Deal Radar 2008: BlogHer

Founded in 2005, BlogHer is the leading women’s blogging community and ad network. Elisa Camahort Page, Jory des Jardins, and Lisa Stone joined hands to launch a company which aimed at popularizing blogs written by women. The site offers women an opportunity to get their voices heard and for those who opt for the ad

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How Rafat Ali Found a Job (Part 3)

SM: Did you go to Silicon Alley Reporter for the magazine or the website? RA: When I joined the magazine was shut down, so I wrote for the website. I did daily stories. This was in 2002, which is also when I started paidContent.org.

How Rafat Ali Found a Job (Part 1)

Rafat Ali is a journalist, pioneering blogger, and entrepreneur. Editor & Publisher has called Rafat “journalism’s poster boy for career independence from news companies”. I am very pleased to share his story of persistence and success. SM: Where are you from? Where did you grow up? RA: I was born in the UK, but my

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Top 8 Blog-related Startups

Blogs have clearly turned the media industry upside down,, with many providing coverage superior to that of newspapers and television. While most of them read poorly, some are excellent, and these are monetizing by quality ad networks with their content and traffic. Here are eight players in the blogosphere worth watching:

Deal Radar 2008: PaidContent

PaidContent—the flagship site of ContentNext Media Inc.— is a blog site that covers news on media related technology worldwide. It was founded by editor and publisher Rafat Ali in 2002 in a bid to raise his personal profile and find a new job. Four years later Ali made PaidContent a business and founded ContentNext Media,

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Blog Monetization via Vertical Ad Networks

I have recently signed up to be part of a vertical ad network to be launched in a few weeks by a major business media company. The network is accepting additional blogs and will be using their sales force and advertiser relationships to sell ads on bloggers’ sites that are chosen to be part of

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Did Digg Just Dump FM?

Digg has announced a deal with Microsoft. In a big win, Microsoft will manage their ad inventory as exclusive provider of banner, display and paid search advertising, replacing Federated Media and Google. FM will continue to provide other types of advertising on Digg, including integrated campaigns and sponsorships. What are we seeing here? Is FM

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