Update: Binay Tiwari, Head - Global Marketing & Product at Vserv, informs MediaNama that the deal is for the mobile Internet (and not apps, as we'd expected), but is on a non-exclusive basis. Earlier today: Mobile advertising network Vserv.mobi will monetize Yahoo's premium Mobile advertising inventory across key South Asian markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. In the past year, the company claims to have inked deals with other premium publishers in South East Asia, including Okezone, Kompas, Viva News, Antara News, Metro TV News, Utusan in Malaysia, Cosmopolitan in Indonesia, as well as 9X Media, Sony Music, India Today, and Mid Day in India. The way these kind of deals typically work is that Vserv will use the publisher inventory to bring on more publishers; then they'll use the aggregated inventory in a geography to attract advertisers. What is not very clear from Vserv's note is exactly what inventory Vserv has access to (i.e., what it means by "premium inventory"), whether this inventory is exclusive or not, i.e. will Yahoo not sell mobile advertising inventory in South East Asia by itself? Also note that Vserv is primarily a mobile application ad network, so we wonder if this deal includes mobile apps only, or also encompasses inventory in the region on the mobile web. (see update above) Earlier this year, Vserv had launched the AudiencePro service, which allowed advertisers to improve targeting among Airtel customers in India, using anonymised audience data. Some of the other key mobile advertising networks in…
