We launched the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta in August of 2005 with the goal of helping online publishers of every size to grow and prosper.  We have learned a lot from you in this time, and hopefully you’ve benefited by working with us. 

Today, we are thrilled to announce that we have taken the first step towards the next chapter in Yahoo!’s services for publishers: Yahoo! has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Right Media Inc.

Yes, after six months of testing the waters with Right Media as both a strategic investor and a participant in the Right Media Exchange, we are jumping in with both feet! Right Media will help us to extend our Yahoo! Publisher Network while also enhancing our efforts to build a self-serve display advertising system. Right Media currently has a self-service publisher product called Direct Media Exchange that enables publishers to sign up for, manage, and optimize against multiple advertising networks in one convenient interface. They offer a set of ad network partners for you to join and you can add your own ad network partnerships into the optimization mix as well if you like. 

We’re extremely excited about what Right Media offers to the publishing world; we think that it epitomizes the “right” way to help you as a publisher to get the most out of your site. The Right Media tools provide many of the things you have been telling us are important to you: control, openness and transparency. Check out our Yodel blog to hear more details.

Stay tuned for further changes and announcements over the coming months as we work to complete the Right Media acquisition and then, once the acquisition is complete, begin to integrate Right Media into Yahoo!’s publisher offerings and move forward with other exciting developments.  We think that this is the start of something really great. We hope that you do too.

Keep on publishin’.

—Cody Simms, Senior Product Manager