Ad Exchanges are popping up left and right, and that’s a great thing. Of course, only in certain cases are they actually exchanges instead of an ad network calling itself an exchange, but that’s a topic for another post.
The latest exchange to announce comes with an international flavor, as the Alibaba Group has launched Alimama. Alimama is an exchange focused on the Chinese ad market, and as Battelle notes, sometimes China is late to the party. However, in this case Alimama may be the first country-specific exchange I’m aware of.
But is that a good thing? In this case it might be as the Chinese ad market has operated differently and at a slower pace than much of the world, but in the long run the true global exchanges will most likely be the winners. Or at least the exchanges that are open enough to partner with exchanges such as Alimama to allow for cross-exchange buying and selling.
What happens when you have cross-exchange action? What is that even called? The online ad world is changing rapidly, and it’s still REALLY early in this game.