Ad Competition?

Amazon.com is testing a contextual advertising service that would compete with Google AdSense, according to a Media Post article that quotes a publisher contacted by Amazon.

MediaPost sourced its report to Web publisher and blogger Chris Beasley who earlier revealed that Amazon had asked him to participate in the test but that he “turned them down because Adsense is just too profitable for me, and with Adsense’s exclusivity requirements I’d have to forgo using them to be in this test.”

Beaseley said Amazon is offering $100 bonus to publishers that do sign up. And he noted that “if they go through with this, then once MSN’s AdCenter program is launched, and Yahoo’s Publisher Network goes out of beta, that’ll give us publishers 4 choices in this area and choice is never a bad thing.”

If vendors demand exclusive relationships, however, then publishers will face a relatively simple choice: who’s your buddy.

A Woman’s Place: At a dinner last night I heard Elisa Camahort, one of the principals behind the BlogHer community, report that hundreds of members had already signed up to the newly-launched site. The concept of a woman-centric blog community was launched at a conference last year and a new gathering is planned for July.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media