excerpt from “Consolidation And The Shape of Online Publishing.” Online Media Daily
“With DoubleClick, Google not only bought an ad exchange opportunity, but the installed base of the two-pronged DART franchise – with its Publisher and Advertiser flavors. This move stretches the definition of the publisher role farther than ever before. Combining DART, an ad exchange, and Google’s heritage of advertiser direct creates a potentially frightening situation for agencies. Add to that Google’s entry to offline media, including TV, radio and print, and a rather sinister master plan begins to unfold.
The move is part of a trend toward giving the seller more power throughout the value chain. With 2006 revenues of $7.14 billion, Google already claims a quarter of the online ad revenue worldwide. Moving from search to display and the offline ad channels, it appears that Google is assembling the ultimate media one-stop-shop for advertisers – a Wal-Mart of Media, so to speak.
This gets even more intriguing when you consider why ad servers were developed initially: To manage and audit multiple advertisers… Now the auditor becomes the audited supplier.”
Amit Rahav. May 9, 2007
