Most online publishers and advertisers are accustomed to real-time analytics, the ability to see how many people are viewing a website or app at any moment, where they're coming from, generally who they are, and what they're doing on the site.

But that concept was a novelty in TV advertising before a startup called iSpot.tv came along in 2012. The company, based in Bellevue, Wash., took the turnaround time for data about television ads from weeks and days to hours and minutes.

A decade later, iSpot is a key partner and resource for major media platforms and advertisers. With more than 300 employees, the company has been growing organically and through acquisitions, it's increasingly becoming an alternative to industry stalwart Nielsen as a standard for audience measurement.

Meanwhile, Nielsen announced this week that it will be acquired by a private equity firm for $16 billion.

In the most recent example of the shift, NBCUniversal announced a multi-year agreement with iSpot to provide real-time audience measurement across platforms, starting with the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and Super Bowl LVI, and most recently for NBCUniversal's "upfront" negotiations with advertisers for the 2022-23 television season.

The upfront news was announced iSpot tech chief Anthony Skinner during an NBCUniversal developers conference on the Saturday Night Live stage in March. He joins us on the GeekWire Podcast to talk about the underlying changes in how we're all watching TV and consuming content, and how analytics have evolved along the way.

The company is a finalist in the category of Next Tech Titan in the 2022 GeekWire Awards, and Skinner was featured in a 2019 GeekWire Geek of the Week profile.

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