For the last 5 years, I’ve been giving feedback to the various ad serving platforms in the hope that they improve their platforms in areas that make a difference (at least to me and the good people I’ve worked with).
These platforms serve up billions of ads every year to the unwitting public. But the public don’t really see the hard work, craftsmanship and ingenuity that go into building some of these ads, and then getting them to work on different platforms.
In the past, I’ve sought feedback to pass onto the adservers from my in-house development team, who’ve all slaved away at some point trying to get their masterpieces to work on Atlas, Eyeblaster, Flashtalking or Doubleclick. This year, since my team is actually a network, I’m keen to cast the net a little wider, and ask you what you think is working well, what needs to be improved.
I have to say, that my current favourite has to be Flashtalking: They have the best made, most developer-friendly components, helpful customer service and tech support, and easily the fastest, least-crashworthy browser interface for uploads and testing.
All comments welcome.
One Comment
Good post W&W, i too love a banner, hence the URL, if there is one thing i do know, it’s banners, i would provide a full feedback but EB, DC and FT are all familiar with my wrath and probably don’t need to hear it again!
I will however break this down and give you some feedback for them:
Eyeblaster = Meccano, extremely powerful, can be slightly complicated.
Double-Click = Lego Technic, powerful but simple to use.
FlashTalking = Sticklebricks, if you’re slightly retarded and know nothing about rich media, you can still make a rich media ad.
I think FT have had enough of an ear bashing from me. And last week at Eyeblaster (Mediamind) beta ‘Blocks’ forum i gave them an earful about Workshop, DC have had it fairly easy this year!
But really FT your favourite? come on, you can’t favour an ad server because it’s easy to use, it’s only easy to use if you do really easy stuff which they have templates for. Try and step outside of what they think a rich media ad is.. Then it gets complicated, or should i say custom.. which basically means you’ve found a way to break their platform doing things you can easily do in EB and DC, trust me, i know!
Also it shouldn’t be easy to create rich media ads, it underplays the skill set required to do it. I’ve also spent five years developing these things and can honestly say i find FT the most difficult one to work with, they have everything so tightly sewn up that you can’t breath, they’re like an overbearing mother. Fine if you wanna make a bunch of shit ads and aren’t really familiar with Flash, ie most designers, but if you do know what you doing you can’t beat EB and DC for flexibility, i don’t understand the need for hand holding or help files or pathetic warnings about rich load weights, just give me the API calls and that’s job done, surely??
And if a designer doesn’t understand what an API is or how to use the calls, then give the job to someone who does. You wouldn’t operate a chainsaw unless you knew how, furthermore being handed a butter knife won’t cut it! Which is 90% of ads that FT produce.
and two more i particularly don’t like:
Atlas, never again! what a waste of time, they should shut up shop now, i’ll never work with them again, what is the point of that platform? just so you can preview ads? why bother??
Eyewonder, same thing, never want to work with them again, and they’re full service! either get an MXP and document your API or don’t try and compete!