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DoubleClick Acquisition: Google Heads Microsoft Off At the Pass

The alternative is to think that Google overpaid for something (in cash no less) that they knew was an old school, low barrier to entry, commodity business that ran the risk of losing customers en mass becuase of their new ownership. From what little I know of Google I somehow doubt just having it run as it was is the long term plan.

What you essentially have in Doubleclick now is already a very large ad network, although no buyer can currently buy the Doublelick ad network directly, its a bunch of big web sites all opertaing separately and independently but on a common back end platform... Doubleclick's DFP clients certainly don't consider themsleves a part of any Doubleclck network. But that's certainly not to say that they wouldn't consider it if it helped them bring in more money. I don't think its too much of a stretch to see doublclick go back into the ad network type business, thats how they started afterall... and they'd already made a step in that general direction by starting their ad marketplace, knowing that, like you said, ad serving is a commodity business, they wanted to find a way to get a small slice of the media money that was exchanging hands right in front of their faces every day... motif and klipmart were similar endeavors.

bottom line is that 1. there is potential value to be created for both parties by bringing together Google search query data to display ad calls from DFPs exiting client base, and 2. trying to get in on a piece of the media spend has been the holy grail of all of these 3rd party software solution providers since their inception, this is not a new concept. Go talk to PointRoll, eyeblaster et al... it aint much fun to sit back and take in tiny software licensing fees as you watch the businesses that you help run make that much and more in a single ad buy.