On Feb. 5 at its Demo Fest, Microsoft unveiled a series of next generation digital advertising technologies in development at its adCenter Labs. One of them is “Contextual Ads for Video,” which will use speech recognition to dynamically serve ads based on the content discussed in the video.
A demo of the technology can be seen here.
Aaron Goldman, VP of marketing and strategy development for Resolution Media, a search engine marketing agency, says the technology will be beneficial, because “to date targeting for video has been very primitive. You target advertising based on the website or the section you buy and in some cases you can get down to geo-targeting or demo-targeting. But most ad placements haven’t been sold that way because there’s not enough inventory, so most of the buys are run of site or network.”
He compares speech recognition technology to the YouTube overlay ads, which also offer a new way to serve video ads to a segmented audience. He said speech recognition is “one of the better ways to do targeting.”
Microsoft isn’t the first company to utilize speech recognition. Blinkx and Digitalsmiths are currently using it. Suranga Chandratillake, CEO and founder of Blinkx, praised Microsoft for “developing a product that works across the web. It shows they are dedicated to display-oriented advertising with video and not just search. They recognize video is a complex media type to match to advertising.”
But Chandratillake also said the Microsoft product is insufficient because speech is “only part of the puzzle and a pretty limited way of understanding video.” Hearing words in a video can be confusing because their meaning is unclear, such as whether the words “big apple,” in a video mean a piece of fruit or New York City. Blinkx AdHoc system uses speech recognition and conceptual search technology, which analyzes the true meaning of a video, so relevant ads can be served, Chandratillake said. The conceptual search technology is based “on any information we can get from the video, based on speech and other metadata,” he said. Blinkx clients include Real Estate TV, Young Hollywood and Handmade TV.
Goldman said Microsoft contextual ad technology “is taking a step forward, compared with what’s on the mass market.” He compared speech recognition technology to the measures used to target TV ads, “where the best you can do is determine day parts and network or a particular show. You can’t get remotely into the contextual environment.”
Goldman said Microsoft’s goal for the contextual video ad technology is to utilize it in the Microsoft digital home environment, where movies, TV and other content are streamed from a computer to a digital media receiver. “It will provide the same ad opportunities to all homes for TV style advertising in a contextually relevant environment,” he said.
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More