OpenX Blog

The OpenX team has released an update to our open source ad server.

This patch release (v2.6.1) includes 58 bug fixes and enhancements. In this release upgrading and installing OpenX is now even easier, single page call can be used to deliver one zone many times efficiently and the homepage tab error (code: 823) has been resolved.

Not sure how to upgrade your ad server?

• How to upgrade from OpenX 2.4
• How to upgrade from Openads 2.0
• How to upgrade from phpAdsNew
• Find a consultant to upgrade your ad server

Find out more about OpenX 2.6.1 in the release notes or download the latest version of OpenX today.

Basic Freedoms
Beyond being free to use since 1998, at OpenX we’ve built our ad server based on a few really simple principles:

• Complete Control. The ability to manage any and all ad campaigns in any way a publisher wants from an independent platform.
• Easy to Modify. Because OpenX is open-source, publishers can use OpenX however they wish – including using the OpenX API to integrate with other systems, and modifying any OpenX functionality through plug-ins.
• Right of Transparency. The data that OpenX captures is completely transparent. You can analyse data any way you want – from totally raw data imported into your own data systems to standardized OpenX reports - and then use OpenX as a neutral 3rd party when evaluating different ad providers.

The reason that OpenX has become the world’s leading independent ad server with a global community of more than 100,000 websites in 100+ countries is because publishers appreciate and value these three basic freedoms that only OpenX provides to the online advertising market.

Why Does This Matter?
As we said before, this combination of freedoms means that OpenX is a trusted partner; providing a fully transparent, independent view of your online advertising activity. The more important that online advertising revenue is to you or your business, the more you should demand each and every freedom.

What Are The Stakes?
Online advertising is consolidating into a few large companies. The big guys (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL) control an increasingly large part of the online advertising market. These four companies have spent more than $10 billion on online advertising acquisitions in the past year alone.

Meanwhile, on the publisher side the market is fragmenting. People are increasingly reading blogs, niche sites, and other ‘long tail’ types of web content. This is a great trend overall because it means people are increasingly able to consume and contribute to their most specific interests. But as a result, publishers’ individual power is decreasing.

This all equals a large and growing imbalance of power between publishers and ad providers. There are many other industries that provide examples of what can happen when this imbalance exists for too long.

In this environment, it is ever more important to have a system of independent checks and balances that help ensure each publisher knows what is happening with their website advertising, and to ensure that no one ad provider gains unfair advantage. This way, publishers can maximize competition for their ad space and thus maximize revenue.

Choose Independence! Choose Freedom!
Now don’t get us wrong, we’re huge fans of Google AdSense, Advertising.com, Yahoo! Publisher Network, etc. We run their programs on OpenX, and they are all quite good at monetizing our publishers’ inventory.

However, it is not sensible to rely on them for everything. Independent solutions such as ours at OpenX enable publishers all around the world to work with all these players, to maximize the competition between them and to independently control their business and verify they are getting the best deals.
To become part of the OpenX community, we suggest the following:

• Try out the newest version of OpenX!
• Sign up to our mailing list for company news.
• Look here for other ways to participate.

Thanks for all of your ongoing support and participation.

At OpenX, we help web publishers take control of their advertising and maximize ad revenue. As part of our commitment, we’re constantly looking for new ad revenue opportunities to help you make more money.

To that end, we’re pleased to announce a limited opportunity for OpenX publishers to be among the first to try Microsoft’s new contextual ad network.

Microsoft Content Ads
Microsoft Content Ads are text ads that are primarily contextually targeted to your site content. These ads are displayed on your pages, and you earn money whenever a text ad is clicked upon.

At this stage, Microsoft’s new network for publishers is only available by invitation, but OpenX has secured a very limited number of invitations for OpenX publishers with U.S.-based websites. To be eligible, your OpenX-powered website must have primarily US based audience and English language content. You will also need to have a valid US Social Security number or Tax ID.

