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BlogHerAds.com is live! Here's how to apply...

Wonderful news!

Elisa Camahort, Jory Des Jardins and I are very happy to announce that BlogHer LLC has launched BlogHerAds. Here's how to apply, including a PDF tour of how it works and the application.

What is BlogHerAds? As I described in a BlogHer '06 session, we began developing BlogHerAds in October 2005, when a few bloggers asked us to help them raise more revenue from their blogs. We were complimented - and happy to leverage our experience in online publishing. In May 2006, we launched a premium advertising network in partnership with 30+ superb parenting bloggers.

The resulting demand by bloggers and advertisers who wanted to participate led us to take this next step: Launching BlogHerAds and opening our ad network to application by bloggers writing about every topic.

For the record: There are plenty of bloggers who don't want ads on their blogs, and we know and respect that. That's why BlogHerAds is completely voluntary and participation is separate from membership in the BlogHer Network at http://blogher.org. Because of this separation between the two sites, you will need to create a new user account on BlogHerAds.com.

If you are interested in making more revenue from your blogs and working with a publisher who is beholden only to our customers -- bloggers and sponsors -- we hope you join us.

If you're a blogger interested in joining BlogHer's ad network, please start here.

If you're an advertiser interested in sponsoring this network of incredible new voices with amazing influence online, please start here.

Feedback? Suggestions? Great - we'd love to hear from you -- you can reach the team here.

Cross-posted on BlogHer.org

Tags: blogherads , blogher, paid content

Why Mr. Curley Is Going To Washington

Rob Curley's been kind enough to talk with me from time to time about the work we're both trying to do to "unsuckify" traditional media and how hard that work can be within most media mega-conglomerates.

So when I found out that he was headed to Washington Post |Newsweek Interactive (Paidcontent.org, WPNI press release), I asked him in a phone call why he finally agreed to join one of the world's leading media corporations. After all, one of the secrets to Curley's success has been turning down jobs with prestige papers in much tonier addresses than you see on his resume, and instead finding places (The World Company, Morris Digital Works), where he had the freedom to open a "nerdery" and recruit open-minded teams capable of blending human emotion, hard data, stunning code and "internology" into world-class news. Teams that include rockstars like Adrian Holovatny, who's also going to the Post. News that sells to readers and advertisers.

I like his answer: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive CEO and Publisher Caroline Little. Curley told me:

"As scared as I am of large organizations or a large newspaper, I've gotten the feeling over the past couple of years that they may be even more scared. There's not a lot of comfort in a guy who asks for foregiveness not permission, and if there's a meeting he's going to miss it. If there's structure, he doesn't care," said Curley, in a pretty apt description of himself.

"I almost got the feeling that she [Little] thought that was an asset. The message I've gotten is "Go build cool shit." It's cooler than heck to be building it with the Washington Post Company, but I'm not sure I wouldn't have gone to work with Caroline if she was running the Dayton, Ohio newspaper. It almost says more about Caroline than it does about the Post. She's the reason," Curley said.

"You layer on top of that that it's the Post...it's the Web site that most journalists log onto at least once a week to read something. And it's not just the Post...it's Newsweek, Slate, the weeklies, these stations. They have the ultimate sandbox to play with."

I recently met Little when she traveled to San Jose for BlogHer '06. She didn't just jet in and out for her keynote either -- Little came, stayed, talked and listened over the weekend. Her keynote remarks earned her kudos from the 750 bloggers and press present, no small feat. Looking back, I realize that Little also shed a some light on her hiring practices in a quote that now looks prescient. When asked by Moderator Chris Nolan to share the worst piece of advice she ever received, Little answered:

“I was getting a lot of pressure to hire someone from the print world, I didn’t and don’t regret it. Again, it was about not taking risks. The hire would have been a ‘safe hire.’ ” 

For more, read Renee Blodgett's live blog of the keynote or listen to it here (mp3).

No, safety first is not Little's mojo as a publisher, and hiring Curley is not the only evidence. Little and the WPNI team have been walking their social media talk much better than the competition of late. The Post's Sponsored Blogroll took guts. See WPNI-er Jeff Burkette's piece for more info on the first major newspaper to do this, joining American Lawyer Media|Law.com (11/04), Knight Ridder Digital's Nascar network (2/05), Glam (10/05), Federated Media (5/06), BlogHer Ad Network (6/06), all of which I've done except for FM. Meanwhile, the Post holds its bloggers to the same standard as its writers, firing them when they plagiarize: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/redamerica/.

I'm excited to watch what happens next. Better revenue models and award-winning journalism are the only safe bet.

Photo credit: I borrowed this from Curley's blog, but I see that Steve Klein credits Editor & Publisher.