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Openads (previously known as phpAdsNew) is an open-source advertising server (written in PHP using the MySQL database) licensed under the GNU General Public License. It provides an integrated banner management interface and tracking system for gathering statistics. With Openads you may rotate paid banners and in-house advertisements, show banners from third party advertising companies, and target banners to specific users based on criteria like IP address, domain, keywords, date/time, language, or location.
Developer(s) | Openads |
---|---|
Stable release | 2.0.11
|
Preview release | 2.3.31-pr2
|
Platform | Cross-platform |
Available in | Multilingual |
Type | Banner Management |
License | Open Source GPL |
Website | http://www.openads.org |
History
editOpenads is a combination of 3 Open Source projects: phpAdsNew, phpPgAds and MaxMediaManager.
PhpAdsNew
editIn 1998 Tobias Ratschiller created phpMyAdmin, a PHP tool to administer MySQL databases. Afterwards, Tobias launched more projects, like phpIRC, phpChat, phpPolls and phpAds. After a year and four releases, Tobias' development of phpAds slowed due to a lack of time to focus on the project.
Meanwhile, the community of phpAds users were still requesting new features and modifying the code themselves. Wim Godden decided to take lead of the phpAds project and hence phpAdsNew was born, building on the phpAds source code.
Wim worked on adding new features and fixing the remaining issues. Between 2000 and 2001, phpAds 1.4 grew into phpAdsNew 1.5 and kept evolving into phpAdsNew 1.8. A number of other developers like Phil Hord and Niels Leenheer joined the project and added their own new features. After the release of phpAdsNew 1.9 the developers really felt the project needed refactoring in order to become a mature ad server.
Niels led the development of phpAdsNew 2, which featured a revised graphical interface and large number of new features. Matteo Beccati created phpPgAds, a PostgreSQL port of phpAdsNew, and afterwards joined the phpAdsNew project. Stefan Morgenroth contributed his own continuation of the phpAds project, which he called phpAdsPlus. A number of features found in phpAdsPlus, such as Flash support, were quickly marged into phpAdsNew 2.
MaxMediaManager
editIn December of 2003, Scott Switzer created a branch of the phpAdsNew project called MaxMediaManager. The goal of MaxMediaManager was to create a more scalable version of phpAdsNew with support for Server clustering. MaxMediaManager is now able to support up to 30 million ad deliveries per day, while phpAdsNew had a limit closer to 1 million.
MaxMediaManager also added the ability for conversion tracking and separate Advertising agency logins. Conversion tracking is the ability to identify which ads lead to a sale.
Openads
editIn November of 2006, phpAdsNew and MaxMediaManager decided to join their community efforts together under one name: Openads. phpAdsNew became Openads 2.0 while MaxMediaManager became Openads 2.3. phpPgAds is known as Openasd 2.0-pgsql.
At this time, Openads 2.0 is considered the stable release of Openads, while Openads 2.3 is considered to be in the Alpha Development stage. Openads 2.0 continues to be maintained and new features are added as the community requests them. Openads 2.3 is the development branch which is continuously updated with new features. It is considered production ready but requires advanced technical knowledge in order to properly install and maintain. Development is underway to allow for seamless upgrading from Openads 2.0 to Openads 2.3. A beta release of Openads is planned for June, according to the Openads roadmap.
Features
editOpenads 2.0
edit- Serve and track multiple types of banners (text ads, pop-ups, images, flash files, and more)
- Automatically convert Flash banners and Google AdSense code to allow for click tracking
- Target banners by keyword, IP address, domain, day of the week, time of day, language, browser, operating system, or location.
- Advertisers and Publishers can view statistics of banner performance
Openads 2.3
editOpenads 2.3 builds on Openads 2.0 and includes:
- Permits Agency-level management log-in
- Conversion tracking
- Support for click-tracking of 3rd-Party tags from specific networks like: AdSense, Atlas, Doubleclick, Eyeblaster, Tango Zebra, more..
- Ability to deliver up to 30 million ads per day, depending on server setup