Yahoo! has launched a new advertising (ads) platform called SmartAds, for more information, you can visit the “Demo” page. This is another project since Yahoo! has announced the release of the Panama Project in February this year. This is a refined advertising platform, not solely on new ranking system as Panama Project intended to be, but unveiled as a new platform that combines Yahoo’s demographic, geographic and behavioral targeting capabilities with a new patent-pending advertisement platform that based on Web surfer’s age, gender, location, online activities, and etc., according to this article.

This launched of new platform was indeed a quest for a template-based customized ads model, which they have patented this technology in spite of the “behavioral targeting” is not a buzzword in today’s technology arena. Some cyberpundits predicted that when Yahoo!’s acquisition of RightMedia is completed, they’ll be partner with RightMedia in rivaling Google’s AdWords system. However, the most credit given to this platform is their efforts in making this platform as the first available on Yahoo!’s owned and operated properties to travel industry advertisers in the U.S., according to their official press release. Unlike Google’s AdWords or other CPC paid listings and advertising platforms, I think publishers and advertisers will get more features in fulfilling the needs of the Web surfers, not a fully automated system that we expected it to be.

My concern for this system is how they successfully competing for the affiliate networks with other existing advertising platforms, the reliability of this system in ensuring the steady stream of income for those affiliates is still a big question for them right now. Central to this revenue sharing, of course the splits, how many percent this advertisement revenue paid to the affiliate networks? In the meantime, there are not much information that I can get from the Web at this moment. However, for now, I remain worried that the pitch is running ahead of this newly launched product.