Blogging For Ad Dollars: Mainstream Advertisers Sign On; Not All Ads Are Obvious

I’m considering a pool for the number of stories yet to be published discovering blogging as a business and/or an ad vehicle. The NYT had two in the last few days and our former Inside.com colleague Greg Lindsay popped up with one at B2.0…. :

Blogs woo advertisers away from old media: Blogs are a new frontier for advertisers seeking nontraditional ways to get messages across, preferably with lots of bang for the buck. Budget used 177 blogs for a $20,000 scavenger hunt campaign; by first count, they delivered 19.9 million impressions resulting in about 60,000 click-throughs. Budget execs say they’ll go to blogs again even though they’re not sure how to judge the metrics. What the column doesn’t say is how much the bloggers made. Jeff Jarvis estimates he took in about $100 and decided to raise his rates.

As Corporate Ad Money Flows Their Way, Bloggers Risk Their Rebel Reputation: Companies are willing to pay for access in a variety of ways. USWeb is paying some 5,000 bloggers $5 to mention a company or link to a site; not everyone acknowledges the pay for play but USWeb is preparing guidelines suggesting they do so. The story says Weblogs Inc. will make a few million this year, mentions that the 140 bloggers are paid by how often they write but doesn’t say how much of that money trickles down to the bloggers.

Blogs finally get business savvy: “The problem now may be that blogging has too many business models to choose from.” Still trying to figure out when multiple opportunities became a problem. Last time I checked this wasn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition.

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