bw100 - 11:53 pm on Jun 10, 2011 (gmt 0)

In addition to talent, this is another addition to the Google stable of display-advertising oriented acquisitions.
And, rate-arbitrage experienced companies.

"AdMeld veered off to being mostly an RTB arbitrageur, buying inventory at low prices from publishers and selling it for higher prices to advertisers while keeping the spread for themselves -- without giving any transparency into this practice to publishers."

compatible with DoubleClick

This is similar to how Google tapped DoubleClick to get a first look at the impression and then arbitrage publishers' inventory through Google AdEx. This acquisition and business model is good for Google, but bad for publishers, he said. Google has struggled to get mass adoption with the top 500 publishers because their interests are not aligned, and sometimes competitive, with the publisher.

prompting the first of what will probably be many competitive offers for migration

Executives at the Rubicon Project feel so strongly that this is bad for publishers and the open market that they are offering all existing AdMeld customers 90 days of free service.

[mediapost.com ] for all above quotes

The wonderful, wacky world of advertising. The media, and the players, change, but the game remains the same: Publishers vs. Advertisers (generally amicable), and when there is a broker or arbitrageur in the middle, always interesting.