The number of independent cross-device players continues to shrink amid a wave of consolidation. Last year Telenor snapped up Tapad, and Adelphic went to Time Inc. just this week. Drawbridge, led by CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, is the lone wolf in that space. 

Four months after its IPO, The Trade Desk is valued at $1.1 billion. The company is now using the $90 million raised by the offering to grow in areas like mobile, TV/video, private deals and global expansion. In this interview, Green holds forth on the company's strategic focus on buy-side customers - particularly agencies - and the future of programmatic business models, among other topics.  

Header bidding has been great for publishers and, as a rule, tough on sell-side platforms. In this discussion, PubMatic President Kirk McDonald talks about evolution of the programmatic selling model and where his company is making bets. "Header bidding has moved control of ad serving back to the publisher," McDonald says in this episode of AdExchanger Talks. "The evolution is putting publishers back in a place where they're controlling the tension around access to their impressions."

According to Nate Woodman, GM of demand solutions at IPONWEB, a small club of marketers is working on proprietary machine-learning models. Doing so won't be easy. "The challenge to the industry, and it's a daunting one, is to find a way to spread proprietary algorithms across programmatic platforms," he says in this episode. "Most brands aren't even close to realizing this vision, but some are making overtures."