Google Competitor AppNexus Grabs Another Googler (By Way of Nielsen)

AppNexus, the start-up that’s trying to help Microsoft build a competitor to Google’s display advertising business, has added another Googler to its team.

You can’t say that AppNexus poached Ari Paparo from Google, because his last job was at Nielsen, where he spent the last nine months. But prior to that, he put in a total of five years as a product head at DoubleClick, the display ad giant, and Google, which bought DoubleClick in 2008.

At DoubleClick/Google, Paparo headed the teams for “buy-side” products–the ones aimed at advertisers and agencies. At AppNexus, he’ll join former colleague Michael Rubenstein, now president at AppNexus.

Google and AppNexus are now both commercial partners and competitors, because, among other things, AppNexus is trying to help Microsoft build a business to compete with Google’s AdExchange.