Update #2: While Reliance Entertainment declined to comment before this post went up, they subsequently told Alootechie that Kyphy is intended to be an ad network, not an ad marketplace. So, yet another publisher is entering the ad-network space.

Update: That Reliance BIG Entertainment is looking to enter the online advertising space is confirmed, but it appears that the agenda for Kyphy isn’t very clear - whether it is intended to be a network or an exchange. We’ll try and get more clarity from Sudipto Majumdar, former CTO of Zapak, who is leading this project.

Original story: Reliance BIG Entertainment is in the process of launching an advertising marketplace called Kyphy. According to their website, Kyphy will “create an automated advertising exchange to enhance the efficiency of both buying and selling inventory.”

There are a large number of advertising networks in India, but this is the first attempt at an online advertising exchange. This is essentially the marketplace model, which connects both advertiser, ad networks and publishers, and appears to be based on a concept similar to that of the Right Media Exchange; Yahoo had acquired Right Media for $680 million in April last year. Right Media takes a commission of around 10 percent cut from the transaction between advertisers and publishers.

Reliance BIG Entertainment has online properties like BIGFlix (Online Movie Streaming), BIGAdda (social networking), Zapak (Casual and Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming), and will probably sell inventory from their properties as well - thus there is a case for a conflict of interest between the exchange business and publishing business. The exchange will have to be transparent and independent of their websites, and indeed, of an ad network if BIG Entertainment were to launch one.

There have been attempts at advertising exchanges on the Internet in the past in India - Dentsu India launched LastMinuteInventory.com earlier this year, to enable TV channels to sell last minute television inventory. There were some concerns though.

I wonder why Yahoo hasn’t launched Right Media in India, though. I’d former Yahoo CEO George Zacharias the same question when Yahoo had acquired a significant stake in ad network Tyroo, but he hadn’t offered a specific answer.

Update: Reliance Entertainment has declined to comment on Kyphy at this point in time.

Advertising, Advertising Networks, Reliance Entertainment
Tags: Advertising, Advertising Exchange, BIG Entertainment, Kyphy, Reliance

1. hmm, the concerns remain.. with the current media buying processes, i’m sure neither media buyers nor publishers are ready for such transparency… do you think transparency is a function of time/maturity of media.. does it work better for one medium than another? any parallel you can draw from the way transparency in US media has evolved? okay, enough questions :)

   Posted by manuscrypts | November 4, 2008, 9:12 pm

2. hmm…i think it’s more of a function of 2 things - demand and maturity. will take up some of the issues in a separate post soon.

   Posted by Nikhil Pahwa | November 4, 2008, 10:26 pm

3. Lots of loose information here.

   One - Pubmatics already exists in the marketplace, if you have to call it an Exchange from India.

   Two - Right Media launched in India over a year back and Komli has been using it extensively along with a lot of other networks in India. Infact Yahoo’s sales team has been using RM for a long time both as a platform within Yahoo and also at the exchange level.

   Three - Tyroo is an investment for Yahoo and if you. If you understand corporate development as a function, you’ll know that these investments only enhances share holder value and not many companies invest in companies to run their business unless they decide to buy it out. If that remained the case then Yahoo should be running BM’s business in India.

   For more clarity on this - Yahoo’s investment in Google, Yahoo’s investment in Alibaba etc…

   Posted by Reporter At Large | November 5, 2008, 1:06 pm

4. Wasnt Yahoo’s GOOG stake a result of patent infringement lawsuits??!!

   Posted by Rajesh | November 5, 2008, 3:11 pm

5. See a difference between an ad network and ad exchange is that it lets Networks become both advertisers and publishers. In Indian scenario with 33 billion page views on Indian IP, it clearly doesn’t make sense for such ad exchange at this time keeping in mind out of the 33 billion 70% inventories are yahoo and google properties. Their isnt enough volumes at this stage to facilitate the same.

   What i belive they are betting on is that amount of internal inventory they have should be enough to sustain to such ad exchange project and will be interesting to see if it clicks

   Posted by Siddharth Puri | November 5, 2008, 4:21 pm

6. Is there space for another big player?

   Posted by Anuj | November 5, 2008, 5:12 pm

7. Reliance Entertainment will be compelled to do something that they’ve never done so far. (ie) Generating Revenue. You cant play the “product jazz/feature Jazz/ Version goli” in this space, since there is no “site” per se.

   Its going be interesting as to how RE is gonna pull this off with a team that never had revenue as responsibility.

   Posted by Rishikesh Mukerjee | November 6, 2008, 8:36 pm

8. Nikhil,

   Bigflix can’t just be called a movie streaming site. Their primary business is “Online DVD rental service” and Movie streaming is a feature on the site.

   You’ve missed out Big927FM.com and i am assuming that it might be getting more traffic than BigFlix and BigAdda.

   Posted by Joe | November 13, 2008, 11:43 pm

9. Bigflix is based on the revenue model of Netflix which is rental DVd and not streaming movies. Considering bandwith issue, a movie streaming venture would be interesting.

   I wonder how these Reliance ventures are doing from a revenue perspective

   Posted by ZK@Internet Marketing blog | November 25, 2008, 9:33 pm