• Ad Age, Tuesday, December 12, 2006 11:15 AM

YouTube, MySpace, Facebook. It's all anyone in media can talk about, but Time Warner COO Jeff Bewkes believes the next great Internet land grab will be for an ad network that delivers ads to thousands of third-party Web sites--while being careful to keep advertisers' away from publishers of suspect content.

Whatever happened to the ad network, the Web's advertising workhorses? Has the business simply become a commodity not worth talking about? Well, one thing that is work talking about is the fact that Advertising.com is driving resurgence at AOL. Bewkes, talking at the UBS conference last week, said ad networks are now primping themselves for M&A activity.

Shelly Palmer, a consultant and media industry author, says all the focus on online video and social networking underscores a dichotomy in the media business: "There are two gods being prayed to: Wall Street and the business-fundamental god, profitability."

Bewkes says it's more important for companies to monetize their traffic than to chase after trends--especially before considering whether trends like video or social networking are appropriate for a company's brand.

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