14 DAY TRIAL // The giant portal Yahoo recently announced that it agreed to buy BlueLithium, an advertising company that would surely represent a new strike in the battle with Google. The Sunnyvale giant will pay 'only' $300 million in cash for a company that recorded 145 million unique visitors every month and that was the fifth largest ad network in the US and second largest in the UK, as comScore sustained. BlueLithium joins the group of Yahoo Publisher Network and Right Media Exchange, two more advertising campaigns that join their forces to fight with Yahoo's rivals. As you probably know, Yahoo also acquired the remaining shares of Right Media just after the Mountain View rival Google announced the acquisition of DoubleClick.
"BlueLithium's products, technology and team will be an integral part of our drive to build the industry's leading advertising and publishing network," said Jerry Yang, chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc.
"This acquisition will extend our ability to deliver powerful data analytics, advanced targeting and innovative media buying strategies to our customers, who are increasingly looking for these insights. By leveraging BlueLithium's complementary expertise and tools, we will be able to better address the needs of our performance-based display advertisers and enhance the value of our publishers' inventory."
In the recent period the Internet giants made impressive investments into the advertising industry. First it was Google which announced the acquisition of DoubleClick, a move that attracted an avalanche of criticism from the rival firms. For example, Microsoft requested the regulators' investigations, claiming that Google's acquisition might infringe the antitrust laws. As a reply to Google's acquisition, the Redmond company Microsoft decided to buy aQuantive for no less than $6 billion. Yahoo also made a move, acquiring the remaining shares of Right Media which is also an advertising company.
"The combination of BlueLithium's network and Yahoo!'s engaged audience will provide an unprecedented buying opportunity across what we believe will be one of the world's leading online display ad networks," said Susan Decker, president, Yahoo!. "And BlueLithium's expertise in network management will better enable Yahoo! to manage supply and demand across our network, by balancing advertiser goals with publisher value. Building on our acquisition of Right Media, this transaction demonstrates our commitment to increasing our investments in areas which can most contribute to Yahoo!'s long-term success."