By James Reetzke
At the Open Video Viewability project, we’re continually investigating new methods and APIs to make the library more robust and compatible in a variety of contexts. As browser vendors continue to move away from plugin based solutions for multimedia functionality that advertising technology has traditionally relied on, they are filling the gap left behind with native APIs that achieve the same functionality in a more efficient and standardized manner. One such solution is an API that has been designed specifically for viewability measurement. It is called IntersectionObserver. It’s a native API that allows a Javascript application running in the browser to determine whether a region of the page is in view, even if that region is contained within a cross domain iFrame.
A recent change we made to OpenVV is the integration of IntersectionObserver starting with version 2.5.5. Instances of Chrome 51 (and greater) and Firefox Mozilla 52 (and greater) that load OpenVV will be able to use the native API in place of Flash beacons for both in page and cross domain iFrame serving scenarios. One of the biggest advantages of using the native method over a Flash solution is that less system resources are required to perform viewability measurement. This will be a benefit to users especially when mutliple instances of the API are loaded on the same page. In addition to using less resources, the updated library is also safeguarded against certain future Flash blocking changes coming to Chrome (Flash beacon blocking may be introduced in future versions).
Going forward, the OpenVV group is working towards a HTML5 only viewability solution. Another benefit of integrating IntersectionObserver into the current solution is that we have a better understanding of the nuances of working with the API, and can develop best practices for integrating the API into future products.
For more details about updates to OpenVV, checkout our Github page at https://github.com/InteractiveAdvertisingBureau/openvv/.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Reetzke
Senior Software Engineer, Visible Measures