordon’s arrival

February 28, 2012 - Tom Chavez - 0

When friends and colleagues are in between jobs and casting about for the next opportunity, they sometimes ask my opinion about what they should do next.   Should they join the company that’s building green technology, or should they jump on-board the new social media outfit?   I frequently see them trying to outsmart the...
read more

Gordon reflects on joining Krux

February 28, 2012 - Gordon McLeod - 0

When I left News Corp and the Wall Street Journal over a year ago I had a lot of ideas but no clear path about what I wanted to do next.  The choices broke out into two main threads:

welcome to krux apps

February 23, 2012 - Mike Chang, Krux NYC - 0

Hi, I'm Mike Chang.

Before joining the Krux team, I worked at small web publisher.  Every day was about finding new ways to grow revenue, increase reach, and better serve our audience.  And I joined Krux to take my experiences with a single publisher and go make things better across the entire web. <...
read more

big ideas on big data - geeks@krux at it again

January 17, 2012 - - 0

Krux's own Jos Boumans had the distinct honor and privelege of presenting at PuppetConf, one of the preeminent events focused on the operation and configuration management for cloud computing infrastructure. 

Jos gave a talk there about how Krux runs front-end serving infrastructure out of AWS, how we scale it, and what best practices we've...
read more

Measuring Load Time: Today’s Web Demands a New Standard

November 02, 2011 - Krux Engineering - 0

Today's guest blog is from Krux engineering.  Read on...

Everyone agrees – consumers and website operators alike – that page load time is a primary driver of user satisfaction when visiting a website.  It’s been widely shown that consumers are more likely to leave a site based on slower load times, and...
read more

VIDEO BLOG: solving scalability for the consumer web

October 22, 2011 - - 0

Krux's own Jos Boumans hosts this virtual whiteboard session.  Everything you wanted to know about web scalability, but were afraid to ask. 

The secret?  It's all about scaling, as it turns out.  That, and a lot of clever thinking and good old fashioned hard work.

And he teaches us...
read more

Required Viewing:  Exploiting Publishers, Strip Mining Data

October 11, 2011 - - 0

We recently came across this discussion from the OMMA Behavioral Conference earlier this year.  Our friend Chris Hart at The New York Times (NYT.com) shared it with us, and we encourage everyone to watch it.     

The full video runs a bit under an hour and contains a wide-ranging discussion of...
read more

Krux Inspector:  A New Way to Look at the Web

May 02, 2011 - Krux Engineering - 0

Today we bring you a special blog post from Krux engineering...

AdOps pros industry-wide are using Firefox and Firebug daily to troubleshoot page level problems, investigate first and third party data activity, and sometimes just to learn more about how the internet really works. AdOps folks are a crafty sort, but they never have the proper tools...
read more

An Open Letter to Lotame et al.

April 14, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

When it comes to market dialogue, Krux prides itself on being an active participant through blog posts, tweets, thought leadership, and editorial contributions to market publications.  We welcome dissenting viewpoints.  When we see something we disagree with, we go out of our way to avoid sniping from the sidelines out of respect for the author and the...
read more

On the Absence of Anonymity

April 11, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

In a somewhat cautionary post, Slate’s Farhad Manjoo reminds us all of the inherent value to *some* anonymous tracking online, highlighting many of the ways it powers our web experience to deliver features that we’ve grown to love, and, frankly, take for granted. 

The best example was that of Google’s...
read more

Adnetik introduces page indexing, contextulization

March 22, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

As AdWeek reported on Adnetik this morning...

The buy side has made yet another investment enabling smoother and smarter RTB/exchange buying, resulting in yet another chink in publishers' direct sale armor.  This is a perfectly logical move for a trading desk with Adnetik's heft.  

They are introducing a page indexing model...
read more

agencies, quants, hustlers, and hackers - a guide to digital media technology

March 16, 2011 - krux digital - 0

This is maybe the best ad tech landscape overview since Kawaja introduced his now-infamous slide.  From GizaMetrics:

What I wanted to do in this post was look at the overall adtech landscape from a different perspective: who is building all this stuff? Something that has stuck with me over my last five years in...
read more

the new ecosystem slide - but wait, there’s more…

March 16, 2011 - - 0

Terence and his media elves have been at it again, cobbling together the latest ecosystem slide. 

But wait, there's more - see the excellent (non-LUMA) companion piece here. 

Krux challenge of the week:  can you map each of the companies to their corresponding category? 

Facebook’s Age Conundrum

March 14, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

The NYT ran a great article this weekend about age enforcement on Facebook (and elsewhere on the 'net), how easily their 13+ policy can be circumvented, and how readily many parents are allowing their children to fib about their age.

Across the nation, millions of young people are lying about their ages so they can create accounts on...
read more

Consternation and Concern Over New EU Privacy Regs

March 10, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

Here is a particularly strong worded response from techCrunch Europe to the looming EU privacy regulations.  In essence, they're asking for express consumer notification for just about any cookie event.  Wow. That's a lot of notification.  

