Amazon is reportedly working on their own ad network to compete with Google and Microsoft Bing's ad business.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Amazon.com Inc. is gearing up to more directly challenge Google Inc.'s dominance of the online advertising market, developing its own software for placing ads online that could leverage its knowledge of millions of Web shoppers.Initially, Amazon plans to replace those ads on its pages that Google chiefly supplies with a new in-house ad placement platform, said people familiar with the matter. In the future, that system could challenge Google's $50 billion-a-year advertising business and Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT -0.15% , they added.
Can Amazon compete with Google's AdSense or display network platform? Hard to say, if Amazon can use their own network for their own properties, that alone would be well worth it. Then expanding beyond is just gravy.
Of course, having more options for publishers is always a great thing.
