Senior Skype Executive Appointed CEO Of Openads

James Bilefield Brings Experience Building a Global Internet Business to a Company Changing the Way Publishers Think About Online Advertising

London (PRWEB) July 5, 2007 -- Openads, the developer of a free, open source adserver used by more than 20,000 publishers in 140 countries, today announced the appointment of James Bilefield as CEO. Bilefield comes to Openads from positions at two of the world's top Internet companies, Skype and Yahoo!. At Openads, Bilefield will focus on rapidly scaling and enhancing the publisher community, accelerating product development and overseeing the global expansion of the business.

"As the Openads community continues to expand and we work hard to deliver the functionality that our publishers are asking for, it becomes necessary to have a seasoned industry executive like James leading the company," said Scott Switzer, founder of Openads. "He knows how to guide a quickly growing company with a global footprint, and understands the world of online advertising. This combination is invaluable."

Bilefield brings more than 15 years of entrepreneurial, management and media experience to Openads. He was one of the early team members at Skype where, as the company's first vice president, he led the global business development team to build a broad, world-class ecosystem of partners and closely advised the company's overall strategy. As general manager of European operations, he oversaw the rapid growth of the revenue and customer base of Skype's largest geography at a critical time of its growth.

Before Skype, Bilefield spent five years at Yahoo!, where he served as managing director of both consumer and network services across Europe. He ran the regional communication, broadband, community and content businesses, and oversaw the acquisition of Kelkoo. This background gives Bilefield deep and valuable insight into the online advertising market, experience which he will now apply at Openads. Previous positions include CEO and co-founder of UpMyStreet.com, an online local information company, and vice president for the investment banking division of JP Morgan Chase.

"I am really impressed by the traction Openads has gained at this early point in the company's history," said James Bilefield, CEO of Openads. "Without any serious financing or marketing, they've built a large, passionate and global community with more publishers than all other competitors have combined. I am excited about jumping in to help the company sustain and channel this unbelievable momentum."

Openads is a fast-growing, early stage company that is disrupting an established market by putting control in the hands of its users. The company, with the support of a vocal community and network of Open Source developers gives publishers the independence and power to create solutions that specifically suits their needs. By offering the technology for free and allowing publishers to work with many ad networks, Openads also helps them make more money by decreasing overall costs.

Also today, Openads announced the beta version of Openads 2.3. The new version will offer publishers greater power and simplicity, easier integration with established ad platforms and technologies, enhanced targeting and campaign management and improved reporting (see separate release issued today by Openads). Further information about Openads products and community can be found on the Openads blog: http://blog.openads.org/

About Openads

Based in London, England, Openads (www.openads.org) is disrupting the global online advertising industry by offering publishers a simple, independent and reliable way to decrease their costs and increase their revenues. The company provides for free its sophisticated, open source ad serving software, giving site owners everything they need to generate more money from their websites. Already used by more than 20,000 publishers in 140 countries around the globe, Openads offers complete control of banners and campaigns along with a highly sophisticated tracking and stats system, all controlled from a simple screen interface. Openads is backed by leading investors including First Round Capital, Index Ventures, Mangrove Ventures and O'Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures.

For more information contact:

(US) Diane Schreiber, Sparkpr

+1-415-321-1871

or

(UK) Rachel Bremer, Sparkpr

+44 (0)779 551 8335

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