CBS is doing something very interesting for a traditional media company: it’s targeting blogs with a content widget and sharing revenue from associated advertising. The company is building a local ad network that will be rolled out in all of CBS local TV affiliate markets.
Here’s an example from one of the participating blogs:
There’s news (including video in the future) and a graphical ad. (The ad above is contextually targeted to the site.) If users click on the news links they go to the CBS affiliate site (where there’s another ad page view).
It’s an interesting and smart move for CBS, which is screening the participating blogs — so it’s not a true replacement for something like AdSense. CBS builds a local ad network to extend its reach, while helping drive additional traffic and page views on its affiliate sites. The blogs get some money, depending on traffic, and some locally relevant content.
Newspapers and yellow pages publishers should also be syndicating content more aggressively, beyond big publishers, and sharing revenue with third parties like this. Yell is doing something like this in the UK.
Here’s more from AP.
Screenwerk 