03 May 2007

Yahoo! sees "huge potential" in Chinese web ad exchange

Internet giant Yahoo! will look into creating an internet advertising exchange similar to that of Right Media, the company's co-founder has announced.

Jerry Yang, co-founder of the company, spoke to over 1,000 media and technology entrepreneurs from China and the US at a conference in Santa Clara.

Referring to the CEO of Chinese internet company Alibaba.com, Mr Yang said, "I'm going to call Jack Ma up with this idea of an exchange for advertisers and ad buyers."

"The potential is huge," he added.

Like most internet and technology companies looking to break into the lucrative Chinese market, Yahoo! decided to partner with a local business in 2005, when it bought a 40 per cent stake of Alibaba.com for $1 billion.

Mr Yang added that the partnership still had to catch up to Yahoo!'s business outside of China, but was moving in the right direction.

An internet exchange for Chinese web advertisers might be what consolidates Alibaba.com's online search and portal business in the country.

Since Yahoo! bought digital media company Right Media earlier this week, internet exchanges that serve as a portal for web advertisers and producers to buy and sell advertising have been a hot topic in the news.

This move from Yahoo! followed Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, and the California-based company later announced that it would undertake the project of creating an open exchange similar to Right Media.

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