Blockgraph vs Gracenote

Blockgraph Launches 'Close To Home' Video Series

Blockgraph launched Episode 3 of its 'Close To Home' video series, featuring TALEA Beer's co-CEO Tara Hankinson at the West Village Taproom in NYC. The episode explores how the brewery chooses neighborhood locations based on foot traffic, natural light, and local community composition, illustrating Blockgraph's proximity intelligence concept. The series highlights how local businesses and their surroundings shape business outcomes.

• Blockgraph released Episode 3 of its 'Close To Home' video series on September 29, 2026.
• Episode 3 features TALEA Beer co-CEO Tara Hankinson at the West Village Taproom in New York City.
• TALEA Beer brews in Williamsburg and operates taprooms in Cobble Hill, Bryant Park, Penn District, West Village, and the Upper West Side.

Blockgraph Launches 'Close to Home' Video Series with First Episode Featuring INKAICO in Park Slope, Brooklyn

Blockgraph launched its video series 'Close to Home' with Episode 1 featuring INKAICO, a Peruvian restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn, owned by Miguel and Magdalena Aguilar. The episode explores why the couple searched two years for the location and highlights Blockgraph's joint research with the 4As showing that nearby households are most likely to become customers. The series focuses on local business, community, and proximity intelligence.

• Blockgraph launched the 'Close to Home' video series with Episode 1 featuring INKAICO, a Peruvian restaurant at 447 Bergen Street, Brooklyn.
• The episode features Miguel Aguilar and his wife Magdalena, who opened INKAICO after a two-year search for a location in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
• Blockgraph and the 4As conducted joint research on proximity indicating households closest to a business are most likely to become customers.

Index Exchange CEO: Sell-Side Innovation, CTV Transparency, AI Agents

In an interview with ADZINE, Andrew Casale, CEO of Index Exchange, discusses the evolution of programmatic advertising. He argues that sell-side innovation, including modeling and containerization, is increasing complexity but also value. Buyers can now run their own models on the sell-side, democratizing decision-making. Casale addresses the black box concern, noting that while the internal logic of buyer models is opaque, the platform observes their actions. He highlights the shift towards modular infrastructure, with Index enabling data providers and DSPs to run modules on its cloud. Regarding CTV, Casale emphasizes the need for more transparency, noting that while genre data is increasingly available, show and episode data remain limited due to legal and distribution issues. He discusses the evolution of pod serving and the role of agentic advertising, distinguishing between workflow automation and impression-level decisioning, which remains the domain of mathematical models. Casale sees AI agents as useful for automating manual tasks but not as a revolution that will shift power from walled gardens.

• Andrew Casale, CEO of Index Exchange, discussed sell-side innovation, CTV transparency, and AI agents in an interview.
• Index Exchange processes around 20 million requests per second.
• Most of Index Exchange's CTV supply includes genre data; show and episode data are often kept for direct deals.

CTV Show-Level Data Glut Fails to Deliver Optimization Control

While CTV buyers increasingly demand show-level transparency, a new IAB report shows 43% lack confidence in inventory. Despite progress in show-level reporting, true program-level optimization remains elusive. Publishers and exchanges offer data, but limitations persist: incomplete bidstream signals, "unknown" titles, and lack of scaled optimization solutions. Privacy laws like VPPA, combined with household-level data, complicate sharing. Linear TV offers program-level control by design, while CTV faces a gap between reporting and active optimization. Buyers can receive post-campaign reports but can't programmatically target individual shows at scale, except via programmatic guaranteed deals. The industry is working toward compliant, scaled optimization, but meaningful progress is still needed.

• 43% of CTV buyers have little or no confidence in the inventory they buy (IAB).
• Major exchanges do not offer scaled show-level optimization as a standard product.
• One top-five streamer's SSP integration prevents pulling show-level reporting.

Gracenote expands AI product roadmap with sports MCP server, entertainment SLM and agents

The expansion comes as companies adopt general-purpose LLMs to improve viewer experiences, guide content decisions and streamline operations.