It’s been a interesting few last couple of years for Technorati. Despite being a fairly highly trafficked site, hiring an able CEO, and plowing through VC money round after round, it has failed to get anywhere. In its latest ploy, Technorati unveiled yesterday the launch of Technorati Media — a longtail ad network for bloggers and publishers.
Bloggers and publishers can apply to be a part of their network, and most blogs will be accepted. Like any other traditional blog network, they can then place the JavaScript code onto their websites and start serving ads. And again, like any other blog network, Technorati relies on their sales team to connected these blogs with the best advertisers.
It’s apparent by Technorati’s move that blog ad networks, not blog search engines, is where the money is. When it first launched, the idea of finding the conversation happening at this minute seemed whelming to a lot of people and it seemed this is where the industry was going. But soon, it became apparent: who else would possible have a use for a blog search engine than bloggers themselves? (a small minority of Internet users).
With Technorati Media, the still-fledgling startup aims to compete with established ad networks at AdBrite, BlogAds, and FederatedMedia. As their mission goes, “Technorati collects, organizes, and distributes the global online conversation.” What it leaves out is that to make their money, they look to providing small money-generating bloggers traditional ads for “social media”-buzzword-crazy advertisers. Will it work? We shall see.
