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Will Ad Networks Compete for Your Ads?

Posted by samzenpus on Mon Aug 14, 2006 08:32 AM
from the pick-me dept.
Businesses IT
bokelley writes "TechCrunch has an article today about a new product called RMX Direct that holds a real-time auction for every ad on a site. Networks and advertisers bid based on the quality of the user (geography, site, time of day, etc). This could be game-changing for sites and blogs; if networks have to compete, will we see AdSense disclose more about its payouts to publishers? Will other networks like Advertising.com and ValueClick participate, or will they continue to force publishers to make hard choices? In a lot of ways, this has similarities to the challenges that Linux faces in a Windows world. The open source community has been fighting for more than a decade to make the progress it has, and we're not there yet — will online media be different?"
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Will Ad Networks Compete for Your Ads? 48 Comments More /

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  • I thought Google Adsense already did the whole real time auction thing. This article [blogspot.com] seems to confirm the idea.

    • Re:AdSense already does this . . .? (Score:4, Informative)

      by andrewman327 (635952) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:40AM (#15902169) Homepage Journal
      The linked article talks about a small scale experiement in bidding on print ads. Considering the auctions ended back in February I do not know if Google plans to do it again.
    • Though this idea strikes me as fleeting, it brings up the good ancient question of paying for the web.

      So far, the web has been treated as commercial space by PR depts; somewhere between TV and print media. Sort of a place to hold eyeballs while advertisments get sprayed onto them. To me, it seems to be failing. For some reason, we can't seem to match worth with dollar value. Yet webtech (servers, hosting, design) still generate a significant cost.

      I think that once we figure out how to pay for cyberspace o
        • There is actaully little money in contextual ads or "Content Match." The unrealistic dotcom business models that involved selling content using ads are repeating, but that doesn't mean they will work this time around. Consider your own example: MySpace.

          MySpace had to get bailed out by Google; they *weren't* making money on their non-stop heavy handed ad-extravaganza. Have you ever visted MySpace? It has more ads going than than an "Advertising suppliment" and there are interstitials and popups and every o

          • When you buy a business for $500 million the first thing that goes on the bottom line is that debt and repaying it. That is how once profitable business get unprofitable overnight, they become saddled with an overloaded debt as a result of the buyout.

            Search placement, is 'asta la vista' or is that 'alta vista', they lost because they were practising search placement producing crappy results whilst google was not and google beat them out for what really counted searches, msn search is where it is because t

  • Hope it works (Score:4, Insightful)

    by andrewman327 (635952) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:37AM (#15902153) Homepage Journal
    I fail to see the comparison between Linux and this technology. Linux is an OS and this is a market driven revenue model. That said, I think that this technique has a lot of promise. My concern is that it will take too much attention from larger advertisers to bid on different ad spots. Some people maintain thousands of ads. Market driven technology has proven itself effective in many different situations and applications and I sincerely hope that this will give AdSense a run for its money. Regardless of what AdSense does that is similar, this will at least present some competition.

  • Similar to Linux vs Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sshore (50665) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:38AM (#15902161)
    In a lot of ways, this has similarities to the challenges that Linux faces in a Windows world.

    I don't see it. How is selling advertising space similar to the challenges of Linux in a Windows world?

    Seems like that was just thrown in as a hook.

  • Misnomer (Score:4, Informative)

    by The Dodger (10689) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:40AM (#15902172) Homepage
    Their definition of "auction" seems somewhat different from mine. It seems to me like this is simply a system that will tell you which of your ad networks will pay you the most for displaying their ad to a given user. Not quite a true auction where the ad networks can bid for the ad space on the page being displayed to that user.


    D.

    • Their definition of "auction" seems somewhat different from mine...a system that will tell you which of your ad networks will pay you the most for displaying their ad

      So each advertiser enters an amount (bid) they are willing to pay for a site to impress their ad (product). When an ad impression opportunity comes in, a subset of all the bids in the system match the site's rating/info/conversion rate/etc. The highest matching bid wins the ad impression.

      Just because the bids exist before the seller say

  • Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by neonprimetime (528653) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:42AM (#15902184)
    It's quite a straightforward system, given how complicated the options are and how early it is in development.

    I don't know about you, but I'm confused already. Is it straightforward? Or is it complicated? I lean towards the latter.

  • Competition is good. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigattichouse (527527) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:48AM (#15902219) Homepage
    Doesn't matter if its a super-better-way-of-doing-things... If it actually causes competition with the big players (google, msn,yahoo).. then it is a good thing.
    • seriously, we can actually live without them (ads)... think about it. If I want to participate in an auction I am not going to do it at random because I see an ad. I will go to ebay, or some other site by decision. I hate being forcefeed information from advertisers. I hate commercials too but I guess thats another story. This sounds like a ridiculous idea to me.

      You may hate ads but much like commercials, web ads are here to stay. Many websites simply cannot stay alive without generating some sort of reve

  • Compete (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MrSquirrel (976630) on Monday August 14 2006, @09:11AM (#15902353)
    If ad companies really want to win my almighty dollar, they will compete with each other in a gladiator-style death match. May the best marketer win!

