Yahoo will begin rolling out its new ad-management platform beginning in the third quarter. AMP from Yahoo, formerly referred to as Project Apex, will roll out in phases beginning with members of the Newspaper Consortium. Yahoo said it plans to extend the functionality of the platform as well as participation to additional publishers, advertisers, agencies, and ad networks through the rest of 2008 and into 2009.

AMP is designed to simplify the process of buying and selling ads online, and the company said it is central to its strategy to be the partner of choice for advertisers, agencies, publishers and networks. Yahoo's Anecdotal blog said the program was like the "stock market for ads" (http://ycorpblog.com/2008/04/06/this-one-goes-to-11).

According to Yahoo's press release, "AMP! will take the pain and complexity out of advertising online by providing an integrated, web-based solution that allows unprecedented ease of cross-selling across a large ecosystem of buyers and sellers. It will allow advertisers to precisely yet easily target audiences while enabling publishers to better monetize their content."

http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=303352