zClassifieds

From CommerceNet Wiki

How can you run ads without being under the control of a single ad network?

Web advertising auction models like Overture's or Google's have tapped into a veritable gusher of cash -- over a billion dollars a year, a nickel at a time! -- by centralizing real-time allocation of advertisements onto publishers' pages. These operate on a completely centralized model, though:

• The ad networks control who can advertise;
• They control what advertisements are acceptable;
• They control who can publish ads;
• and they control which ads run on which pages

... and for all of these services they are entitled to a substantial cut of the revenues.

Now, independent ad networks like BlogAds are emerging that list individual publishers' sites and solicit advertising revenue directly, but while these turn the tables towards a 'sell-side' model, they use centralized technology and make money the same way.

We are curious whether it's possible to operate a truly decentralized ad network that offers freedom along all the axes currently controlled by centralized ones. There are strong reasons to believe that the centralized markets can be more efficient, but at the expense of those freedoms; but there is little countervailing evidence that a real-time peer-to-peer network is even feasible, much less tolerably less efficient economically.

Our first experiments are with the SellSideAds concept. We wrote up our initial thoughts as a submission to the Sponsored Search Auctions workshop. We're starting to work on an online demo/walkthrough.