Amazon gets the bug...

Looks like Amazon is interested in entering the contextual ad network market (story here). It's interesting to see how competitors to Google are approaching the space. Players are surfacing both from the search engine side (with the continuing advancement of vertical sites like Krugle and the launching of Gravee today) and now the ad network side as well (per Amazon above and from startups like Turn from the former head of Altavista Jim Barnett). Forget GBuy Googlers and focus on your core business ;) Now if only Amazon would do something about A9 and Alexa...

I've always wondered why folks like AOL and other major content/traffic providers don't just create their own ad network (albeit they would have to go through a painful transition process which MSN just went through). If you have buyer traffic, sellers/advertisers will come. While Google obviously provides a great hub for advertisers to sell on and publishers to sell through, once a site has reached significant scale, not sure if it makes a whole lot of sense to pay a major portion of the value created from owned traffic to Google. Guess the MSN experience over the next quarter or two should be a clear indicator if this works or not.