.
"I had gone as far as suggesting that it was almost a case of Omniture actually 'standardising' Analytics - And that a 'Line in the sand' had clearly been drawn"
I'd even suggested that the real important publishers and advertisers on the web had now gravitated towards the Omniture set of analytics and the use of the Click Forensics (click fraud) detection expertise.
[The full set of partnerships include: Eyeblaster, DoubleClick for Advertisers, Microsoft Atlas, APT from Yahoo!, PointRoll, Mediaplex, Adform, EyeWonder and D. A. Consortium.
And thereby (subsequently), making life just that much easier for publishers in their doing so.
Smaller publishers are getting scewed it would seem. There are clearly too many 'fingers are in the pie' - I'll let the following tell you why..
<AdExchanger.com recently asked several members of the advertising ecosystem about "Middlemen" and, specifically:
Q?
"Are there too many parties trying to insert themselves into the online advertising value chain? How do you see this playing out?">
This piece contained in an article from Jerry Neumann (describes as an angel investor), just about tells it all.
< Publishers right now are price takers.
There are two ways they can increase CPMs: make the marketers dumber by forcing them to forgo the quantitative marketing tools they have adopted, or make themselves smarter by adopting some quantitative marketing tools themselves. The smart ones are working on the latter. - This means more intermediaries, not fewer.
In the next few years, the tension between having many intermediaries--allowing control of and learning from the process--and having few intermediaries-reducing transaction costs--will be resolved by there being three direct intermediaries at most: buyer's agent, seller's agent and marketplace (supported by various technology and data providers, who will not themselves be intermediaries.)
To get there, each intermediary must become completely transparent to its clients. No more black boxes.
Buyer's agents and seller's agents must move away from being arbitrageurs and return to the traditional professional services function of trusted adviser.>
Absolutely !!
So, for every "single" transaction then, [we] would see:
Just the ... "three direct intermediaries at most: (1) buyer's agent, (2) seller's agent and (3) marketplace. (And, with all supported by various technology and data providers, who will not themselves be intermediaries.)"
[Welcome to Looksmart's (global) AdCenter marketplace, Folks!!]
http://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/middlemen-neumann/
But I do feel strongly, that we will get see the 'core' of it evolve a whole lot sooner than in .. "the next few years".
LC
Disclosure: Long and strong on LOOK