The trend among Web publishers to create exclusive mini ad exchanges continues, as Technorati Media has partnered with AppNexus to create its own private exchange.
Over the past several months, a handful of traditional media companies, including NBCUniversal, CBS and IDG have rolled out private exchanges as a way to monetize their excess display inventory. These companies want to get in on the overarching trend toward real-time, audience-based buying but want to protect their pricing and data—two things often seen as vulnerable when selling ad inventory via large exchanges like Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
“The entire ecosystem is changing,” explained Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra. “There is a desire among clients to buy quality inventory in an automated way.”
That goes for both tonnage buys, which are more commonly associated with ad exchanges, and custom campaigns, said Jalichandra.
AppNexus, which provides technology and software to both publishers and advertisers, will help Technorati—which sells advertising across thousands of blogs and social media sites—with things like ad serving, analytics and yield management, as well as controlling what inventory is sold directly and what isn’t.
Just recently AppNexus became the back-end technology for Microsoft’s push into the exchange space. The company claims to play in the same space as "demand-side platforms" like Google’s Invite Media and Turn, as well as "supply-side" vendors like The Rubicon Project.
In the case of Technorati, AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley said that by establishing a private exchange, the company avoids having to share 15 percent or 20 percent of their revenue with a third-party exchange purveyor like Google or Microsoft. “There is a strong case to be made that publishers don’t need middle man,” he said. “We’re just the technology layer. It’s truly Technorati’s exchange.”
