AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Forbes Plans 400-Member Financial Ad Network; Viacom Forming Ad Nets For Music, Male Lifestyle - paidContent.org

Forbes Inc. has ambitious plans for an ad network with about 400 financial blogs as members, according to AP. The financial news media company is expected to release more details about its Forbes’ Business and Financial Blog Network on Monday, though it did say that the first participants include Xconomy and TalkingBizNews.

The company also said that it will handle ad sales across the sites with a system powered by San Bruno, CA-based Adify. And, as a way of perhaps lowering expectations, Forbes is shooting for an early revenue increase of 10 percent to 15 percent from the venture, even with the addition of hundreds of bloggers.

– Contextually, the AP places the news about the Forbes’ financial ad ad network within a larger of piece that questions the competitive abilities of independent ad networks run by media companies like CondeNet, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO), Nickelodeon’s ParentsConnect Network, CBS’ (NYSE: CBS) network of local TV station sites, and the Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) (which, as the AP noted, ended its 16-member network this month, but plans to run feeds with ContentNext Media, paidContent’s parent, and others). The question: whether the creation of vertical ad networks can match the leverage of ad serving offerings by Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and AOL? The standard answer that smaller networks can more effectively target specific audiences came from Steve Woit, publisher of Xconomy, who told the AP: “A larger network, whether it’s Google or others, has to deal with every industry and large consumer sites.”

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