Weblogs Inc are taking blog advertising in a new direction with their Focus Ads which invite their readers to leave a comment on advertisers (you can see one here). Its an interesting concept that they are promoting as adding to their transparency in advertising. Here’s what they say about it.
‘Weblogs, Inc. Focus Ads are meant to create transparency in advertising — helping our readers to gain insight and helping our advertisers to create a better product or service. Our advertisers participate because they believe in their brands and are willing to improve them through the feedback of enthusiasts.’
So far the concept on the Grifffin technologies feedback page seems to be pretty positive but I guess time will tell whether advertisers actually want the feedback and whether readers can be bothered giving it.
It also has the subtle effect of getting people to focus more on ads (whether they’re griping about them or not, it’s getting more attention than otherwise).
Its also a good way to collect info about your demographic. :)
Kuro5hin (http://kuro5hin.org) has been doing something similar with their user submitted text ads for years.