Improving ad exchange
from the bottom-up?

Dodging questions about Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6 billion bid at the Advertising Bureau's Ecosystem 2.0 conference, Yahoo has announced a platform designed to improve the quality of life for ad buyers and sellers.

Called Apex ("advertiser-publisher exchange"), the system is a renaissance platform for campaigns that run everything from search, display and video, to burgeoning formats like mobile.

Apex will also make use of Yahoo's newspaper consortium.

The system allows newspapers to sell website inventory while extending buys to similar demographics on Yahoo sites.

Sue Decker of Yahoo obliquely compared Apex to how DVR replaced the VCR. Apex aims, Decker stated, to consolidate time-consuming ad operations, thereby liberating agencies to more creative pursuits.

The launch of Apex follows a somber earnings release for Yahoo in January, due in part to its droopy Panama ad platform.

To better focus on online advertising, the company committed to lay off over 1000 employees. It also shut down Brand Universes, a project headed by former CEO Terry Semel.