» According to the US & Trademark Office, there is an application to patent Real-Time Bidding. The patent was filed by David Roth (possibly the same David Roth who is Director, Search Marketing at Yahoo?) in October 29, 2007. (US & Trademark Office)

» Yahoo has announced a new partnership with Nectar. Yahoo will use Nectar’s data on shopping habits to target relevant ads at users. The new BT product, entitled Consumer Direct, will look to work with FMCG brands, which have traditionally not committed significant amounts of marketing budget to online display. (Guardian)

» Matt O’Neil does an interesting Q&A on the AOP UK site in the lead up to next week’s event on ad trading. In the piece O’Neil talks up the business importance of the Ad Ops team to a publisher, and how the Ad Ops unit can be turned a revenue generator. (AOP)

» Audience Science has officially launched its premium audience-buying network in the UK. Working with a number of premium UK publishers, Audience Science is bringing its product to market after much success in the US. The offering will essentially be a blind network buy across a number of key audience segments. The audience-buy is becoming more popular among agencies and advertisers, and the Audience Science Network should see some traction in the coming months. (Audience Science)