ESPN.com Wants to Go Legit

Partners with Horizon, RealVu to test selling only viewable ad impressions

ESPN has long avoided using ad networks, exchanges, or anybody else but its own sales staff to sell its digital inventory, which it views as premium.

Now, to further draw a distinction between ESPN.com and the rest of the Web’s long scary tail, the company wants to prove to buyers that its ad inventory is worth a whole lot more—namely because human beings can actually see it.

On that note, ESPN has partnered with Horizon Media and the startup firm RealVu, which claims to be able to gauge how many ads in a particular campaign are actually viewable—those ads actually appear on a user's screen long enough so they can be seen, rather than say, below the fold of a Web page.

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