There is a lot of money at stake for each of these companies,



and now there is a new thing for them to fear: Open Source.

Open source is nothing new, but the impact of open source

technologies impinges itself on every sphere of influence,

especially on the internet. And now the big advertising boys

are looking a little worried.

What is an open source ad server? And why should you care?

Basically, if you have a blog, or own a website you can sign

up for Google Adsense and make a few pennies. But if you

own any kind of a website, its important at some point to

get a little better control over your advertising, so that

you can monetize it more effectively, or at least test out

different ad networks.

All those ad networks comprise millions of websites, with

billions of impressions per day, most of them with fortune

500 companies using them to advertise. If you have a tool

which will allow you to test different ad networks against

each other, you can see which network is going to pay you

more.

There is also a benefit to the consumer as well. All the big

ad networks like Doubleclick tie advertisers to a specific

ad platform, and as an advertiser you don't just pay for the

advertising, you pay a fee to use the platform. An Open Source

ad server eliminates that fee.

In theory, all advertisers and publishers connecting via an

open source ad serving network will give internet advertising

a big boost, by taking away some money from the big ad networks,

and encouraging even smaller publishers and advertisers to get

in the game. Its like eliminating a hidden "advertising tax"

on the internet that you have to pay by participating with

Google, Double Click, or whoever the big ad network is.

There have been several attempts at a good open source ad server,

and for small publishers, Php Ads New has been around for a long

time, with many people contributing to the project. Just recently

http://www.phpadsnew.com/two/ has opened as Open Ads, with over

5 million dollars invested in its further development.

It is potentially troubling to see open source projects like PHP

ads new and MYSQL morphing into something different than people

toiling and generating code for a pet project in relative obscurity,

but if you believe in free markets, you also believe that something

valuable will be turned by somebody into something that is worthwhile,

and in the free market economy, worthwhile means profitable.

Open Source projects however, generally have something more in mind

than just profit, and the stated intention of many of them, is to

provide a free alternative to a patented software that anyone can

use.

Obviously, this is not greeted warmly by the likes of Microsoft,

and even Google tends to step very carefully over this issue, because

truly open source is not in the best interest of the profits of any

publicly traded company.

I for one am thankful to see some alternatives for both web publishers

and advertisers and am hopeful that in the future, viable options

will emerge that allow web publishers to keep "The terrible trio" at

arms length!

Robert Cefail