Everybody who's anybody has had an online-advertising exchange since the spring of 2007, when Google announced it would acquire DoubleClick and Yahoo overpaid for Right Media. AOL's advertising network, Platform-A, is finally catching up. Today it announced BidPlace, which top exec Lynda Clarizio told PaidContent will launch next year. How it works:AOL will make some of its ad-banner space and partner sites' inventory up for bid in an online auction. Advertisers will be able to make cost-per-impression, cost-per-click, and cost-per-action bids. The good news for advertisers looking for cheaper alternatives in a tough economy — such as General Motors, which just announced it plans to cut online ad spending — is that the process will remove costly "friction" from the ad-buying process. The bad news for publishers: "Friction" is another word for "profit." Another concern: Allowing advertisers to buy space on their sites through ad networks will discourage them from developing relationshps with their highly paid salespeople.

Since it acquired Tacoda last summer, AOL has done little with it but push top executives out of the company. 97 employees came over in the buy. Today, only 35 remain. The most notable departure was former Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz, whom AOL promoted to head its advertising business, Platform-A. Viebranz was fired only five months later. Lynda Clarizio, the head of Advertising.com, AOL's online ad-network unit, took his job. And so it's no surprise that when VentureBeat intercepted an email from AOL to Tacoda clients, canceling all contracts within the next 30 days, that the blog jumped to conclusions and assumed Advertising.com stalwarts had finally had their way, killing Tacoda and its tech once and for all. A very juicy story indeed. Too bad it turned out not to be the case.When PaidContent reached Platform-A boss Lynda Clarizio on the train home from work, she said AOL only made the move to rationalize the division's contracts with publishers. After the integration, Tacoda's behavioral-targeting tech will be Platform-A's behavioral targeting tech. A single contract will let AOL fill ads spots it can't sell via Tacoda with Advertising.com's remnant ads, but CPM rates should stay the same, Clarizio said. Clarizio and other Advertising.com insiders opposed the Tacoda acquisition, believing their behavioral-targeting technology could command a similar lift in ad rates, so there's some pride-swallowing being done here. But the ouster of Tacoda's executives and the neutron-bomb elimination of two-thirds of its staff should salve that wound. Since we made the guess that Clarizio might be the a candidate to take charge of Microsoft's online division, insiders have laughed it off. Clarizio's a lawyer by training, they note — the ultimate diss in the tech world. But if this kind of inwardly directed knife-sharpening isn't what's called for in Redmond, we don't know what is.

Former AOL CEO Jon Miller, reportedly Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's favorite to lead the company's new online division, withdrew his name from consideration yesterday because he'll soon be joining Yahoo's board. So if not Miller, who's going to take on the task of saving Microsoft by building its presence on the Web? The top names under consideration:

AOL's dirty dealings are all in the past, right? With the SEC filing charges against eight former AOL Time Warner execs for their roles in inflating AOL's online ad revenue between 2000 and 2002, that's no doubt what present management would like you to think. Former head of business affairs David Colburn, former controller James MacGuidwin, and two others agreed to settlements and will pay back all ill-gotten gains with interest. The four others — former division CFOs John Michael Kelly and Joseph Ripp, executive Steven Rindner, and accountant Mark Wovsaniker — will contest the SEC's charges. The charges stem from an investigation the Washington Post began in 2002, which revealed that as it merged with Time Warner, AOL's business-affairs group completed a series of unconventional deals in order to boost its online ad sales numbers. In July 2002, the Post reported:

Here's AOL ad network Platform-A's new logo. According to president Lynda Clarizio, it "communicates our distinct competitive advantage of scale and reach." The real message: The new logo brands Platform-A as distinct from AOL. Why? Clarizio is AOL's seventh advertising boss since 2001. The turmoil has not helped AOL rebuild relationships with Madison Avenue. The result: AOL has reported traffic to its websites was up 15 percent, and ComScore says its ad network reached 91 percent of the U.S. Internet audience in March. And yet analysts expect AOL's advertising revenues for the first quarter to be flat or down. A fresh start may help, but it won't solve AOL's problems.

AOL will layoff "less than 500" from its Platform-A advertising division starting today. The severance packages "stink," a source tells Silicon Alley Insider . AOL calls the cuts an ongoing "alignment," not a layoff, and suggests the number headed for the street is closer to 100.

AOL moved into its new New York headquarters today, and new ad boss Lynda Clarizio has roped Verizon into paying a portion of the lease. The companies announced a deal today that will make AOL's Platform-A the exclusive manager of Verizon's Web and wireless ads. That inventory includes 94 million pageviews a month. It's Clarizio's first big deal after replacing Curt Viebranz in an internal coup earlier this year. He was the the sixth advertising chief at AOL since 2001. But should we be that impressed?

When new AOL ad boss Lynda Clarizio replaced Curt Viebranz, his head was the sixth to roll at AOL since 2001. Viebranz followed Myer Berlow, Robert Friedman, Robert Sherman, Lisa Brown and Michael Kelly. Three lasted less than a year. None of them succeeded, according to Bits, because AOL's reputation on Madison Avenue remains tattered from the pre-merger days when Berlow and former AOL CEO Bob Pittman would spurn agencies to work directly with marketers, locking them into long-term deals at inflated prices. Take heed, Google's Tim Armstrong. (Photo by macloo)

With Curt Viebranz out, AOL's new advertising boss Lynda Clarizio plans to integrate the Time Warner subsidiary's various ad sales teams — those from acquisitions Tacoda and Quigo, for example — into one. That will create redundancies which Clarizio plans to handle by axing about half of AOL's sales force, Silicon Alley Insider reports. Top executives at Advertising.com will fill new roles running all of advertising for AOL.