Internet marketer Engage Inc. and Akamai Technologies Inc., a streaming media provider, Monday announced they will unite to deliver on-line content, starting with advertisements and marketing campaigns.
Under the agreement, Engagewill purchase Akamaicontent delivery services
built upon the EdgeAdvantage platform and use them to deliver rich media ads
for Engage’s on-line media network properties to help marketers identify and target their
audiences. These profiles are based strictly on users’on-line browsing habits and interests and contain no personally identifiable information, such as names, addresses or e-mail addresses.
The partners plan to introduce specialized services for
targeted ad insertion in streaming media. Content providers will be able to
take advantage of Akamai’s delivery network and stream assembly technology
along with Engage’s advertising management solutions, which incorporate
targeted anonymous profiling. Additionally, the companies plan to co-develop applications for
anonymous personalization.
“We see this deal as two online businesses coming together to provide
customers with solutions that will help improve visitor acquisition and retention through the use of targeted
content and high-performance delivery,” said George Conrades, chairman and
chief executive officer, Akamai.
Akamai and Engage are both members of the ICAP Forum and plan to use the
Internet Content Adaption Protocol (ICAP) in their collaboration. ICAP will
be submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Web Replication
and Caching (WREC) working group as an Internet draft at the next WREC
meeting.