OpenX Ad Server: Beginner’s Guide

Aside

Packt Publishing released the book “OpenX Ad Server: Beginner’s Guide” last week.

I`m very lucky to give you guys (and girls) with a review on my blog (this site, doh!) this month!
I`ve been using OpenX since 2006 to structure and organise online advertisement campaigns.

The books covers the following items:

  • Learn the essentials of online advertising from the advertiser and publisher points of view
  • Install and utilize OpenX Ad Server effectively to make your business run faster
  • Get to know the usage of all the campaign and banner types
  • Manage ad campaigns and banners on multiple web sites from a centralized platform
  • Display ads according to their importance and alter the under-performing ads easily and swiftly
  • Learn the most effective way to work with web site ad zones
  • Maximize your profits by selling your ad space on your blogs and web sites effectively
  • Take full advantage of GeoTargeting for generating maximum revenue by showing ads according to visitor origin
  • Utilize the channels to show relevant ads based on the content of web sites
  • Integrate Google AdSense and Amazon ads with your web sites using OpenX
  • Convert OpenX Ad Server into a multi-user ad management platform for advertisers, publishers, and ad agencies
  • Track the success of any ad campaign, banner or web site zone using detailed statistics, and reports

More information about the book can be found at www.packtpub.com/openx-ad-server-beginners-guide/book

XHTML 2, i don`t think so

Aside

There won`t be an XHTML 2 language it seems.
The XHTML2 Working Group charter expires at the end of the year 2009 and will not be extended. This is caused by different opinions within the group.

Most of XHTML 2`s progession will be moved to HTML 5. More information can be found here.
In the six remaining months of its charter, the XHTML2 Working Group wants to focus on making corrections to the XHTML 1.1 specifications

But HTML 5 has also some problems;

  • Apple refuses to implement Ogg Theora in Quicktime by default (as used by Safari), citing lack of hardware support and an uncertain patent landscape.
  • Google has implemented H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome, but cannot provide the H.264 codec license to third-party distributors of Chromium, and have indicated a belief that Ogg Theora’s quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube.
  • Opera refuses to implement H.264, citing the obscene cost of the relevant patent licenses.
  • Mozilla refuses to implement H.264, as they would not be able to obtain a license that covers their downstream distributors.
  • Microsoft has not commented on their intent to support <video> at all.

And to even make it better, the future of RDFa is still unknown!

But it`s worth to mention that progess has been made with SPARQL. SPARQL is a query language for RDF data on the Semantic Web with formally defined meaning.
The SPARQL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SPARQL New Features and Rationale. This document provides an overview of the main new features of SPARQL and their rationale. This is an update to SPARQL adding several new features that have been agreed by the SPARQL WG. These language features were determined based on real applications and user and tool-developer experience.