Join us at the Digiday Publishing Summit from March 24-26 in Vail

The Digiday Publishing Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., brought together top publishers to discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in digital media. Below are some notable quotes from the first day.
“Sales people actually ad value. When programmatic buying takes over, the advertisers end up doing a one-sided transaction. There’s no value added from the publisher’s side.”
— Tom Shields, chief strategy officer, Yieldex
“The notion that Do Not Track will destroy advertising online is stupid.
— Jim Spanfeller, CEO, Spanfeller Media Group
“We’re in the business of trying to figure out how best to connect audiences to the brands we’re working with. Content is the most powerful vehicle to do that. It takes a tremendous amount of work; it has to be authentic, transparent, no pulling wool over people eyes in terms of whats editorial and what’s not, and it has to be really cool.”
— Marty Moe, publisher, The Verge
“Publishers are sitting on the outside looking in. Their content is going out but social is monetizing, not you. We think there’s big opportunity for publishers to do a better job and monetize.”
— Tim Schigel, CEO, ShareThis
“For a brand publisher, the biggest mistake is focus on scale over quality. At the end of the day, it’s a long fight and the brand is all you have.”
— Jason Kint, gm of sports, CBS Interactive
“Publishers using data is like sex in high school: everyone’s talking about it, very few are doing it and those that are aren’t doing it well.”
— Brian Morrissey, editor in chief, Digiday
More in Media

Media Briefing: Brian O’Kelley’s Scope3 promises an AI-powered ad tech reset — publishers aren’t buying it yet
AppNexus co-founder Brian O’Kelley wants to fix the ad tech ecosystem with his platform Scope3, which is designed to allow advertisers to buy directly from media owners. But publishers have a lot of questions.

WTF is ‘shadow AI,’ and why should publishers care?
“Shadow AI” refers to the use of AI tools that aren’t officially company-approved. For newsrooms, that leaves serious implications.

How Pinterest went from selling views to selling clicks and conversions, with CRO Bill Watkins
Pinterest’s is getting louder in its battle for ad dollars with AI-powered ad tools and an increase in ad volume.