Too Many Online Video Ad Platforms, Webware's Rafe Needleman Says

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Rafe Needleman is editor of CNET's Webware, the increasingly influential blog about how "Web 2.0" technology is utilized by consumers.  (It's up to #26 on the Techmeme Leaderboard.)

Rafe's been covering emerging technologies and start-ups for some time.  During the last tech bubble, his daily newsletter for Red Herring, titled "Catch of the Day," was a must read in Silicon Valley and around the world.

I chatted with Rafe a couple weeks back at the NewTeeVee conference in San Francisco, which he was covering.

I asked him about his thoughts on this new boom in start-ups and innovation.  He is pretty positive about things but says that there are too many online video ad networks whose business is predicated on sophisticated advertising management/insertion coupled with advertising sales.  The field is now too crowded and most of these companies simply can't do it all, Rafe says in this interview.

Update:  Reuters reports that News Corp will launch an ad network next year.

-- Andy Plesser

Full Disclosure: My PR firm handled Red Herring from 1999-2001 and currently represents CNET Networks.