WebProNews

The broadening growth of Fox Interactive Media's many properties has prompted News Corp to prepare FIM Serve, an online ad network, for deployment in and out of the company's Internet reach.

As those who have followed the saga of Google bidding $3.1 billion to acquire DoubleClick know, Google has billed the deal as one that brings companies with vastly different ad operations together. Google does search ads, DoubleClick does display ads, so the FTC and the European Competition Commission should not have a problem.

Google's favorite mantra may come back to haunt them, as it appears Rupert Murdoch and FIM president Peter Levinsohn realize the old rule about playing with house money applies to Internet advertising just as it does at the casinos. Levinsohn told Reuters Media Summit attendees that FIM Serve, an in-house display ad network, was under construction:

"Ultimately we'll take the company off network and become an ad network for assets outside of the News Corporation empire."

"It could happen as early as the first half of next year," he said. "We're ready to go ... we're starting to have conversations outside now."

Levinsohn also said FIM Serve would not conflict with their Google deal, citing the separation of graphical display and contextual search advertising. That could be news to Google, which obviously hopes to do more display ads with DoubleClick's network than it currently achieves through its AdSense network.

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