Alex Hochberger

In what might be huge news, Google is opening the DoubleClick Ad Exchange as an open marketplace.  The Internet has destroyed middlemen and process where ever it has moved, devastating travel agencies, newspapers, recruiters, and in some markets, realtors.  It has been market-by-market, but the value of exclusive information has been destroyed as information has become publicly available.

One exception, media buying.  For reasons that will perhaps never be clear, purchasing banner ads on websites doesn’t follow the open marketplace of the rest of the web, but the rather strange world of media buyers and sellers, with their high commission rates and huge selling costs.  I understand why $10 million ad campaigns might require some sales finesse and price breaks, I don’t understand why I can’t buy 30 second spots on a local independent station in the middle of the night without knowing a salesman and creating an account.  I really don’t know why buying banner ads also seems so convoluted.

When I have done business hosting ads and buying them, I’ve found the results pretty decent if you are targeted.  I believe that they are much cheaper than Text Ads for business reasons… a marketer with a credit card can buy Text Ads, it seems like you need to spend time talking to a salesman to do banners.  Given how many independent marketers are moonlighting on the web, it’s insane to have a medium only available from 9 AM EST to 5 PM PST, when the search engines will let me buy spots at 4 AM.