Google Unleashes DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Say one thing for Google: The search-engine behemoth never rests.

Today brings news that the company is unveiling a banner and display ad system called DoubleClick Ad Exchange, yet another way to put the screws to its competitors—chiefly Yahoo. No wonder IAC's Barry Diller called going head to head with Google "foolishness" at Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference on Wednesday. The company is like the Terminator: "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

According to the New York Times' Miguel Helft and Stephanie Clifford, "Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, has said repeatedly that display advertising offers one of the company’s best prospects for expansion, now that growth in its text ad business has slowed significantly."

Business Insider's Michael Learmonth describes Ad Exchange (and similar systems like Yahoo's Right Media, which has been around since 2005) as a "real-time stock-market-type system in which ad networks and publishers that have ad inventory they need to sell can post it to the auction and other networks and publishers that may be in need of that particular kind of inventory can buy it."

Here's how Google explained it on its Official Google Blog: "[W]ith a multitude of display ad formats, and thousands of websites, it often takes thousands of hours for advertisers to plan and manage their display ad campaigns. With this complexity, lots of advertisers today just don't bother, or don't invest as much as they would like. On the other side of the equation, some publishers are left with up to 80 percent of their ad space unsold. We believe that a better system built on better technology can help grow the display advertising pie and benefit everyone."

Advertising pie for everyone! Thanks, Google. Way to not be evil.