Register for the chance to try Microsoft Content Ads

Future ad revenue opportunities
We expect to run more ad revenue initiatives and we’d like to encourage all web publishers to let us know if they would like to participate by registering through the link below. We’ll keep in touch with those who register and use the information provided to identify ad revenue opportunities which might be of interest.

Register your interest in future ad revenue opportunities.

Last week was the OpenX seminar in California. We had a great turnout on the day and it was exciting to see everyone so actively engaged. We want to thank everyone who came along and participated.

“I gained a good insight into the power of OpenX. It was really interesting to hear how different people use OpenX. Thanks OpenX.”

There was so much positive energy and enthusiasm that people couldn’t help but be carried along with it. One of the participants drew an extra box on our feedback form, for him the seminar was ‘extremely useful’ which made our day!

“I came to this seminar because I’m launching a new business and wanted to find out if OpenX was adequately handle our unique needs. Your personal, top level and very knowledgeable experts have made it crystal clear to me that this is an excellent solution. Thank you!”

The feedback proved, once again, that these seminars are greatly appreciated and we need to do more soon. We’re already planning the next event in New York and we’d like to host our first event in the southern hemisphere too. But don’t wait on us! We would love to see you host an OpenX event near you.

Thanks again to everyone who came along to the Californian event, and if you are in New York… we hope you can come along and say hello.

To make it easier to use the OpenX ad server, we are developing OpenX plugins for popular content management systems. We hope these plugins will help you get the most out of OpenX by saving you time, helping you deliver more relevant ads and, ultimately, making more money from online advertising.

Today we’ve released three working prototypes for the most popular content management systems in use by the OpenX community.

OpenX module for Joomla!
OpenX plugin for WordPress
OpenX module for Drupal

These ‘phase one’ prototypes have been designed with simplicity in mind, but they already answer the most common integration request by making it easier to integrate ad tags into your website templates using the native content management system functionality.

With time, and your help, we expect these plugins to develop into feature rich integration tools. You can help by giving your feedback or getting involved in the development of these plugins.

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Have your say: How will tighter integration between your ad server and content management system help you?

This was a clear message from the OpenX community in our recent survey. Ad revenue is an important source of income for many publishers, so good reliable support channels are essential. Based on this feedback we have been working to expand the support options available for you.

The challenge for us has been finding a range of support options to cater to our entire, extremely diverse community. The three key areas we’re focusing on are online support resources, professional services provided by independent consultants and professional services provided directly by OpenX.

Online support resources

The online support resources including the support forum, online documentation and bug tracking system are a necessity for publishers who prefer to control their costs by managing their own support in-house.

We’re continually improving our online support resources. For example, over the last few months we have:

• Added new and improved documentation
• Hired new staff for the free support team
• Improved the search engine and forum structure

We are committed to providing high quality free support but we realise these services have limits and that some publishers require a higher level of support. For these publishers, we’ve been working to expand the range of paid support options available.

Community consulting directory

We’ve always encouraged independent consultants to provide services to the OpenX community. They help to provide the diverse range of global support options demanded by our large and diverse community, and the feedback we receive proves that these services are highly valued.

To help facilitate the work of these consultants we recently launched the OpenX consultant directory which we hope will make it easier to find a suitable consultant for your business: someone who speaks your language, works in your time zone, and whose price suits you.

Professional services from OpenX

Enterprise level support contracts and consulting are the final piece of the OpenX support puzzle. In response to requests from some of the largest OpenX publishers we’re expanding the OpenX professional service team and the range of services they offer. We think these services will complement the services offered by independent consultants by meeting the needs of some of our largest OpenX publishers.

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Have your say: How can we improve the support services we offer?

The Affiliate Summit 2008 East (held in Boston, US) has just ended and you can now access all the presentations online.

