The Trade Desk Is Building a CTV OS Called Ventura 11
The Trade Desk, one of the largest publicly traded advertising technology companies in the world, is building a connected television operating system. Axios reports: Existing OS providers, like Roku, Amazon's Fire TV and Google's Android TV, have a conflict of interest because they own content, [CEO and founder Jeff Green] said. Green believes that conflict of interest has muddled the advertising ecosystem for everyone. "We're looking at a concentration around a handful of players that lack objectivity," Green said. "We think we're in a unique position to make the ecosystem better." [...]
Ventura, a nod to the company's headquarters in Ventura, California, will be rolled out to the market in the second half of 2025, Green said. The company has been working to build the system quietly for three years. While some OS developers, such as Google, Amazon and Roku, have also developed their own hardware devices to service their operating systems, Green said The Trade Desk has "no intention of getting into the hardware business." Rather, it will partner with other hardware companies, such as smart TV manufacturers, as well as various television distributors, such as airlines, hotel chains, and gaming companies, to bring its OS to their devices.
Green believes hardware companies will be excited about the opportunity to partner because, in a competitive streaming environment, more hardware companies will need to build advertising businesses to scale. [...] Because The Trade Desk's goal is ultimately to improve a murky marketplace, Green said he isn't looking to make money from the OS directly. Ventura will be successful if it drives more pricing transparency and stronger measurement for the CTV advertising ecosystem writ large, he said. "Ultimately, the measure of success will be, do we have an ad auction that is so transparent that we can predict outcomes?" The Trade Desk will benefit financially from a more transparent ecosystem because it lacks a conflict of interest, Green said.
Ventura, a nod to the company's headquarters in Ventura, California, will be rolled out to the market in the second half of 2025, Green said. The company has been working to build the system quietly for three years. While some OS developers, such as Google, Amazon and Roku, have also developed their own hardware devices to service their operating systems, Green said The Trade Desk has "no intention of getting into the hardware business." Rather, it will partner with other hardware companies, such as smart TV manufacturers, as well as various television distributors, such as airlines, hotel chains, and gaming companies, to bring its OS to their devices.
Green believes hardware companies will be excited about the opportunity to partner because, in a competitive streaming environment, more hardware companies will need to build advertising businesses to scale. [...] Because The Trade Desk's goal is ultimately to improve a murky marketplace, Green said he isn't looking to make money from the OS directly. Ventura will be successful if it drives more pricing transparency and stronger measurement for the CTV advertising ecosystem writ large, he said. "Ultimately, the measure of success will be, do we have an ad auction that is so transparent that we can predict outcomes?" The Trade Desk will benefit financially from a more transparent ecosystem because it lacks a conflict of interest, Green said.
Re: (Score:3)
Eh, don't worry, I'm sure Apple won't care that this operating system might be confused with MacOS Ventura...
As a regular person watching television my take is (Score:2)
conflict of interest has muddled the advertising ecosystem for everyone
The advertising ecosystem can go fuck itself.
That is all.
Re: (Score:2)
conflict of interest has muddled the advertising ecosystem for everyone
The advertising ecosystem can go fuck itself.
That is all.
^^ What he said. Additionally - burn all advertising down, piss on the ashes, and salt the fields.
If advertising limited itself to pointing out the availability of products, where they can be obtained, and how much they cost, it would be fine. But when advertisers try to manipulate their audience to buy Buy BUY, they need to be put down. And when they gather personal data and track their prey around the internet and around the physical world, they need to be tortured to death. "Thou shalt not suffer an intr
Best part (Score:2)
This is the logical endpoint of Enterprise Software - something purpose-built to deliver something other than what the actual users want.
Re: (Score:1)
We need a universal standard! (Score:2)
It never gets old :
https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]
They said the quiet part out loud (Score:1)
"to build advertising businesses to scale."
You, the viewer, are the product.
At least with OTA TV and most pre-digital cable/satellite TV, there was no way to track what you did or didn't watch.
Re: (Score:2)
The user is never the product. The user's data/activity is the product.
Dairy farmers sell milk, not cows.
Until it has it's own content (Score:1)
Sounds very similar to Roku.
Formula:
1) Come develop on our independant platform.
2) gain market share and build out a internal streaming channel.
3) take a piece of the advertising slots as leverage from others when they become dependant on the platform.
No. (Score:2)
Another halfassed software stack meant to sell advertising while being quite poor at the reason for having it around to begin with: showing content I want to see, rather than content THEY want me to see.
No fucking thanks. We already have versions of that from Google, Apple, and Amazon; and while they're enshittified with ads, at least the software is somewhat mature and actually works and we have a decent guarantee that the company and product will continue to exist in the future as an extension of platfor