It's the demographics stupid!

With Microsoft launching demographic targeting of ads, scuttlebutt says Google is willing to pay $5B for AOL's business to obtain AOL's massive database of user demographics to overlay to their keyword search. To (mis)quote a wise man to remain nameless "the online ad marketplace is evolving from 'search' to 'searcher'". Ultimately knowing that a keyword search for "Red Hot Chili Peppers" is placed from a 25-year old male band groupie versus a 67-year old woman looking to garnish her salad, translates to more targeted, relevant results both for natural and paid search. Microsoft could gain a foothold with advertisers based on a better algorithm for site results and ad placement and there's not many ways Google could gain scale in this business without AOL.

On a related note, the eBay_Market_Data Program has just launched shipping, demographic and International site data, overlaying eBay's massive transactional database. For those developers, marketers, retailers and manufacturers interested in better understanding how different brands, keywords, product types and categories are sold on eBay by age and sex of buyer, send me an email and I'll get you in contact with Laura Della Torre on my team who manages the program.