February 15, 2011

This Technology Software Accelerates Dynamic Ad Insertion

This Technology has introduced a free, open-source interconnect software dubbed "SpotLink," aimed at jump-starting Dynamic Advertising Insertion (DAI) while helping content owners and multichannel providers connect their disparate systems.

With SpotLink, This Technology says it removes previous integration challenges that existed for networks that wanted to use their existing broadband ad server with any MSO system. SpotLink reportedly will accelerate the DAI market because it will allow networks to use their existing broadband ad servers to interface with MSOs - for free. Available immediately, the standards-based SpotLink connects SCTE 130-compliant DAI systems to broadband ad servers using the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Video Advertising Serving Template standard.

A plug-in-based integration enables broadband ad servers to extract SCTE 130 metadata from operator equipment and convert it into a format that can be interpreted and acted upon by a programming network’s broadband ad servers. The open-source licensing model allows each programming network to build and maintain its own plug-in.


Regardless of the campaign-management system in place, SpotLink enables DAI across a range of applications, including VOD, IPTV, broadband video and network DVR.

"The reason this works for us is we have software that becomes valuable when you have multiple parties that want to do DAI in the same stream," says CEO Jeffrey Sherwin. "Our core product (SpotBuilder) becomes exceptionally valuable."

Ultimately, This Technology is betting SpotLink will prove so valuable that networks then will want to purchase its SpotBuilder product, an inventory-management system for video in which there are multiple owners in the stream.

"The uptick in sales (for SpotBuilder) was moving slower than we wanted because of problems with DAI,” he explains. “Programmers have to make a decision as to which campaign management system to use. At the same time, they had a broadband ad server they'd been using for years."

Other vendors have recognized the problem of connecting campaign-management systems and other advertising software between operators and networks; for example, BlackArrow is working with Comcast on DAI. In that instance, the company sells its software both to programmers and operators. (For more, click here and here).

-Linda Hardesty