The Trade Desk: Freewheel Ad Server & Publisher Monetization
Former Senior Director at FreeWheel
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Former Senior Director at FreeWheel
Interview Transcript
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The next topic is about publisher monetization, which is the main focus for me. If we have more time, there are additional topics. To start, you mentioned during the intro that the ad server used to have much greater importance in the linear days. Could you walk me through how the role of the ad server has changed or perhaps diminished from linear to CTV, and how that role has evolved?
Google entered the space because they were already in the regular video space, though not in premium video. By this point, Google had acquired YouTube and DoubleClick, evolving it into their own video ad server. However, they struggled for years. The only real publisher using them was Fox, mainly for Fox News, which focused on online video clips rather than full shows.
This is a snippet of the transcript, sign up to read more.
The next topic is about publisher monetization, which is the main focus for me. If we have more time, there are additional topics. To start, you mentioned during the intro that the ad server used to have much greater importance in the linear days. Could you walk me through how the role of the ad server has changed or perhaps diminished from linear to CTV, and how that role has evolved?
FreeWheel had a strong market position, leading Comcast to purchase them. It remained very separate for a long time. The challenge with FreeWheel and its technology was that each TV network using their software wanted unique or special solutions. In software, custom or bespoke solutions aren't scalable. The architecture of FreeWheel was built with many layers of code, making it difficult to implement universal changes without impacting individual use cases.
This is a snippet of the transcript, sign up to read more.
The next topic is about publisher monetization, which is the main focus for me. If we have more time, there are additional topics. To start, you mentioned during the intro that the ad server used to have much greater importance in the linear days. Could you walk me through how the role of the ad server has changed or perhaps diminished from linear to CTV, and how that role has evolved?
FreeWheel built a substantial service layer on top of their software, which was incredibly expensive and created numerous issues with profitability. I viewed it as each publisher, like NBC, Discovery, and Disney at the time, being their own islands. Some were like skyscrapers, some like log cabins, and others were just open fields. Each was unique, even though the software was the island, they had all these customizations on top of it. This made it extremely difficult to implement global fixes and solutions to the platform.
This is a snippet of the transcript, sign up to read more.
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