The explosion of so-called programmatic advertising over the past decade is one of those technological phenomena that has had so many and so varied a set of seismic second-order effects that we almost take it for granted that the world of interactive advertising was always so. Not the case. Consider this quote, which now reads as charmingly quaint, from the April 14, 2007 New York Times article announcing the sale of DoubleClick to Google:  “DoubleClick’s chief executive, David Rosenblatt, said a few weeks ago that a new system it had developed for the buying and selling of online ads would probably become the chief money maker within five years. The system, a Nasdaq-like exchange for online ads, brings Web publishers and advertising buyers together on a Web site where they can participate in auctions for ad space.” As it turned out, the acquisition of DoubleClick by Google has turned to be one of, if not the single-most consequential acquisition by any tech company in history as it relates to the publishing web and the business of online advertising. 

On this episode The Medium Rules I sit down with Michael Rubenstein, the President of AppNexus, for a conversation tracing the origins and history of electronic exchanges for buying and selling digital advertising inventory. Michael takes us through his experiences working on the first ad exchange developed at DoubleClick, the decision-making process in connection with the sale of DoubleClick to Google, and then his decision to leave Google for another startup, AppNexus. Of course, AppNexus went on to become the biggest and most successful independent ad exchange out there, and Michael discusses the growth of AppNexus, it’s various strategic decisions along the way, the competitive pressures as programmatic advertising in effect swallowed the industry, and finally the process and logic in selling to AT&T. In the process of walking through all of this history, Michael ends up delivering a master class in current and future trends with respect to the media business. This episode is a true must-listen piece of content which we hope you will enjoy watching and listening as much as we enjoyed in the taping.  

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