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New Free Plugin for OpenX: Geolocation Magic Macros

July 26, 2010 By

The team at Adserverplugins.com is announcing their newest free plugin for the OpenX Ad Server: Geolocation Magic Macros.

Geolocation Magic Macros pluginfor OpneXThe Geolocation Magic Macros plugin for OpenX, Magic Geo in short, enables you to dynamically insert the name of the geographic location of a visitor into a banner. This can be used in both the HTML code and the destination URL. Using this new feature, you can automatically make a banner adjust its content to the location of a visitor.

Demonstration

The banner below demonstrates this by showing your country name and country code, and the name of the continent, and a link to a Wikipedia article about your country.

The code used in this HTML banner looks like this:
You are currently in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{geo.country.enc}" title="read about {geo.country} on Wikipedia" target="_blank">{geo.country}, country code {geo.country_code}</a>, which is part of {geo.continent}.

More information and download

There is a product page containing all information, documentation and a link to download this free Geolocation Magic Macros plugin for OpenX.

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Filed Under: News, OpenX plugins Tagged With: ,

OpenX training course and Master Class June 3, 2010 in Amsterdam

April 19, 2010 By
OpenX logo

OpenX Ad Server - free open source ad server

On Thursday, June 3rd, 2010, I’m hosting two events in Amsterdam: a training course for new OpenX users and a Master Class for experienced users.

OpenX training course

This training course is aimed at people looking to use the OpenX software to manage ads on one or more websites. It’s designed for people that have no prior knowlegde of OpenX, or for those that want to fresh up their expertise. No technical skills are required, it’s sufficient to know how to use the internet.

This training course will be presented in Dutch only. More information, a brochure and a signup form can be found at:
http://www.erikgeurts.nl/openx/cursus/

OpenX Master Class

This master class is aimed at experienced OpenX users, looking to expand and enhance their knowledge of the OpenX software and to discover new applications. The program will be put together dynamically based on the subjects that participants bring up.

This master class will be presented in Dutch only. More information, a brochure and a signup form can be found at:
http://www.erikgeurts.nl/openx/masterclass/

Later in 2010, I will also be hosting similar events for English speaking audiences, most likely also in Amsterdam.

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Attacks on OpenX v2.8.2 installations reported

April 13, 2010 By

Starting Saturday, April 10, 2010, users of OpenX v2.8.2 have begun to experience problems with their ad servers that have now been traced back to the security vulnerability that I wrote about back in December of 2009.

[Read more...]

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OpenX Ad Server v2.8.5 released for download

March 13, 2010 By
OpenX Ad Server v2.8.5 released for download

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.5 has been released for download, but I don't recommend upgrading (yet).

Without any form of publicity, OpenX.org have released version 2.8.5 of the OpenX Ad Server. There are a few strange things about this release, which makes me hesitant about recommending an upgrade.

  • First of all, I wonder what the official status of this release is, since it hasn’t been formally announced like all previous releases. At the time of this writing, it’s been offered on the site for at least 10 days.
  • Secondly, if you look at the OpenX Developer site, this version isn’t marked as ‘completed’, symbolized by the wrapper about the package icon of all previous versions.
  • Thirdly, looking at all of the issues that are listed for version 2.8.5, a few of them still show a status of ‘unresolved’.
  • And finally, work is already under way for the development of version 2.8.6, which must mean that version 2.8.5 has a few known bugs that require fixing.

Since it’s been so quiet about the release of version 2.8.5, I haven’t really had time yet to give it a good test drive. For the time being, it is my recommendation to stay with version 2.8.3.

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Filed Under: News, Upgrading Tagged With: ,

Free OpenX webinar series

February 26, 2010 By

OpenX have announced a series of free webinars, to help their community of users to learn more about the OpenX Ad Server.

The first webinar will be held on Wednesday, March 3rd, from 10 to 11 AM Pacific time. This webinar is aimed at new and beginning users of the OpenX Ad Server, with subjects like:

  • How to organize your inventory
  • How to traffic a campaign
  • How the ad server selects a banner
  • How an ad is delivered

I think this is a great initiative and a wonderful opportunity to gain some insight from the people who created the software.

You can read more about the webinar series on the OpenX blog and sign up for this first webinar. There is a limited number of seats available, and places will be assigned on a first-come-first-served basis.

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New version of the OpenX Statistics as Graphs plugin

February 25, 2010 By

The team at AdserverPlugins.com have released an update of the free Statistics as Graphs plugin for the OpenX Ad Server. This version 1.0.1 is available for download right now.

