Brajeshwar

DoubleClick,a global leader in digital marketing, advertising technology and services is being acquired by Google for a whooping $3.1 Billion in cash. The all-cash buy-out is about twice the amount Google spent to buy YouTube. Well, it is now pretty clear who will dominate the online advertising market. With this acquisition, Google have easily sidelined Yahoo and Microsoft. Google says that the acquisition is a big win for the publishers, as well as for advertisers and Internet users. Later in a conference, Google promises that user privacy will be handled as top priority among all the different integration challenges.

The combination of Google and DoubleClick will offer superior tools for targeting, serving and analyzing online ads of all types, significantly benefiting customers and consumers. Press Releases states that –

• For users, the combined company will deliver an improved experience on the web, by increasing the relevancy and the quality of the ads they see.
• For online publishers, the combination provides access to new advertisers, which creates a powerful opportunity to monetize their inventory more efficiently.
• For agencies and advertisers, Google and DoubleClick will provide an easy and efficient way to manage both search and display ads in one place. They will be able to optimize their ad spending across different online media using a common set of metrics.

Founded in 1996, DoubleClick is a provider of digital marketing technology and services. The world’s top marketers, publishers and agencies utilize DoubleClick’s expertise in ad serving, rich media, video, search and affiliate marketing to help them make the most of the digital medium. From its position at the nerve center of digital marketing, DoubleClick provides superior insights and insider knowledge to its customers. Headquartered in New York, and with 17 offices and development hubs and 15 data centers worldwide, the company employs more than 1,200 people and delivers billions of digital communications every day. It was recently taken private in 2006 by Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity for $1.1 billion. DoubleClick’s revenue earning per annum is about $300 million.

REFERENCES

• Google Press Release
• DoubleClick Press Release

UPDATES

• 2007 April 14: In other acquisition news;
  • Yahoo acquires Rivals.com, the college sports network, for $100 million.
  • Content delivery network Akamai has bought Santa Monica-based P2P tech provider RedSwoosh for about $15 million in an all stock merger.
  • Commentful was acquired by BlogFlux.

• 2007 April 16: Industry experts were not surprised when people have turned up with concerns over the impending Google-DoubleClick buyout and the Microsoft is in the fore-front to push the rally. Microsoft contents that Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick will stifle competition on nearly all fronts and is the very making of a monopoly. Other DoubleClick consumers are simply apprehensive about not having a strong alternative to the Google monolith when it comes to Internet advertising, fearing the consequences of a sudden change in Google algorithms or the notorious rampant click fraud that could destroy a business over night.