RSS FeedArchive for the ‘Investment’ Category

Yahoo! Buys Right Media Ad Exchange

Yahoo Buys Right Media Ad ExchangeIt's happy times on the Right Media Exchange as employees and shareholders took in another $680 million from Yahoo! to be fully-acquired by the struggling web search/entertainment/whatever monolith.

With Google's purchase of DoubleClick and its developing AdX Exchange, Yahoo! felt it needed to answer and it did. Will Microsoft now step up to the plate?

RightMedia currently provides the exchange platform to large advertisers and publishers and lets them battle it out in an exchange format which provides efficiency as opposed to the blackbox of AdSense or the more traditional, negotiate way of doing business that is familiar to ad networks.

In the Yahoo! press release regarding Yahoo's initial investment last October, Greg Coleman, EVP of Global Media Sales, says, "Yahoo! believes an open and transparent ad exchange is an innovative new distribution channel for non-premium inventory and encourages competition in the market."

To date, it is believed the largest client on RMX has been Yahoo! which has tons of inventory that is hard to monetize such as its gargantuan email inventory. If the Right Media ad exchange can even make a penny or two more per CPM than Yahoo can do by itself, that could be a significant opportunity for Yahoo!.

(more...)

Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion

Google Buys DoubleClickGoogle has bought DoubleClick for a breathtaking $3.1 billion in a transaction that is expected to find regulatory approval after a hard slog.

With DoubleClick's huge display ad serving business, it made sense for mighty Google to swing for the fences in that Google's display business is almost non-existent. The DART ad serving system will be a jewel for Google that is to be envied by other players such as Yahoo! and Microsoft.

In addition, DoubleClick's new advertising exchange business will likely provide a platform upon which Google can leverage its existing AdSense/AdWords network and move toward the next generation of online advertising. It is believed that the acquisition price bloomed as the advertising exchange became seen as a "must-have" at Google.

Some agree with Google's blog post about the acquisition that DoubleClick gives Google important agency relationships. This appears true - though Google's still going to have a lot of hands to hold once this transaction is complete.

(more...)