Call me biased. But I have been a .NET developer for almost 10 years and before that when I was a Java programmer I still used Visual Studio (Remember Visual J++).
And for me it's the best editor a guy can have (if you don't count that fact that it’s slow and heavy).

When I joined TicTacTi I started programming also in AS2 and then AS3. When asking other flash developers, sorry flash designers what editor they are using they all said CS3 with a big smile. But a developer can’t ask a designer a question like this. CS3/4 and probably also 5 are made for designers and not developers and if you like to write more than 10 lines of code don’t go near this editor.

When we started to write in AS3 we started using Eclipse.
Well, this is an editor. But it’s an Open source editor and as such it takes 10 manual pages and 2 full days to learn how to install it so it will compile a simple hello world application. (Why can’t open source application use the wizard concept?J)

At first I had problem understanding the Perspective issue, or the fact that F3 is not used for search.
After awhile I even found out that you can do things with it that you can’t in Visual Studio like compile on the fly, move few rows at once (using Ctrl+Up/Down arrow)
But, what cracks me was a simple task I had to do. I like to compile the code and then run a simple batch file. Simple??? Yes it’s simple if you understand how to write ANS, or some other compiler code. In VS a simple checkbox would allow me to run as much batch file as I like.

I will say this I’m working with Eclipse but every few months I’m looking at different add-on that allow you to write AS code using VS. So far it takes about 10 min of work before I find out that something is missing and the add-on is not ready yet for a real AS application.

So far the Tofino is the best add-on but it’s still isn’t perfect, although I must say that their support team is doing a great job and they did try to help me migrate to Tofino.

I will update this post when I will find a good add-on because I’m sure I will not be an Eclipse developer forever.

How easy is it to embed Ads into a flash player?

If you have looked at our demo sites or our widgets site from a developer point of view, you have probably noticed that the Ads seem to be integrated as a part of the Flash layer.

It looks obvious, just call the ad jpeg or flash file and place them in the correct location. right? Correct , but...
And here comes a big BUT. The ad URL is not something given to you on a golden plate.

Big Advertisement companies and AdNetwors don't think about the possibility that some strange programmer would like to retrieve the ad URL from their server using client side code embedded in flash.

Their systems are built to support calls for ads URLs using iFrame URL or a JavaScript code.

Try and get the Ad URL from an iFrame URL while in flash. You just can't, since it's in a different domain the browser security infrastructure prevents you from reading the HTML DOM of an object residing in a different domain.

So you like to know how we did it?
You can’t .It's confidential. Believe me I like to say more (and I did post it until our panic team read about it and i had to remove the paragraph about our solution) I promise that once I'm able to disclose how it all works I will.

In the meantime if you are a JavaScript freak and like to talk more about the different format of JavaScript code the advertisers use on their systems place a comment or send me an email.

Understanding ad placements key concepts is crucial to understanding the blogs that will be posted here. This blog will be dedicated to explaining player, concepts and obstacles to overcome for successful presentation of ad on a rich media client.

Key players,

Publishers – organizations that hold assets on which and ad can be displayed, such as web sites, toolbars, game providers or video content providers.

Advertisers – company’s who advertise their products on the web, or represents such clients.

AdNetworks – provide a market place were an advertiser can place his ad and reach multiple publishers and the other way around. Multiple advertiser results in the better coverage and a bidding war on the publisher assets, many publishers allow better targeting higher effectiveness of the ad campaign. So the bigger the market place is the higher the benefit is for all the players.

Concepts :

Assets – a place on which an ad can be presented.

Coverage – the percentage the AdNetwork will successfully return an ad to the certain publisher per geo location of the client and demographic consideration of the asset. There are several ad networks that hold inventory just for certain regions like the USA or Europe. If you are a publisher and have users from all over the world you might be forced to work with several AdNetworks to improve your coverage and better monetize your asset.

Impression –the presentation of an ad on the client side.

Click – click on the ad presented, result in redirecting to the advertiser site.

CTR – Click-through rate is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. Representing the ratio between the number of ad presented (impressions) and number of clicks.

Acquisition – an impression that resulted in a user actually registering or buying the advertised service.

CPA – Cost Per Action\ Acquisition a contract in which the advertiser pays for each specified action(perches, registration…)

CPC – Cost per click is the amount of money an advertiser pay per click on the ad.

eCPM – the value paid to the publisher per 1000 impressions. Actually all ad networks present earnings in their reports as eCPM values, even if payment resulted from CPA or CPC deals.

Obstacles to overcome:

• Flash and SilverLight clients used to display rich madia (movies and games) do not integrate with the format an ad is returned by the AdNetworks (iFram or JavaScript).

• When the game is developed or a movie filmed it is not designed for ad int0egration. To present the ad you have to find a location and a time on which to place an ad, and of course some code is required for the actual presentation. Last I heard there is no code integrated in avi or divx files and the requested add must fit the location found on the asset without interfering with the actual content presented on the client.

• Hopping – to retrieve an ad the client navigates to an AdNetwork server if there is no coverage he must navigate to the next AdNetwork. Navigation loss stands at about 5%-10%, and you have to develop a complicated to execute all of these hops.

There are two great blog posts that I urge you to read, they perfectly explain the process of placing an ad on an asset.

http://www.mikeonads.com/2007/05/01/the-ad-exchange-model-part-i/

http://www.mikeonads.com/2007/05/02/the-ad-exchange-model-part-ii/