A new venture from the former president of the company that brought us MySpace is now seeking to unseat Google and Yahoo at the top of the ad network business. Brett Brewer, the former head of
Intermix Media, now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., has just received $48 million in fresh venture capital to develop his new project, Adknowledge. Unlike Google and Yahoo, which are contextual
network operators in addition to being search providers, Adknowledge aims to provide an alternative to text ads tied to keywords by placing behaviorally targeted ads in Web pages and e-mails. Brewer
says search is no longer as cost-effective as it used to be, opening the way for new ad formats. "Now search engines are getting competitive, their margins are very slim," he said. "People are looking
for other ways to get clicks." By people, Brewer specifically means small and mid-sized businesses, which, perhaps more than national advertisers, need a cost-effective means of getting their products
in front of consumers. So far, Adknowledge's network consists of over 400 content providers; it also designs ads for its customers. Adknowledge buys ad space directly from content providers and
charges a PPC that ranges from 30 cents to $7 depending on the segment. The company claims an advertiser base of 20,000.
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