The Washington Post Realizes the Value of Real-Time Ads

TechCrunch announced yesterday that The Washington Post is using its personalized news aggregation technology, originally used to launch new reading experiences like Social Reader and Personal Post, to apply toward advertising.  

The result?  Ads that pull in real-time content, such as headlines and tweets, from social networks.

According to the article, "the idea of real-time advertising is hardly a new one, but as The Post noted, they’re usually offered by ad tech companies or ad networks. What’s unusual here is that The Post built the technology itself, and it can can sell the ads directly."

The Washington Post gets kudos for building its own real-time ad capabilities.  But not many publishers and brands have the time, effort, and resources to dedicate toward this.  It often makes sense to outsource to a tech provider who's sole focus is real-time ads and to leverage their existing robust platform.