Zedo, a digital ad serving solutions company, has soft launched Zinc, an online ad exchange for publishers and media buyers, reports The Hindu Businessline. The ad exchange is currently under an invite only, beta phase, and will be launched in September. While conventional ad networks sell remnant non-guaranteed impressions - if you ask a publisher, an ad network is likely to be their last recourse - Zedo claims that the Zinc Exchange will feature only premium, guaranteed inventory for advertisers, and look to cater to newspaper publishers, and offer high-visibility, premium advertising positions. Frankly, we don't see how Zinc can guarantee that - isn't it up to a publisher to determine which inventory to put up for sale on an exchange? It is probably that since Zedo has been deployed by many publishers to serving advertising, Zinc comes in and allows publishers an alternative advertisement to put in a spot, which means that it might again get relegated to a remnant inventory sale, despite Zedo's claims. Zedo probably hopes that Publishers might use the open-bidding format of an ad exchange to enable price discovery as well. Unlike an ad exchange, ad networks tend to be blind, offering publishers limited control over inventory. Ironically, ad networks also use Ad exchanges extensively to fill in their remnant inventory. Yahoo owned Right Media is a clear example of competition. Anyone remember Reliance Entertainment's never-launched ad exchange/ad network Kyphy?
