On Thursday 07-26-2007 Microsoft announced in a press release their intention to acquire AdECN, Inc., an advertising exchange platform company. With this press release Microsoft makes a clear commitment to provide advertisers and publishers with a comprehensive search and display advertising platform.

Microsoft bought who?

AdECN describes itself in the following manner:

AdECN is the only real-time, auction-based, neutral exchange for online display advertising.

It works much like a stock exchange. A member of the AdECN exchange buys on the exchange for its advertisers and sells on the exchange for its publishers.

The member’s advertisers specify in advance how much they are willing to pay based on the visitor’s profile, or the visitor’s past behavior, or the page content, or other factors. Advertisers can bid on a CPM, CPC, CPA, or CPL basis.

When a visitor lands on a website page, an auction is held among all the advertisers — in less than 12 milliseconds, for every single ad impression. The highest bid wins, and that ad is shown.

Despite the press release just hitting the street Barron’s Online has already published an article outlining some of the details of this acquisition which is worth reading if you’re interested in the purchase.

What does it mean to bloggers?

With Microsoft finally entering the game of online advertising what does it mean to bloggers that monetize their blogs? Does any of this even apply to us? In my opinion, it just doesn’t matter — yet. It’s classic Microsoft to show up late to the party and try and make all current attendees stop what they’re doing and wait for them to do something. I’m sure their purchase will eventually mean something to us but until they sort things out the acquisition is something to read, file in your memory, and forget until later in the future.

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Filed under: Friday Finds