AdOutlet Starts Private Exchange Division

Expanding from the original model that had media buyers and sellers coming to its site to make transactions, AdOutlet is launching a new division that lets media companies operate their own advertising exchanges.

Essentially, AdOutlet is licensing its technology to media sellers — it believes cable television, and television and radio station groups will be the most interested — to allow them to sell advertising on their own Web sites. In addition, the AdOutlet software has features aimed at organizing internal sales operations.

“After examining trends within the media market it became evident there was a strong need for additional products in the private exchange arena, and in fact, I believe private exchange infrastructure development is the precursor to robust public exchange growth,” said Alan Masarek, chairman and chief executive officer of AdOutlet.

“As a result, we have shifted company resources to offer private exchange solutions, in direct response to what media companies are looking for, and future license agreements in the next year will demonstrate this.”

While AdOutlet, as a private company, is unlikely to say that the re-allocation of resources comes in response to difficulties, it would seem that the company couldn’t help but be affected by the recent slowdown in advertising spending. So the move may be spurred by a need to bring in new revenues to supplement the transaction fees generated by its online exchange.

This isn’t the first effort by AdOutlet to license its technology. The company has also looked toward foreign shores, making a deal with Advertium.com, a start-up serving Latin America.