Technorati Acquires AdEngage - Launches Self-Service Advertising Network
Blog search engine Technorati today announced that it has acquired AdEngage, a small, Los Angeles-based online advertising network. Technorati launched its own ad network in June, but focused mostly on large, high-traffic sites. Now, Technorati will release a new advertising network on top of the AdEngage platform which will be open to all publishers who fulfill Technorati's basic quality standards. AdEngage will continue to exist as a standalone business, while the newly created Technorati Engage will focus only on blogs and social media sites.
AdEngage was founded in 2004 and, according to Technorati, serves more than 12 billion ads on over 4,000 sites each year.
It's important to point out that a large part of AdEngage's business comes from adult sites (2112 out of 3577 currently active sites are classified as adult). This is probably the main reason why Technorati decided to let AdEngage continue to operate under its own name for now.
Self-Serve Advertising
Technorati will first launch the new advertising network as a private alpha, focusing mostly on text ads. Next month, the site will launch publicly and Technorati will add 125x125 image ads as well.
Bloggers are always looking for new ways to monetize their traffic and having another option from a large and respected company like Technorati should draw in quite a few publishers. Most small blogs currently rely on Google AdSense for their income, but a lot of bloggers have also been complaining about the low income they receive from running these ads. Judging from what we have seen so far, Technorati's offering might be a compelling alternative to Google's AdSense, especially for smaller sites.
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This is an interesting move by technorati. The 125x125 format will be more popular than other formats, because a large number of blogs have the space to fill this format. Text ad space is already occupied by the leader, Adsense.
What are they be thinking? I wonder why they bought a porn ad business, when they could have bought or partnered with so many higher quality blog ad networks -- that already exist... probably was a cheap buy.
Blogads - for opinion makers - Blog advertising makes opinions
Entrecard -- doing awesome
ShoppingAds
Smorty - http://www.smorty.com/
Or partnered with...
SixApart Media - probably the best in the biz
Text Link Ads -- highest paying competitor to AdSense
Crispads.com - Blog Advertising Network
FeedBurner - FeedBurner (Google) Ads for Blogs and Feeds
Quigo -- real threat to Google
I certainly hope that two things come from the purchase.
1. I hope that John Marston is fired. He is the worst program director in the history of the internet.
2. I hope that Technorati stops the blatant click fraud that has been the hallmark of Adengage.