Yesterday, Yahoo announced that it had purchased BlueLithium, a behavioral-targeting ad network, for $300 million.
What is BlueLithium, you ask?
BlueLithium is a three-year-old company whose technology tracks consumer behavior as users move from site to site, allowing businesses to deliver more relevant ads. A consumer shopping for environmentally friendly products might see ads for hybrid cars a week later.
At WebmasterWorld, forum members discuss the acquisition and see that Yahoo is moving ahead of Google in the area of behavioral ad-targeting. In fact, Google is not enthusiastic about the idea at all.
Some thoughts as presented by forum members say that YPN will improve with this acquisition:
This is something that could help Yahoo in many ways. Not only will it help them better target their existing ads, but will help bring the ads worldwide and give them another dimension to both YPN and its advertising program.
Others feel that Yahoo! will come out with a much better analytics package:
It also sounds like Yahoo is interested in providing advertisers with the analytics side of the equation above and beyond simple conversion tracking (maybe kind of like Google Analytics on steroids?)
All in all, forum members agree that this is a great move for Yahoo and are excited to see how it will benefit the company. Congratulations, Yahoo, on the acquisition.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