There’s an impressive list of presentations to check out:

• PPC Search: Disclosure vs. Free-for-All
• International Options for US Affiliates
• Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing
• PPC Super Affiliate Strategies You MUST Know
• The Ten Hottest Strategies for Internet Marketing
• Leveraging Social Media
• Web 2.0 for Affiliates
• Which PPC Engines Work And How?
• Legal 2.0: Hot Topics in Affiliate Marketing
• Data Feed Problems and Missing Information
• My 5 Favorite SEO Strategies Exposed
• Performance Marketing Alliance Q&A
• Anatomy of a Great Affiliate Program
• Landing Page Testing to Attract Super Affiliates
• Monetize your Site with Amazon Associates
• Affiliate Marketing Basics for Merchants
• Compliance. It’s More Than A Buzz Word
• Guide To Networking at Affiliate Summit 2008 East
• Engaging Consumers With Video Widgets And Rich Media
• Practical Solutions To Internet Marketing Legal Compliance
• Managing Legal Risks In Affiliate Marketing
• Developing The Right Merchant Mindset
• Email is Media
• How To Futureproof Your SEO Efforts
• Domaining and Address-Bar Driven Traffic
• Video Innovation in Affiliate Marketing
• Affiliate Summit Guide To Networking
• First Timer’s Guide to Affiliate Summit

Thanks to Shawn Collins for the tip!

The 14th of August is fast approaching and we’ve finalised the plans for the OpenX Seminar in Pasadena, LA. We’ve had a tremendous response and based on your input we expect this to be an interesting and educational day.

Thanks to everyone for all the invaluable input, based on this we’ve prepared the following agenda.

10:45 – 13:00 | Registration

11:00 – 12:00 | Beginner Session: What is OpenX?

It seems a lot of you are fairly new to OpenX so we’ll to start with a beginners session in the morning. You will get the chance to meet Chris Nutting, our Community Developer, as well as Rob Sheppard, one of our Product Managers. They will run the introductory part and talk you through some basics in the area of ad serving.

12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch Break

13:00 – 13:30 | Introduction: The OpenX roadmap

After the lunch break Tim Cadogan, our CEO, will talk about where OpenX is headed. We want you to know where we’re going and what our plans are.

13:30 – 14:30 | Session 1: Advanced ad serving features

In the next session Scott Switzer, the OpenX Community Leader, will give you some insight into the product. Scott has been with OpenX since the very beginning so he knows the product inside out.

14:30 – 15:30 | Session 2: Introducing the OpenX API

Many of you have expressed interest in API and plugin framework and Chris can’t wait to discuss these with you.

15:30 – 16:30 | Session 3: Scaling and performance tuning

The last afternoon session will be led by Scott with the issue of scaling in focus.

16:30 – 17:30 | Q&A

This will be followed by a Q&A hour and we hope to hear some interesting questions from you.

Here are some details about the event:

• WHEN: Thursday, 14th of August
• WHERE: Beckman Institute Auditorium at Caltech, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125
• PARKING: Paid parking is available near the site and $5 daily passes that are valid through the end of the business day are available to visitors via any of the automated pay stations. Attached is the link to the Caltech parking map, the Lura Lot, Michigan Lot and the Moore Lot are closest to the auditorium to the site. Guests may park in any white, unmarked stall: http://parking.caltech.edu/Parking_Zone_Map.pdf
• PUBLIC TRANSPORT: the closest station is Del Mar (Metro Golden line).

If you haven’t registered already, it’s not too late. Please register here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Lord Matt shares his experiences managing websites in a series of articles titled how I manage multiple blogs.

Like many publishers, Lord Matt uses OpenX to maximise his ad revenue by rotating ads and comparing their performance.

He also talks about tools which help him do more with less, something which is close to many website owners hearts and it only gets more important as their online advertising needs become more and more sophisticated.

OpenX is popular tool for website owners wanting to save time and maximise their ad revenue. Find out how on our website:

• How to rotate banners using OpenX
• How to compare the performance of banners using OpenX
• OpenX product tour