Last month, a spotlight presentation at the iMedia Brand Summit highlighted a programmatic success story, which got me thinking about the future of online publishers. New measurement techniques and technologies have emerged that are changing the way the online display advertising and search markets work for both advertisers and publishers. Let's take a closer look at this changing playing field and what it means for publishers.

Digital advertising currency is on the threshold of a major transformation. The first big ecosystem-wide milestone for the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative is almost upon us: the Media Rating Council (MRC) will soon be lifting its advisory to green-light viewable impressions as the currency for brand advertising transactions. The expected date is March 31.

I recently attended the IAB Annual Leadership Conference, where one of the main topics was media fraud, a subject of long-time interest for me that's been receiving renewed attention of late. Two things dismayed me: to hear that no one actually knows the size, or the sources, of the problem; and to see technology vendors pitching a "solution" to the problem. Nobody wants to admit where the problem is, nor how large it is, so maybe this is the dirty little secret where most everybody is making money.

There has always been this wide chasm between what clients think is possible and what their agency counterparts think in terms of measurement of digital advertising. Or, as I like to call it, the accountability gap. But recently, fueled by some aggressive claims by third-party tech purveyors, marketers are increasingly demanding that offline sales be causally linked to their media plans. Not to be the voice of pessimism, but I'd like to take this opportunity to emphatically remind marketers that despite what vendors say, there are no magic bullets in the marketplace that would firmly link ads to offline sales!