Curation flips this script. A publisher's greatest asset will always be their content, of course, but the advantage that sets them apart - the ace up their sleeve, so to speak - is their audience data. By putting that data to work in curated marketplaces, publishers can stretch the value of their content well beyond their own properties - bundling data and inventory into highly targeted, privacy-compliant packages that advertisers can buy directly.
It's starting to feel like every corner of the industry wants to be the one to write the rulebook on AI and help publishers get paid for it - and the space is getting almost as dense as the buzzwords themselves. From trade groups racing to set AI standards to vendors rolling out content marketplaces - and everyone else piling in with provenance tech and licensing schemes - the space is filling up fast.
Roundtable (RTB) is a live decentralized Media OS that syndicates content to more than 1 billion users through partners such as Yahoo, Apple News, and TheStreet. It powers fully onchain publishing ecosystems, including The Hockey News and all 32 NHL team communities, with apps available on the App Store and Google Play. RTB provides publishers with onchain attribution, wallet-based identity, and Bitcoin-settled monetization, removing reliance on intermediaries.
Zoom in: ProRata.ai's product, Gist Answers, lets publishers embed custom AI search on their websites. Publishers can show AI-powered summaries and recommendations exclusively based off their own content or showcase content from ProRata.ai's broader network of 750 publishers. "It's absolutely free to all the websites, and it's actually profit-making, small profit, but profit-making," Gross tells Axios. "Our whole goal is to get this ethical search distributed as far and wide as possible."
Digital publishers are in a losing battle against Big Tech and AI for traffic and ad revenue. But the IAB Tech Lab has a plan to swing the momentum back in pubs' favor. On Tuesday, the Tech Lab announced a new publisher-focused working group that aims to ensure pubs are fairly compensated when AI scrapes their content for training. IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur previewed the new initiative at AdMonsters' Sell Side Summit in Nashville, Tenn., on Monday.