From a Publisher point of view when it comes to the exchange space, 2010 feels a bit like the failed World Cup bid: lots of hype and excitement but a failure to deliver in the end. A tad harsh I know but the exchange community has experienced a transformational year, giving themselves a pat on the back for the promise of millions of dollars, but for the majority of publishers it’s business as usual.

Closer to home we have seen a resurgent display market, a steep growth in video revenue, a focus on new revenue streams, a race to launch the killer app and finally the adoption of RTB finally gathering momentum.

So how has the sell side evolved in 2010?

Primarily for the majority of publishers our relationships with Network Optimisers such as Admeld has meant that we are able to keep abreast of new developments and share learnings on the way. They have been pivotal in driving the uptake of RTB and I think there must be some 20 mainstream publishers now running it.

Okay, the prices being delivered are still low but in the main they are on average +30-50% higher than a typical network price.

Publishers who have their own seat on an exchange are using it to drive firstly Non UK revenues and some UK inventory on second tier sites, allowing their premium sales teams to focus on selling the larger sites. The criteria for integration with either Right Media or Doubleclick has relaxed as the year has gone on so I expect to see a lot more publishers explore their own seat over the first half of 2011.

Both Vivaki and Access have been very vocal in the market, selling in the benefits of their trading desks and promising publishers incremental revenues from the direct response budgets that a lot of content publishers wouldn’t normally see. Of course there is nervousness on our part and the issue of trust with regards to data is still a big hurdle for us to overcome, but we also sense the inevitability of the market so accept that we need to start becoming experts in this space and quickly.

Has our strategy changed this year?

Future is a special-interest media group with niche verticals so our focus this year has been primarily on data. How best to understand it, how to collate it, what’s its value, who wants to buy it. It’s proven a lot harder than we initially thought to get data monetization up and running. Over the year we have met many companies both new and old and numerous bright people, all with exciting offerings, but everything still felt in its infancy and that any revenue gain would be negligible.

Understanding data will be key for publishers over the coming year, and a lot of people will realize that their data isn’t worth as much as they thought. We have already seen generic data in the market from numerous players, so publishers who have “in market” data from audiences who are willing to spend online will be in the strongest position.

Has technology helped us this year?

We have worked hard with Audience Science to better understand our audience segmentation and to shape better performing audiences to improve our offering to clients.

We begrudgingly acknowledge the way both agencies and networks are using our data on a regular basis and there is little we can do, so again we have focused on how we can work closer with agencies to foster more transparency. The adding of cookies to ad tags has become second nature for a lot of agencies and yet they still play innocent when approached. The pressure is becoming greater on agencies to deliver a cutting edge in efficiencies and with attribution analysis now going down some 14 levels, they have to be very clear on what sites on the media plan are adding value.

New applications such as Ghostery gives us improved visibility on cookie dropping but again a time consuming solution. The publisher community is hurriedly exploring technology to allow us to identify the parties involved but you also have to be very clear about the role your sites play in the value chain before you start blocking advertisers. We can’t forget that they aren’t our users, they just happen to be on our sites and they can easily be qualified elsewhere.

Publishers have adopted new technologies quicker this year to allow them to continue to serve the most efficient and highly optimized campaigns possible, be it behaviorally with Audience Science, contextually through Grapeshot or even just using Dart Adapt/Boomerang. The networks are keeping us on our toes and the improved offering from Facebook, which is likely to see £100m of display spend this year, means that targeting is more than ever in the mainstream.

Has the eco-system become too complex for publishers?

It’s a busy eco-system, but it’s not too complex. You just have to be out there talking to people, sourcing new companies, seeing the latest research and following the many industry blogs so you can make the best informed decision you can. The non digital people within our business aren’t interested in knowing all the nuances - they just want to know we are working with reputable companies, people we can trust and that the returns outweigh the investment in both time and money.

What does the future hold?

It’s an exciting time in this space but it’s also exciting in mobile and the app world and we along with many businesses need to prioritise our efforts. Be it mobile or new devices we have existing talent who can drive these projects forward, but in the exchange space we realize that we will need to bring in new skills to help us better monetise the opportunity correctly so again the question is does the end prize justify the investment? At Future we think it does and the appetite to become experts is very real indeed.

On another note, at the recent ExchangeWire ad trading summit I asked whether it was only a matter of time before agencies started forcing media owners to make all their premium inventory available through an exchange. The question was answered with a unanimous yes by the panel and with agencies looking to deliver efficiencies all the time I think some smaller publishers will start to come under such pressure. For some it’s not a bad move: if you have a large portfolio sell and some smaller sites that can be looked after on the exchange then why not try it, leaving your sales team to concentrate on the larger sites where the higher yielding creative revenues are being delivered.

You have total control on the floor price so if you don’t want the business, don’t take it. I know in the States some sites are already placing all their premium inventory on the exchanges and cutting out the need for external sales teams who end up taking 30% anyway.

So I look forward to 2011 and the continual learning curve we are all facing and the new opportunities that this will bring.