When it comes to Yahoo, critics will often ask, rhetorically: “What is it nowadays, anyway?”

The company’s Americas head Ned Brody has a clear answer: “You need to start thinking about Yahoo as both a publisher and a network.”

That means Yahoo doesn’t just want to be an owner and operator of its own web properties on which to sell ads, it wants to power ads on other people’s sites, too.

“You can’t buy ads on Conde Nast for ‘people who have searched for credit cards in the last 30 days’,” Brody boasts. “No-one can tie those datasets together – except us. You’ll see us take many of our assets and transition them from a publisher monetization model in to more of a modern network philosophy.”

That philosophy comes in to its own in video, where Brody concedes: “We are supply-constrained.”

He was interviewed by Tod Sacerodoti, CEO and founder of BrightRoll, in this on-stage session at the BrightRoll Video Summit. You can find more coverage of the BrightRoll summit here.

Disclaimer: BrightRoll sponsored Beet.TV’s coverage of the event.