DoubleClick Sale Could Risk Publisher Exodus
News from ClickZ that DoubleClick is in play and could be sold — something we knew was coming after they were snapped up by a private equity outfit. MSN and Google are mentioned as contenders. Ad serving is the central nervous system of display advertising and integrating the data stream that comes out of an ad server’s cookie logs is crucial to an advertiser like me trying to correctly assign revenue recognition to specific campaigns. Thinking back to the old days of NetGravity at Forbes.com (which was acquired by DoubleClick), to the hell-on-earth known as ad ops at CIO.com (ad ops is the unwanted step-child of online publishing), to the potential of behavioral optimization, dynamic creative, and mid-campaign retrafficking …
The story is right, it’s a “Stale World,” but one I get worked up about after a couple beers.
“The stale world of online ad serving just got interesting again, as a possible acquisition of ad management firm DoubleClick was floated yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft or another buyer may grab the ad serving colossus soon. If a deal with Microsoft does become reality, it would boost the firm’s online ad capabilities and make for readymade relationships with advertisers and agencies. However, it could put DoubleClick in hot water with its publisher clients, including AOL, which would be loathe to let the company access user data flowing through DoubleClick’s DART ad serving system, and which compete directly with Microsoft’s MSN for ad dollars. Indeed, AOL could be a potential buyer, some believe.”
Are you sure online publishing isn’t the unwanted stepchild of ad ops?