So it really does seem like the worlds of search and online marketing are growing. Another vertical search has emerged, and their has to do with the advertising industry. However, they seem to have no interest in affiliate marketers whatsoever.

The search engine Balihoo focuses on the media planning and buying industry. This means that they help large colume advertisers (such as agencies) find channels across the gamut of media which to reach their target audiences. As the press release explains:

Boise, Idaho (PRWEB) September 11, 2007 -- Balihoo Inc., developer of the advertising industry's first and only vertical search engine for advertising media, announced today that it has expanded its Beta Program to include media companies.

Launched in June, the Beta Program previously was open only to media buying firms, advertising agencies and major national advertisers. [...]

The Balihoo search engine enables advertisers and agencies to search for media properties that are most relevant to their advertising campaigns, to gather and analyze information about those properties and interact with media owners to build and execute media plans. Balihoo works across geographies and on any media type including TV, radio, print, interactive and out-of-home.

There is, no doubt, a demand for some kind of online brokerage infrastructure to align advertisers with publishers and broadcasters. In fact, it's startling to see offline advertising being courted by a search engine -- something that is traditionally an adserver itself.

The range of functionality, however, remains a mystery. As the engine is still in private beta, public users cannot access its interface. Signing up for the service, moreover, is a moderated affair. After having undergone the registration process, I was directed to a landing page with the the following message:

Thank you for confirming your email. You will be considered for a Balihoo account in the near future. Should your request be approved, you will receive an email with your access information.

What would make this service widely appealing, however, is if there were some kind of cross-channel campaign planning interface. For example, if advertisers are able to use Balihoo to unroll and monitor campaigns across the gamut of media -- i.e. online portals, radio stations, and TV networks. This degree of functionality, of course, would challenging to establish, and require a all registered parties (advertisers and publishers) to have accounts. Indeed, such functionality would be tantamount to the eBay of advertising. Then again, this may be precisely why Balihoo is still in such private beta.