Yahoo! officially opened up the pocketbook in an impressive way by acquiring Associated Content and getting its own content generating machine. Startups looking to be acquired should be jumping for joy as CEO Carol Bartz addresses her company’s content future in competition with companies like Demand Media and AOL’s Seed. There is also an important interplay with Google, too.
The acquisition is rumored to be around $90 million according to All Things D’s Kara Swisher or $100 million according to Ad Age. See the Yahoo! press release about the acquisition and the 16 million monthly unique users and 380,000 contractors that come with the deal.
In an interview with AdExchanger.com last December, Associated Content CEO Patrick Keane told AdExchanger.com that 90% of AC’s traffic came from Google search. Looking at today’s deal, Yahoo! may end up leveraging Yahoo! portal traffic to address any concerns about a competitor controlling its traffic – let alone building on Google traffic.
In December, Keane also said that AdSense was a key ad network relationship. It would seem that the Yahoo! Media team (for guaranteed), Right Media Exchange (Tier 2, non-guaranteed, remnant, etc.) and Microsoft AdCenter (text ads) could become a bigger part of monetization efforts here.
Keane told AdExchanger.com last year, “From a strategic perspective I do not see yield optimization companies optimally serving publishers until publishers are willing to share their click data, RPM’s, traffic sources, etc.” Seems this challenge is ready-made for RMX where its lurking demand-side platform firepower could be used. Release the hounds!
And, given that the Yahoo O&O inventory in the Right Media Exchange is perceived by many as the only decent inventory available through RMX, Associated Content inventory would be a welcome addition.
By John Ebbert
