Only five seats remain
for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, May 6-8 in Palm Springs.
The Barbarian Group COO Rick Webb has some tough words for Silicon Valley. He has little time for those arguing there isn’t a bubble right now in tech company valuations, zeroing in on those that have ad-dependent business models. For all that Silicon Valley companies lament the lack of tech savvy in the advertising, the opposite is clearly true. Webb makes that point clear:
Brands don’t actually want or need any more media channels. As far as they’re concerned, the internet can stop now. We have enough channels. We were happy when we had like seven (TV, print, outdoor, radio, in-store, direct and theater), got a little interested in the first few new ones. Urinals? Uh, okay. Banners? Interesting. Google? Yes. Groupon, Farmville, GroupMe? OKAY I AM GETTING TIRED NOW. Silicon Valley seems to think that advertising’s appetite for new media channels is unending. It is not.
Read more on The Barbarian Group blog. For a counterpoint, see angel investor Chris Dixon and venture capitalist Brad Feld.
Trending in
Most Read
More in Media
News UK turns The Times’ first-party data into synthetic audiences for advertisers
April 27, 2026
News UK is turning The Times’ first-party data into a synthetic audience planning tool for advertisers.
Beehiiv adds even more features to go up against competitors and win over creators
April 23, 2026
Weeks after podcasts, Beehiiv continues to add to its platform infrastructure to court creators, but is it enough?
Media Briefing: As traffic declines, publishers see gains in commerce conversions and CTR
April 23, 2026
Publishers like Forbes and Apartment Therapy see growth in commerce business as audiences convert better despite shrinking traffic.