More information can be found in the blog post announcing this new release of the plugin.

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OpenX Ad Server v2.8.4 released for download

January 28, 2010 By
OpenX Ad Server v2.8.4 released for download

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.4 released for download

The OpenX Blog and an e-mail newsletter to all registered users have been announcing the newest installment of the OpenX Ad Server software, version 2.8.4 for the last 6 days. Yesterday, the new version has finally been released for download.

I have been able to test this new version in recent weeks, and I can report that the installation and upgrade procedures have been changed significantly. One very important change is that anyone installing or upgrading is forced to create an OpenX account. This used to be optional. In my opinion, this will put off a lot of users from upgrading or from even starting to use the software. The software is still free of charge, but users now pay a price by having to give up their privacy.

Update January 31: A bug has been found in OpenX version 2.8.4, affecting the display of statistics for banners. It appears to be mostly a cosmetic problem, the statistics are in the database but not showing up correctly in the OpenX statistics screen. Information can be found on the OpenX Developer Site.

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Filed Under: Installation, News, Upgrading Tagged With:

OpenX Ad Server v2.8.4 announced

January 23, 2010 By
OpenX Ad Server version 2.8.4 announced

OpenX Ad Server version 2.8.4 announced

On Friday, January 22, as one of the last things before the start of the weekend, OpenX.org announced the upcoming release of version 2.8.4 of the OpenX Ad Server. According to the blog post, the free service OpenX Community Hosted has already been upgraded, and the new version will be available for download ‘later in the week’ (which is a bit odd, because at the time of posting the week was effectively over).

More focus on OpenX Market

The announcement on the blog focuses primarily on the many changes and new features for using the OpenX Market. That’s not surprising, because OpenX Market is the main source of revenue for the company. Making it easier for more OpenX publishers to participate in this market was a move that was to be expected.

Bug fixes and improvements

The blog post doesn’t mention it, but this new release also fixes dozens of bugs and long standing issues. The Issue Tracker on the OpenX Developer site lists a total of 144 issues. A little bit surprising, perhaps, is that only 115 of these have been labeled as ‘fixed’.

Version 2.8.4 includes the security fix that was rushed out just before Christmas with the emergency release of version 2.8.3, and it also contains the fix for the serious under delivery problem for contract campaigns. Both of these fixes were contributed by independent consultant and developer Matteo Beccati.

Reviews to follow

Since the downloadable version of OpenX Ad Server v2.8.4 is not yet available, I haven’t been able to test drive it yet. I do have the OpenX Community Hosted account, and I can see the new features for working with OpenX Market in there.

I’m planning on writing some follow up blog posts as soon as possible, for instances about the new upgrade procedure (which is said to have a mandatory registration step), the new OpenX Market features and other noteworthy issues.

Your feedback, please!

What would you like to know about this new release? What should I be researching and writing about? Drop a comment below or contact me with your views!

You can submit my OpenX support request form if you’d like to discuss working with me on your OpenX project.

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Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin for OpenX

January 11, 2010 By

The team at AdServerPlugins.com is proud to announce the upcoming release of their Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting plugin for the OpenX Ad Server.

This plugin was designed primarily for use by publishers operating one or more websites. It enables them to help their clients to deliver their advertising campaigns to visitors who are most likely to be interested in the products or services being promoted. This is done by capturing and storing data about the visitor’s surfing behavior and search behavior, or demographic data. When creating an advertising campaign, the ads can be targeted to this known data about the visitor.

Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin for OpenX Ad Server

Information about this OpenX plugin, including an explanation of the concepts of behavioral targeting and retargeting, can be found at the AdServerPlugins.com website.

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Filed Under: Featured, News, OpenX plugins, Targeting Tagged With:

OpenX Statistics as Graphs plugin updated

December 27, 2009 By
Display Statistics as Graphs using a free plugin for OpenX

Display Statistics as Graphs using a free plugin for OpenX

The team at AdserverPlugins.com have released an update of their free “Statistics as Graphs” plugin. This version 1.0.0 release is available for download right now at their website.

The new version now displays graphs for almost all statistics: advertisers, campaigns, banners, web sites, zones and global history. Graphs are now available for all user types (administrators, managers, advertisers, website owners). Every graph has buttons to navigate to the previous and next month, or to go up a level to show the current year’s statistics. Clicking a bar will drill down into the underlying statistics, down to a day graph with an hourly break down.

The graphs are now displayed using the open source product “Open Flash Chart 2“, providing more flexibility and charting options than the Google Visualisation API that was used for the first beta release.

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