Online advertising is hot. Media firms’ inventories are constrained. At the same time, they don’t want to drive their costs through the roof by hiring people to write content no one might visit. Meanwhile, many long-tail bloggers starve while waiting to be discovered.
Thinking one move ahead: media firms will set up semi-branded blog platforms for their readers. Each blog, offered at a steeply discounted price or even for free, will include ads and affiliate links. Initially these will be limited to links to the media firms’ own properties in other print, TV, radio, mobile, etc. channels. But as certain blogs become popular, it will be more valuable to sell the ad space on them to other advertisers.
Why will bloggers migrate to these platforms? At first, because they identify with the media firm’s brand. Also because the media firms will make the migration simple. Later, because of the media firms’ promises to feature “posts of the day” – fame and traffic as compensation. And, maybe because they figure they might get a better deal than AdSense provides.
Smart media firms will limit offering blogs to folks who are frequent, high-quality participants in their forums. Constraining blogs on the supply side will be better for users, who will only encounter good ones, and it will be good for the media firm, which will encourage more high-quality posts on their forums by users hoping to be "discovered".
A new Forrester Research report suggests marketers focus on ad targeting and forget RSS, blogs and podcasting for the time being.
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