OPEN

I’ll be frank that advertising is not top of mind for me a lot of the time.  I’m in the earned attention trade, but for publishers large and small how to work with advertisers in more sensible, often more contextual, ways is very important.

But I should probably pay it more attention.Very interested to note Adify’s model for ad networks being picked up in the UK – because it sounds like advertising and publishing taking a networks-based view of how to be effective.

The way that it works is that major publishers can plug into networks of high quality niche publishers and bloggers around topic areas. The Washington Post is a client of Adify and, for instance, and has “blogroll” networks around its finance, green, small business, technology and travel sections that advertisers could also take space on.

I hear that the Guardian will be taking this model up in the UK soon. Often the leader in online publishing here, I expect that others will follow their lead soon.

The intelligent thing about mainstream publishers doing this is recognising that they are prominent players in broader networks, communities of interest. They can be useful in the networks not just by supplying useful content but with business models that support other players.

It moves them away from viewing bloggers and niche publishers as competitors and toward seeing them as valuable bits of a rich ecosystem of information, knowledge and conversations.

Media buying agencies may also want to take note of publishers partly disintermediating them in this way too…

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