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Richard and I attended the launch party for the Olive Canada Network last night.  They seem to have been preparing in stealth because up until I got there, I didn’t know what the network was and couldn’t find anything online.  From my casual conversation with people, it seemed I was not alone in my ignorance.  Now I know a bit anyway (it was more of a party than an information session). So…

What is the Olive Canada Network?

Well TorStar Digital has acquired Performer Media.  Performer was a small ad network that focused on selling the Canadian ad inventory on US sites.  We worked a little bit with them around the launch of PriceCanada.com last fall.  The Olive Canada Network is a combination of that inventory and expertise with the inventory and expertise of TorStar Digital.  So the ad network will rep all of TorStar’s sites (Workopolis, Toronto.com, etc) as well as the Canadian inventory for sites like CNet and Maxim.com.

It’s an interesting business model and there hasn’t really been any major competition in the Canadian ad network world for a while (we hear rumblings from American networks all of the time, but rarely anything concrete) so things could get very exciting.