Worth Reading: Will Google Monopolize Display Ads?

June 15, 2011 • 1 min read • By Brian Morrissey

It’s been clear what Google’s plan is for the display advertising infrastructure. It wants to piece to piece an end to end system. The charitable view is the driving force behind this is an effort to bring simplicity to an overly complex landscape. The less charitable view is Google wants to dominate display the same way it dominates search. There’s probably some truth to both. Jay Sears, general manager of the ContextWeb Ad Exchange, has a not completely unbiased view in AdAge of the Google move to acquire Admeld. Sears doesn’t bemoan Google’s efforts to build its share of queries bid on exchanges.

My concern is just the opposite — that Google’s peers Microsoft, Yahoo and others — are not being diabolical enough. We need more diabolical liquidity, otherwise we will have a display advertising monopoly. And that’s only fun for one person at the party. Google has been building its dominance in display in plain sight yet few seem to understand how to counterbalance its cunning and impactful moves.

Of course, those players would build their positions by buying sources of ad queries, such as the Contextweb Ad Exchange and other players. The counterpoint to Sears comes in the comments via Russ Fradin, echoing a point he made in Digiday yesterday: Facebook is the only player with enough heft to compete in display at this point.

https://digiday.com/?p=4451

Digiday Top Stories

Experimental Channels
Dentsu’s new Web3 readiness tool shines light on the tech’s potential to complement AI
Dentsu's Innovation Initiative is launching a web3 readiness index next month — at a time when the industry is obsessed with AI. Could the two technologies actually make a good pair?
Member Exclusive
Digiday+ Research deep dive: Publishers large and small put their resources into first-party data
Eighty-two percent of publishers overall say they're already using first-party data to prepare for the end of the third-party cookie, and nearly half are requiring users to register and integrating first-party data segments into DSPs – indicating that first-party data is the clear path forward for publishers heading into the post-cookie world.
Member Exclusive
Media Briefing: Why publishers hope chatbots will be the latest retention tool
Publishers hope the chatbots they are developing will be the latest retention tool to keep readers onsite and to get them to consume more content.
Sponsored
How enterprise-grade CDPs are enhancing data processes and improving customer experiences
Produced in partnership with Marketecture The following article highlights an interview between Martin Kihn, Salesforce’s senior vice president of Marketing Cloud, and Ari Paparo, founder and CEO of Marketecture Media. Register to watch more of the discussion and learn how brands are making the most of enterprise-grade CDP technologies. As brands expand across channels and […]
Privacy
How programmatic advertising will evolve this year on the heels of audio growth and privacy changes
Comscore’s programmatic division Proximic released a State of Programmatic study highlighting the growth of audio and podcasting, other digital advertising channels and challenges around third-party data.
Audio Anywhere
Why podcasters are selling subscriptions through third-party vendors
Many podcasters are turning to third party platforms like Supporting Cast and Supercast to launch or grow their subscription businesses beyond Spotify or Apple.