From 25 May, new European laws will dictate that “explicit consent” must be gathered from...
read more

rubicon/donovan partnership – publishers should be wary

March 02, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

In one of the most interesting ad platform / ad exchange developments in recent memory, agency platform powerhouse Donovan Data Systems, in conjunction with Rubicon, announced its Direct Publisher Gateway (DPG) last week. This will give media planners and buyers direct-from-their-desktop connection from DPG into the Rubicon’s SSP inventory universe.

What does this mean for the...
read more

Browser Sniffing and the Rush to Judgement

February 09, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

Krux prides itself on maintaining the highest standards for consumer privacy. In our consumer privacy principles, we call out the following:

In all of our work, we will seek to maintain alignment with standards established by groups such as the IAB, NAI, and OPA. When we feel industry standards fall short, we will take all reasonable steps...
read more

Today’s self-regulation approaches are incomplete

January 20, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

This MediaPost article from Jan 19 explores the ANA’s position on self-regulation. From the article:

Among the seven principles, an “Education Principle” calls for organizations to participate in efforts to educate individuals and businesses about online behavioral advertising and the Principles; and a “Transparency Principle” calls for clearer and easily accessible disclosures...
read more

Data’s Future? Look to the past.

January 17, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

As Brian Morrissey points out in today’s MediaWeek, publishers are increasingly looking inward in resolving the conflict and tension that exist between network/exchange sales and direct sales.

It was particularly resonant with me, having come off several days of client and sales meetings last week. It’s clear that publishers are drawing on...
read more

On value chains and data trains – and the media market to come

January 08, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

If you have not read it yet, Andy Atherton’s blog post from January 3rd is terrific. It perfectly frames the defining challenge for digital media, for 2011 certainly, and likely for the decade to come.

Simply put, advances in digital media technology, data mining, and data management, are proving transformative to the industry landscape. We&rsquo...
read more

I’m gowing weary of commending @AdExchanger. Somebody stop them, please.

January 08, 2011 - Krux Digital - 0

John Ebbert posted a terrific article Thursday that completely missed my radar until the weekend catch-up, where he draws parallels between a dispute between American Airlines and Orbitz and similar channel management conflicts in the online marketing arena. The story centers on data, not surprisingly.

I’ve excerpted one of the cheekier passages below. And his...
read more

RTB for you and me – thanks @NYCMcG

December 17, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Ramsey McGrory offers up a terrific opinion piece on RTB and its impact on the industry. Many of you have surely read it. It’s perhaps the best ‘inside baseball’ blog post that we’ve seen in quite some time.

His four point outline of buy side analytic opportunities is sobering.

...
read more

And the beat goes on…

December 09, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Thanks to everyone out there, across the media industry and beyond, who has taken an interest in the findings of our 2010 Cross Industry Study. For the most part, the response has been pretty darn positive. And yes, there were a few rotten tomatoes thrown, but thankfully no rocks.

While the initial wave subsided a bit, we&rsquo...
read more

Online Privacy Showdown Looms

November 10, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

As the Krux crew catches its breath after a whirlwind couple of days, we also began catching up on our reading. This excellent NYT piece hit yesterday. While we have spent the last day or so talking about the publishers’ challenges highlighted in our 2010 Cross-Industry Study, it’s important that we not overlook the other important player...
read more

Krux Digital Releases 2010 Cross-Industry Study

November 09, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

This morning, Krux Digital released the findings of its 2010 Krux Cross-Industry Study. With this study, we have undertaken a comprehensive review of data collection activities across the industry, with attention to the phenomenon we have referred to as ‘data leakage’ in earlier industry commentary.

The Executive Summary, along with the study’s full findings,...
read more

On Blood Diamonds and Grazing Lands

November 01, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

The Journal’s latest article regarding the active collection and black market sale of Facebook user IDs is pretty alarming. (The companies in question have not been named. And kudos to Facebook for their swift response.)

It’s not accidental data leakage this time, nor is it incidental data collection. It simply appears to be...
read more

priceless – as overheard on the floor of adtech…

November 01, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

It should make marketing folks across the industry spend Monday and Tuesday rewriting their websites.  Thanks to LUMA Partners, et al.

http://www.youtube.com/v/lOyTfH9Bpmo?version=3

Doug Weaver on our industry’s complicated relationship with data

October 14, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Leave it to Doug, one of the most amusing and insightful people in digital media, to simultaneously shape the debate, amuse the masses, and manufacture entirely new industry jargon. I was fortunate enough to be in the audience for his recent moderator stint, hosting a panel on publisher data protection at an industry event. His most recent blog post...
read more

HTML5 Highlights Need For Privacy Focus

October 11, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

The NYT ran an excellent piece on the potential impact of HTML5 on data privacy and data piracy. It underscores the need for publishers and marketers alike to take steps now to combat current practices, while also keeping an eye towards how those practices will evolve and grow as HTML5 alters the fabric of the web.

As...
read more

Tracking the Trackers Impossible?

