Blogs Provide More Personal Medium For Advertisers

Led by Jupiter Media's Gary Stein, the ad:tech Chicago 2005 panel entitled "Blogevertising, RSS and Podcasting Opportunities for Marketers," provided session attendees with an overview of how blogs can be used as an advertising medium. Weblogs Inc. President Shawn Gold began with a bit of blogging 101 explaining that blogs are an empowering and efficient means through which marketers cab deliver advertising. Along with blog publishers, blog advertisers benefit from weblog's propensity to climb high in search results for topics covered on a given blog thereby helping to insure increased, targeted eyeballs for blog advertisers.

Gold reviewed the many forms of weblog advertising which include tradition website banner advertising but also extend to paid editorial, rss-embedded ads, podcast ads and focus ads which allow people to leave comments about an ad. Importantly, Gold noted that ads appearing below the fold actually performed better than those above the fold on Weblogs Inc. weblogs and advertorials performed 2 to 10 times better than banner ads.

Next up, BlogAds Founder Henry Copeland describe the BlogAds advertising network and it's 17 targeted mini-networks which consist of topically similar weblogs packaged and a small ad network. Copeland asked the audience to participate in a clapping exercise whereby the audience began clapping and then moved to a rhythmic clap demonstrating how big media isn't needed any longer to control how information and conversations take place on the internet. Blogs have removed much of the control big media has enjoyed for years and has placed it squarely in the hands of the individual.

Copeland further described the differences between blogs and big media by comparing traits. Where big media is a billboard, blogs are a cocktail party. A corporate voice become a human voice, static moves to evolving, boilerplated content moves to intriguing content, shouting turns to talking and listening, and where big media considers any eyeball a good eyeball, blogs offer focused eyeballs.

Online Tonite's David Lawrence explained podcasting to the audience and how it may even be more "real" than blogging because it is harder to edit. It's more like stream of conscious thinking.