AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo: The Perfect Display Ménage A Trois?

You have my T2 inventory. No. No. You have mine, I insist. We are friends. Special friends (Inbetweeners reference there, non-UK readers)! I am thinking this is how the conversation went when AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo sat around a table and agreed a partnership. But there was no press release - more off-the-cuff remarks at a publisher dinner in New York. There has been so much written about this. A desperate move, some people observed. Too late in the day, opined an anonymous former Yahoo exec. Someone even said it was akin to a cartel - an OPEC for display if you will. It might have seemed like a great idea when the various parties agreed on it - but it just raises more questions than it answers.

Here are just a few:

- Will the inventory be bought through RTB, given Microsoft is going all in on the exchange model?
- If that's case will AppNexus be the technology layer for the new super-duper premium exchange?
- And if that is the way it's going to play out, what the hell happens to the once mighty RightMedia exchange? Sell it?
- And if AppNexus is going to be the backbone of this new super exchange, who is going to buy it? Maybe they'll all buy it, and run it like a JV Hulu business.
- What about the rest of the market? Will ATDs, DSPs, third party buyers, exchange traders, ad nets et al get access to this real-time supply - or will be an internal market for Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL?
- Now from a European Perspective... With all the big players making their move, shouldn't Europe's biggest publishers be taking about rolling their own exchange? Or do we start on country-wide basis and build localised exchanges in the first instance? I know there is half-a-dozen who could make this happen. Interesting debate for ATS London.

Any ExchangeWire reader who can answer all questions, please send your details through and you too can win a one-off DVD special of the Zac and Mac ATD spat.

The Rise And Fall Of The Ad Network... And The Rise Again

If another person tells me the ad network is finished, I might have the challenge them to a bare knuckle fight in a south London car park. That's an exaggeration, clearly. Ad nets are going nowhere. Some horizontal arbitrage-fuelled middle men will be eaten alive by agency trading desks - but the vertical players will flourish. I was nodding forcefully when I read Ari Paparo's piece on the viability of the vertical ad network. It's interesting that Paparo focuses on new sources of demand - such as legacy marketing relationships. I see huge opportunity in this area for a bunch of new vertically-focused ad nets. Imagine if you had direct line into the marketers in a specific sector, and had your own prop data on the very users you want to reach. You could leverage and scale that data through exchange buys. It's all about how you a) package your offering to perspective marketers and b) execute the buys. Everyone is chasing the agency dollar. Why? Oh yeah, because it's easy. For now! I think ad networks are missing an opportunity. Seek out new demand - and build a business with longevity. This actually could be the best piece published this week. Plumber network, eh!

Monster! Monster! Monster!

$200 million dollars! $200 million! For a mobile ad network? Yes, InMobi announced yesterday that it is raising a MONSTER round of $200 million from a group of investors led by SoftBank. What will it do with that cash? I suspect it will start buying. It is focusing on Japan, China and Korea. Good luck with China. The display market is a mess there. A MESS! Metrics. Tracking. Transparency. You couldn't be heading into a worse situation. Maybe that's what they need all that cash for - as they will need to burn through a good portion to get traction in the Chinese market. Japan has to be high on the priority list. The Japanese have the second biggest display market ($7 billion) after the US. And considerable sums of media cash are put through the mobile channel. Maybe they'll buy a local player to grab market share. Someone somewhere in APAC is going to have a nice pay day. Mobile is clearly hot at the minute.

New Ad Exchange In... Polska

Poland is a pretty big market. It's got a 40 million-strong market - and compared to other markets in CEE are pretty advanced in the data-driven display buying. To drive further adoption, Clickmatic has announced that is launching Poland's first ad exchange. The new offering is powered by Admeta so I expect inventory will be RTB-enabled. Another pool of dynamic inventory to trade. Excellent. Let's scale that European buying opp.

Big! Week! Coming! Up!

And finally... We come to next week's chaotic conference-heavy fest. There is a bunch of events going on in Europe all next week. Aside from now sold-out ATS London, we have dmexco and ad:tech. They have gone head-to-head this year (why? Oh, why?), and most of the top people in the industry have opted for dmexco. I will be in Cologne from Wednesday (courtesy of AppNexus Air) - and I am moderating a RTB panel in the debate hall on Thursday afternoon. I'm looking forward to talking real-time bidding with the likes of Carl White and Matthias Pantke. All the details for dmexco can be read here. It's going to be epic.