The acquistion of Adify by the cable provider Cox Communications for $300 million is a reminder of the value of online ad networks to traditional media companies. The deal comes after a series of buys that's seen Blue Lithium, Tacoda and DoubleClick get snapped up online giants Yahoo, AOL and Google and aQuantive taken out by Microsoft. The emergence of Cox as a buyer suggests that some of the remaining independent ad networks could see higher takeover valuations with another bidder at the table. In this interview, Onset Ventures founder Terry Opdendyk talks about the trend and what's coming next for online advetising -- behavioral targeting and placement without the use of tags. Opdendyk's partner, Raman Khanna, spoke to us a few weeks back about early ... [ Read more ]