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:

Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 16)

The discussion below is more specific to my own blog, and since I happen to be an Adify customer, I asked Russ some details about what are some of my options – current and future. I choose to publish it because I am sure there are other bloggers out there who would find this information

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 15)

Strategy, market opportunity identification, positioning … all this good stuff apart, a successful ad network would require Adify to be able to execute in conjunction with the large media companies at many more levels of operational excellence. There, as per my own experience, so far, both Adify and Washington Post are only moderately acceptable. By

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 14)

SM: Are you getting the visibility at the right level of executive sponsorship at these large media companies? RF: I can tell you there are a lot of very senior folks at Washington Post that I have personally met. Beyond just them, deciding to build a network is a very important decision for a brand.

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 12)

We concluded the last segment on the note that amongst Adify’s noble mission is to free the bloggers from the clutches of Google AdSense, which really abuses them. (I am only half kidding … the title of this series is deliberate, and on topic.) SM: What kind of CPM rates are you seeing? I know

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 11)

We left off at the point where I concluded that there is no network out there with any business ad inventory except FM. SM: Part of my problem is that the Washington Post talked me into signing up, but they have no business ad inventory. RF: Well, start your own! Actually, I would never talk

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Monetizing Blogs via Ad Networks

We have spent a few weeks discussing online advertising and ad networks with the CEO of Adify. In this post, let’s take a look at how blogs would be able to leverage quality ad networks. Today, the notion of ‘A-List’ bloggers depends on 2 things: (a) Traffic (b) Content. Often, you find blogs with high

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Defying Google: Adify CEO, Russ Fradin (Part 8)

SM: You are then providing the ad network infrastructure to these aggregators? RF. Yes, we are a technology and services platform that allows any network operator to build and maintain their own highly targeted ad network. If we had existed back in 2004 our pitch to FM would have been that instead of spending millions

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