October 08, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

The WSJ ran an article today featuring assertions by many of internet’s heavies that it is technically impossible to track the trackers.

“It is technically impossible for Yahoo! to be aware of all software or files that may be installed on a user’s computer when they visit our site,” Anne Toth,...
read more

AdExchanger: life imitating art imitating life

October 08, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Yet another gem from the fine folks at AdExchanger.

I raged at the complexity. I needed a fix.

Wiser words have never been spoken.

Thanks for making the industry a better place, one comic at a time.

Keys to Energizing the Publisher Data Market

October 06, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Eric Porres, CMO of Lotame Solutions, offers a terrific piece in AdAge today.  His focus in on publishers’ willingness to sell data – or lack thereof.  It’s a great piece and worth the read.

We’re delighted to see such a vibrant industry dialogue emerging.  And this topic in particular...
read more

Krux Digital Welcomes msnbc.com As Its Latest Partner

October 06, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Msnbc.com is using Krux Data Sentry, the first available module of the broader Krux data management platform.  Data Sentry provides digital media publishers with actionable insights and greater control over the activities of companies that collect valuable profile and behavioral information about their audiences.

Msnbc.com’s choice of Krux reflects an industry focused...
read more

Increased Focus on Privacy Protection

October 05, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

As reported widely, and by David Kaplan of paidContent here, many companies, including Better Advertising, are collaborating with players across the industry to extend greater transparency and control to the consumer as relates to data collection and its use in support of behavioral targeting.

While behavioral targeting is considered crucial by the industry to drive online revenues...
read more

If Page Latency Isn’t Top of Mind, It Should Be

October 04, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

As Google and Microsoft both incorporate page load time into their search ranking algorithms, publishers are faced with yet another hidden peril of the tagging, pixeling, and skimming rampant across the web today. Increasingly, the unwanted and unintended actions of third parties slow web performance. No longer just an important user experience concern, it now will have a direct...
read more

NYT: Ad Group Unveils Plan to Improve Web Privacy

October 04, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

As a reflection of the industry’s focus on privacy and the protection of consumer’s digital signatures, the AAAA, AAF, ANA, DMA, IAB, and NAI have come together on an important consumer privacy initiative. The NYT offers an excellent overview here.

As the debate around online privacy and advertiser access to users’ data...
read more

WSJ: Excellent Overview of COPPA

September 10, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Here, the WSJ offers a solid guide to understanding the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act – its history, and where it may be headed.  This is a topic as important as it is timely given the ever-increasing attention being paid to all things related to consumer privacy.

Changes at USAToday Highlight Hard Questions Facing Media Industry

September 07, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

A Perspective from Tom Chavez, CEO and co-founder of Krux

It’s rare for me to be riveted by news of a corporate re-org, but the latest twists and turns at USA Today are damn intriguing. Does the rest of the media industry understand its significance? USA Today just mutated. It’s too early to...
read more

A Diversion at the End of a Long Week

September 02, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Krux, like most media-related companies, is staffed with more than its fair share of Mad Men fans.

AdAge shares this send-up/homage from a very talented Mad Men fan, Trevor Williams.

If you haven’t seen it yet, and if you’re a fan, it’s worth a few minutes of your...
read more

An Economist’s Perspective On Web Privacy

August 31, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Excellent opinion piece in WSJ today on web privacy here; an economist’s view of the implicit and explicit value exchange.

NYT bon targeting practices and consumer concerns

August 30, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

The NYT has entered the fray with a piece on the practice of retargeting here.  They highlight the fact that many find it ‘creepy,’ and how the industry is on the hook to do a better job educating the consumer and executing in ways that feel less invasive to those on the receiving end.

...
read more

AdExchanger on the Perils of Data Leakage

August 27, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Yet another comic morsel from the fine folks at AdExchanger, this time on the perils of publisher data leakage. Check out the post here.

We here at Krux are delighted to see the topic of data leakage bubbling up in industry dialogue. And it certainly is timely, wouldn’t you agree?

Q&A With Krux Founder & CEO Tom Chavez

August 16, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Today, our co-founder & CEO Tom Chavez shared his thoughts on the company’s recent public launch with our friends over at AdExchanger.com.

AdExchanger.com: How is this platform addressing data leakage (see Chavez recent opinion piece) unlike other publisher-side platforms?

TC: We believe that publishers need to solve the data protection problem...
read more

Cookie Synching

February 24, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Cookies are the primary mechanism by which publishers, advertisers, ad networks, ad exchanges, demand side platforms and data exchanges store and track information about users.

Cookies are domain specific — in other words, a Cookie set by domain foo.com cannot be read by a server from domain bar.com. This present a problem for server-to-server...
read more

Welcome to Krux Digital!

February 23, 2010 - Krux Digital - 0

Krux Digital gives anyone with a website the tools to safeguard, connect, and make responsible use of the audience data they collect. With Krux, websites become more secure, more intelligent conduits of consumer interests, behaviors, and intent. With Krux, consumers gain confidence that their favorite websites are operating under the plain light of day. Find out more at http:/...
read more