GoogleClick: Positioning for the Integrated Search and Display Exchange

David Card | April 14, 2007, 11:41 AM

Google's intended acquisition of DoubleClick positions Google to further disrupt the portal marketplace and exert even more influence on online media, and fits in completely with its platform strategy. It's certainly no slam-dunk. Google has to avoid alienating DoubleClick customers (that's what it's buying; it could have built ad serving and targeting technology). However, an integrated, targetable search and display exchange is just what Microsoft and AOL are trying to build themselves, and what portal salesforces -- and ad agencies and media buyers -- do today via brute force.

I should add: it's also unclear just how soon any large number of advertisers would be ready to use such a thing, even if it actually worked...