NetGravity Releases AdServer 3.1 With Rich Media Support

San Mateo, CA-based NetGravity released NetGravity AdServer 3.1, an upgraded ad management solution that includes support for rich media.

The company said the new version is improved in areas such as reliability and scalability of the system, rich media support for network customers and ease of auditing ad performance reports.

Said Rick Jackson, vice president of marketing for NetGravity: “AdServer 3.1 offers a significant number of new features and functionality identified through direct customer feedback and market trends. We believe the enhanced reliability and performance will enable our customers to maximize their online marketing revenues and presence on the Web.”

AdServer 3.1 supports the latest versions of Web serving platforms from Sun Solaris and Web server software from Netscape Enterprise and Microsoft Internet Information Server.

While previous versions of NetGravity AdServer supported rich multimedia advertisements for the NetGravity Enterprise edition, AdServer 3.1 enables rich media ads for the NetGravity Network edition as well. AdServer 3.1 Network customers can now deliver ads generated in formats such as HTML, Java, Shockwave and RealAudio/Video.

“The ability to deliver rich media banners is an increasingly key component of a site or network’s online advertising offering. NetGravity AdServer Network’s ability to support such interactive media forms is key,” Evan Neufeld, senior analyst for Jupiter Communications, was quoted as saying.

With AdServer’s new run screen interface, customers can expect performance improvements of up to 25% for key ad scheduling and management tasks, the company said. Also, reports generated by AdServer 3.1 can now be quickly audited by ABC Interactive. ABC Interactive and NetGravity worked together to design and implement a complete auditing solution. Pricing was not disclosed.