Last summer Washington Post launched a blog ad network called “Sponsored Blogroll”, to help WaPo online advertisers find blogs to advertise on, and in return, blogs got shared-revenues as well as links from WaPo website. Now some further results and expansion of the effort, still among the only of its kind among major news companies.
The network, which launches with Lufthansa as an initial sponsor of its travel-centric blogs, will generate exposure for participating sites through rotating spots on the WashingtonPost.com home page. For now it has signed up 100 blogs (list here) in this program, but is considering increasing it up to 1500.
Adify, the company managing this network, believes that it can get up to $8-10 CPM on these blogs, much above the general ad networks. Still early days, though, plus lots of competition, both established and other upstarts.