Khayam and his company are located in the UK.

Vince Panero (VP): How did you get interested in web publishing originally? What were those early days like for you?

Khayam Iftikhar: GeoCities! I just opened my email account with Yahoo when I got an invitation to build my own homepage. A few drag and drops later, I was the most famous kid in my college. In those early days it was all about experimentation, being cool, etc. until one of my sites took off and became one of the top 5 sites in UK for free sms .

VP: Can you tell us about your websites? How would you describe your focus/business model? And are there any particular issues exclusive to your site that you had to overcome to make the advertising model work?

Khayam Iftikhar: My main focus at the moment is on FreeOnlineGames.com. I am from the old school, we like to keep it simple, and by that I mean content is king.

VP: Did you get into this with the idea that you would make ad dollars from this site? How did you initially monetize your site? What problems did you encounter utilizing these early methods?

Khayam Iftikhar: We were serious about making money from day one, hence a substantial investment to acquire the right domain name was necessary. In those early days our ad inventory was not 100% sold and if it was sold, it was not getting sold at the price.

VP: Why did you start using Direct Media Exchange as your ad management platform of choice?

Khayam Iftikhar: We originally signed up due to the concept RMX was offering: in the way the platform automatically searches for the best price and sells at the highest possible cpm. It is just common sense for us…and we have been waiting for something like this a for long time.

VP: What statistical changes have you seen since you started using it? For example, have your eCPM and revenue increased?

Khayam Iftikhar: For the inventory DMX has been able to sell, our ecpm’s have doubled …and I mean at least doubled.

VP: What do you like most about Direct Media Exchange? Are there helpful parts of it that other ad management interfaces simply don’t offer? And how does it address the specific needs of your website’s unique niche?

Khayam Iftikhar: The in-depth geo-analysis. This enables us to know what we are earning in each country: I do not know of any other platform that offers this. As far as DMX fulfilling the specific needs of FreeOnlineGames.com and the fact that we are such a large site, I would not go as far to say that we have solved all of our advertising concerns, no. However, Direct Media Exchange has opened us up to allot to more advertisers, and that has enabled us to monetize a segment of our inventory that was previously undersold.

VP: Do you have any tips or tricks that you think others using the exchange might find useful?

Khayam Iftikhar: Use the Manage tab feature and bring your existing networks on board, making it easier to manage from one interface.

VP: Do you have any final thoughts on this “exchange concept” (network transparency and competition, the utility of having just one login, etc.)?

Khayam Iftikhar: Invite more ad networks to come onboard. Consolidate the payments. Allow publishers to view each advertiser/campaign.

VP: Khayam, thanks for being one of our Direct Media Exchange members.