Ad exchanges received a plug today in the New York Times when Stephanie Clifford wrote an article entitled “Leftover Ad Space? Exchanges Handle The Remnant” about companies looking to take advantage of the efficiencies of exchanges by building tools that enable online advertising traders much the same way traders stock exchanges depend on tools and data to make business decisions. Joe Zawadzki’s Media Math is one of these “tools” companies.
The title and tone of the article could not have been further from what ad exchanges such as Microsoft’s AdECN, ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ, Right Media and DoubleClick’s AdX Advertising Exchange would want. Each ad exchange struggles to prove to advertisers that their offering is not just a scary remnant offering but a premium opportunity offering advertisers unprecedented control.
Quoting data from ThinkPanmure (Its analyst, Bill Morrison, is one of the few authorities on online advertising exchanges on Wall Street), The Times’s Clifford makes the case for the monetization of remnant advertising inventory in advertising exchanges:
“In 2007, exchanges sold about 15 percent of the remnant inventory, and about 5 percent of online display advertising overall, according to ThinkPanmure, a research and financial services company. Most of the other 85 percent was sold through networks.”
ContextWeb, makers of the contextual online 
The creative, vertical ad network,