ISEdb.COM

After a long wait and constant delays in the development process, today
Yahoo, Inc. finally released APT, its brand new ad serving platform
which aims at providing publishers and advertisers with a unified,
simple and intuitive interface to make the Internet advertising
business much easier to manage for both parties.

While the APT
website is currently short on details, it definitely builds
expectation for a project that has been going on for some 2 years and
which was previewed in April, when the company was under pressure due
to Microsoft’s acquisition attempt.

APT will mainly serve display advertising, or ads placed on the
websites of publishers who have previously joined the program and will
earn from renting their space, much like the Google AdWords/Adsense
platform: but, in addition, APT also features its own ad network
linking publishers and advertisers directly, as well as an ad
marketplace where advertisement space can be bought and sold to the
best bidder.

The platform also introduces features that are highly requested by
Internet advertisers, such as behavioral targeting based on collected
user information, complete managing of the ad displaying schedule and
targeting based on personal information such as age, gender and
location, all from a simple interface that is easy to set up and put to
its best use.

APT’s main aim is to give new life to the currently mediocre Yahoo
profits in Internet advertising, which according to many are among the
main causes of the slow financial decline of the company. To this
regard, the much rumored about partnership with Google could mean a
renewal of their advertising technology from the ground up, which could
in turn attract the attention of new publishers and advertisers all
around the world.

According to EMarketer Inc., the online ad spending in the US could
rise to over $26 billion by the end of the year, with Google
controlling one third and Yahoo’s share at around fifteen percent.
While the Mountain View giant dominates the scene of US search ads with
almost three quarters of the market against Yahoo’s 13%, the latter is
still the leader in the display ad market, with an estimated market
share of 33%.

Sue Decker, Yahoo president, announced that the 800 members of the
Newspaper Consortium will start using the platform to manage their
online ads by the end of the year, explaining that one of the main
benefits that come from Yahoo APT is the openness of the system, which
allows advertisers to reach their potential customers on the websites
they wish, allowing publishers to monetize their spaces through
channels that are constantly expanding.

Whether this will be enough to increase Yahoo’s marketshare against the
always competitive Google and Microsoft-branded solutions is still
unclear even for market analysts given the lack of detailed information
at this point, but the release of APT is at the very least a strong
sign from Yahoo that the company is still strong and has the ability to
stand on its feet competing as a worthy opponent against the other
giants of the Web advertising industry.