Six Apart Builds Blog Ad Network From Scratch

Six Apart launched a social media platform that the company wants to use to build a conglomeration of individual bloggers and corporation-run community networks that it will use to create a blog advertising network.

The company announced the acquisition of Apperceptive, a largely open source Web development company that builds community networks for companies. The deal gives Six Apart access to dozens of blog-based networks established at larger media companies such as Condé Nast, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Reuters.

That network -- Six Apart Media -- will become part of a larger advertising network, allowing companies and individuals to pool their collective advertising inventory. The company expects its experience and knowledge in the blogging arena will give participants a leg up when it comes to monetizing its blogs and online networks.

Legitimize and Monetize

Monday's announcements, along with the company's recent release of BlogIt, a software application that enables users to cross-post information on Facebook, is part of its move to legitimize -- and monetize -- blogging.

"But this is also about showing that, even five years after we dedicated ourselves to the idea of building a company that makes great blogging tools, we're more passionate than ever about the power of blogging," the executives wrote on the company blog, announcing the social media and advertising networks.

Aggregating Eyeballs

Ad networks are the flavor du jour for media companies looking to expand the reach of their current advertising. By aggregating similar content in one place, the networks can pull together large numbers of page views that are easier to sell to large companies.

For bloggers and Six Apart Media, this creates a great business opportunity -- in theory.

Not all ad networks are alike, however. For advertisers, aggregation isn't the Holy Grail. Influence is. Those blogs and Web sites that both reach the most people and have the most people reading are economically worth more.

Finding the Influence

BuzzLogic is a media tracking software that allows companies to identify which blogs, Web sites and writers have the most reach in terms of a product by mapping not only ingoing and outgoing links, but also by tracking the type of content created, Todd Parsons, BuzzLogic cofounder and chief product office, told the E-Commerce Times.

Parsing out those with influence would, at first blush, seem to negate the impact of ad networks such as Six Apart Media. Not so, says Parsons. The network is the driving force behind finding those influential people.

"The cool thing now, by partnering with certain ad networks, we get access to certain influential people, we have the ability to call out the influences and advertise only there instead of broadly across these networks," said Parsons.