Mediaplex, Ariba to Integrate Applications

E-business marketing and technology company Mediaplex Inc. said it will integrate
its real-time online media buying solution with the Ariba Inc. business-to-business e-commerce
solution.

The integrated application will provide businesses with an automated system
for placing,
tracking, changing and managing online advertising and expenses by leveraging
the approval workflow and Internet order routing capabilities of the Ariba
ORMS application and Ariba Network platform.

The companies said the integrated Mediaplex-Ariba solution will enhance the
effectiveness of advertising campaigns through more timely management of
online placements and change orders.

The Mediaplex-Ariba integrated solution will utilize Mediaplex’s new
technology, adXML, to enable advertisers and Web publishers to transmit and
acknowledge advertising insertion and change orders in real time.

Financial
arrangements between the companies were not disclosed.

adXML employs Extensible Markup Language, a computer language that allows
companies’ proprietary computer systems to communicate better with each other
than through HTML, the main computing language for the Web, or the older EDI
(Electronic Data Exchange) standard.

“We see two major benefits to advertisers here,” said Ken Kucera, Mediaplex
vice president of strategic business development. “First, the ability to more
efficiently and accurately issue insertion orders online for an Internet
advertising campaign and, perhaps more importantly, to transmit change orders
in real time.

“If a company runs out of inventory on an advertised product, it
can take up to two or three days for every Web site in the campaign to
respond to the faxed change orders. This can result in
lost business as well as lost credibility with online customers.”

Mediaplex and Ariba said they are working together to make adXML an open
standard, and are sponsoring an adXML.org Web site to provide
more information.