I’m producing a pilot program for a startup company in the online advertising space called Hyperbidder, that will be launched at the Ad:Tech show in San Francisco in April. It’s an interesting model for advertising. Instead of buying ad space for a set CPM or CPC, you place a bid for ad space at whatever price you want to pay. At the end of the auction, the space doesn’t go to the highest bidder, it gets divided up and spread among all bidders in proportion to their final bid. That means any advertiser can buy space without getting squeezed out of the market, and the pricing is set by market demand.

What’s nice about the model is that it has significant potential to open up surplus ad space currently unsold by major advertisers, since the pricing model will put it within reach for smaller buyers. For the publisher, no potential revenue is lost because all bids win. And unlike the typical banner ad networks, where you buy ad space across a series of sites–usually without knowing exactly where the ad will land–there are metrics and mechansisms to not only see where your ad is going, but to control where it goes. 

I never stump for products, but I’m giving the background as an explanation for why an ad is now appearing on this site, down along the right hand margin. I’ll be lucky to earn a cup of coffee each month with that space, but it’s an interesting exercise on the front lines of the battle being waged in the online advertising market this year. Let me know what you think.