Report: Yahoo Ad Network Launching Wednesday
Let the games begin. News.com says Yahoo will on Wednesday (that's tomorrow) launch its long awaited ad network. Put your ear to the ground and listen closely: That noise you hear is the orgiastic excitement of thousands of independent publishers.Yahoo's ad network has Google's popular AdSense program in its crosshairs. (Full disclosure: I use AdSense on all of my sites, including this one.) AdSense ads -- those eerily relevant contextual text links that appear everywhere -- give small-fry publishers a way to make money from their content. For two years, AdSense has remained largely unchallenged (Kanoodle, AdBrite, et al notwithstanding), but now the Web's other 800-pound gorilla is ready to enter the ring. If Yahoo's system catches on, the increased competition could mean higher profits for bloggers and small publishers.
The terms of Yahoo's program haven't been released. AdSense's terms of service opened up recently to allow discussion of profits, but there are still strict restrictions ("First Rule of AdSense: You do not talk about AdSense..."). It'll be interesting to see how Yahoo differentiates itself. Will we see fewer rules? Better payouts? Different ad formats? And an even bigger question is this: How will Google respond?
Under the current AdSense terms of service, publishers cannot run AdSense ads and contextual ads from other networks on the same pages. Unless Google softens this rule, publishers will not be able to feature Yahoo ads and Google ads side-by-side. Will publishers stick with Google or could we be on the precipice of an AdSense exodus? -- Mac Slocum
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