How’s Technorati Media Doing?

Last summer Technorati launched an ad network, Technorati Media. In just a couple of months they reported a billion ads served. But how are they doing today?

Steven Finch also wondered about the health of the ad network back in January after speaking with a few publishers. When I look at a random batch of sites listed in their directory, all I see are the same ads on every blog, including the Technorati site. And when I check out sites in the early adopter tech category, it’s also the same set of ads. It’s either the stomach (you know how I feel about this one!), acai berry or pc fix-it ads. Here are a couple of examples of the ads running on the Technorati ad network (this is actually 4 ads):

I spoke with one publisher who told me that the ads are run-of-network. I can only guess that they pay close to nothing and will probably require a click to earn anything.

Considering that Technorati is still regarded as a good place to see link counts (course many counts are wrong), I wonder why they don’t add the ability for blogs to share traffic between blogs. I’ve written many times about the need for discovery and instead of showing the stomach, the acai berry or the pc fix-it, I know if I was running their ad network, I’d rather show ads from other blogs I like. Darren Rowse talked about this method of getting more visibility today.

With so much unsold ad inventory, would you rather show the stomach or help promote other blogs which are promoting yours? I know my answer. Paid ads should always come first but when a paid ad isn’t available, let the publisher choose to display the stomach or ads from their whitelist of sites. I would totally offer up a 125x slot on CN in a rotation with other tech sites I like. (perhaps we should do this anyway!)

I’d be interested in hearing from CEO Richard Jalichandra on how the ad network is doing these days.

Update: Check out Technorati search posts today from Louis Gray and Steven Hodson.