  • Submitted by Right Media Employee (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TomHandy (578620) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (ydnahmot)> on Monday August 14 2006, @09:12AM (#15902362)
    Shouldn't there have been some mention that this story was submitted by bokelley@rightmedia.com? It makes some of their digs at the competition, as well as the attempt to frame RMX Direct as the "Linux" in this "fight", seem like apretty shameless attempt at free advertising and shameless pandering to the Slashdot crowd.
  • "will we see AdSense disclose more about its payouts to publishers? Will other networks like Advertising.com and ValueClick participate, or will they continue to force publishers to make hard choices?"

    Or will even more information about the visitors be required by the advertisers?
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this more like sites competing via popularity for given ads than advertisers bidding on ads?

    It seems to me that this might potentially increase the revenue brought to sites via advertisement. (It certainly wouldn't result in a decrease in the number of ads - they're already there, why take 'em off?)

  • The Web makes advertising an annoyance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Crouty (912387) on Monday August 14 2006, @09:22AM (#15902430)

    Ads serves two purposes: Make you aware of a product and convince/manipulate you to buy it. They try to convince you by giving you information about key features, but we all know these information must be taken with a pinch of salt. They often exagerate positive features and leave out negative ones. There are much better places to look for product information than ads, i.e. the Web.

    From from a consumer's point of view there is only one desirable aspect of ads: Learning that a product for a certain purpose exists. But if somebody misses anything, would he not go and search for the information himself? Again, the information is right there in the Net.

    I have no interest in any ads whatsoever. I like my product information pulled by myself, not pushed by doubleclick, mediaplex or webmasterplan.

      • The other day, I dicovered wireless iPod headphones.

        Really no offense intended but with a little common sense you could have known that such a product is very propable to exist. The technology exists and so is a demand for iPod-related gadgets. What you really did not know was that you needed it, otherwise you would have looked for it before seeing that ad.

        This is rather a confirmation of my theory: The ad did not provide any information you did not have already, but manipulated you into wanting somethi

    • I like my product information pulled by myself, not pushed by doubleclick, mediaplex or webmasterplan.

      Sometimes it's hard to tell whether the information you are reading on The Web was pushed by some company and is an advertisement, or is an honest review of product information.

      Take TFA, for instance.

      Ok, sometimes it's not so hard to tell...

  • Big or small sites? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by miller60 (554835) on Monday August 14 2006, @09:42AM (#15902586) Homepage
    Setting aside issues of the Right Media submission of its own service and the confusing introduction .... is this a useful product for bloggers and niche sites? I saw the TechCrunch story last night and followed the link. It isn't really an auction so much as a service that optimizes an ad stream that chooses among available ads from several networks to find the one that will pay the best. This concept isn't new ... Right Media has been using it with larger clients, and the domain monetization crowd has been doing this forever (see Moniker's Traffic Club [trafficclub.com] service).

    This isn't a serious competitor to AdSense for niche publishers. Here's why: all the networks it aggregates are focused on large publishers. Most require a boatload of page views to participate, and serve low-paying run-of-network ads to their smaller publishers. The great thing about AdSense is it allows you to serve relevant, effective text ads on sites like mine that get only 10,000 visitors a month. AdSense was designed to work well for small publishers AND huge ones. That's why it's been effective.

    RMX Direct is trying to create a service that can bridge that gap. My bet is that it will monetize better than dealing directly with a single big-ass ad network, but less well than AdSense.
  • Then I can see a definite jump in the number of people using proxies.

    "Fifty percent of our hits are coming from Antarctica? Shit, quick, what do penguins buy?!"

  • It doesn't matter to me. Online mainstream (non-porn) advertising is still in the Dark Ages with this whole per-click thing. I won't spend a dime on advertising my e-commerce site until advertisers like Google Adwords get their collective heads out of their asses and get rid of this stupid per-click model. It doesn't work. It's a waste of money. The porn industry dumped per-click completely back in (the only ones who do per-click are largely scams now, and the experienced webmasters know this).
  • Just stop with the Linux v. Windows shilling.

    It doesn't make you cool.
  • I thought my company was the only one still using the iRMX Real Time OS [tenasys.com] and PLM/386!! Oh wait...
  • Bidvertiser has been doing this for a while now, along with Google AdSence. This is news?
  • Currently valueclick, casale (I believe) and others allow for publishers to specify a minimum CPM. When that is not met they "default" to another ad network. That is how this has been done forever. Now they want to offer the service to mine the web for the highest CPM.

    In a perfect world, this would work well, reality is that all the players out there have legacy code that cannot integrate with this. Many don't know the CPM until at the end of the month. Google adsense will never provide this information, pe
  • Are the ads my browser drops on the floor worth?
  • Nice slashvertisement from bokelley@rightmedia.com . !
    And nice useless linux plug that fooled our mighty *editor* !!!

    Hope you get many advertisements in your inbox, bokelley@rightmedia.com .

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