Google and eBay lead push to bring Internet selling techniques to offline media

[Kristijntje]

  The business of buying and selling radio, television and print advertising is about to change as Google and eBay make moves to bring the efficiencies of online transactions to an old-school media industry.

Google is using its hugely successful online ad system to let its advertisers target ads to run in newspapers and over the radio in specific markets. Meanwhile, auction site eBay is building a pilot online exchange for the buying and selling of cable TV ad time.

The hopes are that more advertisers will have access to the traditional ad markets, media outlets will boost their ad profits, and Web-based technology will streamline a business where faxes, FedEx packages and phone calls still predominate...

full article: http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-6151005.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news

[mandy]

An update on eBay's new ad marketplace:

Engineers at eBay are putting the final touches on a media auction system designed to allow buyers of national TV ad time to bid for slots via the Internet.

The service will launch "within a few weeks," said Howard Rosenberg, the online auction house's director of private marketplaces. The timetable assumes that sellers, specifically cable networks, agree to participate. So far, they haven't.

The auction system "went live" with its Web site Wednesday, allowing potential participants to register for the service...

full article: http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/media_a...1003552272

[mandy]

A related article:

[quotePlans were finally in the works on March 9 for executives from major ad-supported cable networks to get together with members of the eBay Media Marketplace committee to discuss how a proposed online ad-bidding system will work.

The meeting was set up after committee member David Grubb, global media director of Microsoft, acknowledged a failure by the committee—which is also made up of media agency, ad clients and eBay executives—to do the best job of reaching out to the cable side....][/quote]

full article: http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/current/arti...1003556627

[mandy]

Update:

The nation's largest cable TV trade group is dropping eBay from its prime-time line up, saying it would withdraw from an online advertising exchange program proposed by the auction giant. The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, which represents big-named networks, said it was the best decision for the industry and its advertisers...

eBay's test product, dubbed "Media Exchange," is an auction-style ad buying and selling program. CAB cited several shortcomings with the system during testing -- Media Exchange's failure to capture "idea-driven intelligence" were among the reasons given, as well as the fact that not everyone in the agency world was sold on it...

The refusal by major members of the agency community to consider eBay's proposed interface led to the CAB's decision to pull out...

full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/NQsF...gram.xhtml