DoubleClick Inc. announced recently it was available for purchase and undoubtedly many a suitor has made offers, not least of which are Microsoft and Google. The question now is, how much will DoubleClick sell for with these two giants gearing up for a bidding war? The word on the street is the bidding will go above a lofty 2 billion greenbacks.
So what is it about DoubleClick that has the big guys so hot and bothered?
“DoubleClick’s suite of products empowers agencies, web publishers and marketers to work together successfully.”(source: DoubleClick’s Products Page) In other words, DoubleClick is a web advertising brokerage that, through the careful creation of products, has successfully brought together both sides of the online advertising equation; high end web publishers (i.e. content-focused sites like About.com) and marketers (i.e. anyone who wants to place advertising on the web publisher sites).
Whoever gets their greedy little hands on DoubleClick is sure to get an edge on its competition. As a result, I expect Microsoft will put up quite a fight in return for any leverage on an advertising marketplace that Google hasn’t gotten its teeth into yet.
… More later
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