HTML5 Advertising Going Forward - HTML5 Advertising - page 326

With all that said, cable is rapidly moving toward a browser-based world. Let's face it, it's the most ubiquitous
platform in the household today, and big names in the U.S. arena like Comcast/Xfinity are taking advantage of this by
launching a platform called X1 ( http://xfinity.comcast.net/x1 ) . X1 is a revolutionary new platform for controlling
your cable set-top boxes connected through the Web. It features a variety of applications including Search, DVR, On
Demand Movies, Sports, Weather, and Social, including wireless controllers via your phone or tablet device. With
plans to integrate with applications like Microsoft's Skype ( http://bit.ly/OPxPNf ) , X1 could be an ideal candidate
to leverage web technologies such as WebRTC and other HTML5 APIs to develop a unified cross-screen experience
while preserving privacy for users; this would offer the ability to interact and target users like never before.
And if you're a Skype user, be sure to check out your preferences—Skype is about advertising as well. Remember
that if you're using services for free, you'll likely see targeted third-party ads, as Figure 13-3 outlines.
Figure 13-3. Skype's default settings for serving third-party ads
So, with this information about Comcast and Skype, you can see advertisers can learn quite a bit about you and
target their ad campaigns much more effectively. What's also exciting is that big web players like Google are getting
into the cable and Internet provider market. Google started rolling out a huge initiative in Kansas City, Missouri,
offering gigabit-speed Internet access and offering fiber-optic network access with cable packages. Google is in a great
spot to offer a cohesive experience across channels if it can ramp up this offering across the nation—we'll see in the