Digg ads are here

Digg Ads are here. Today, I was looking at Digg, and I saw this:

Ads speak to Diggers in Diggers language

There are three ads on this page, along with something I submitted to Digg. The first banner ad is on the top for e-mail marketing. Banner blindness ensures that we struggle to see it, even though it animated.

The second ad is from Time Warner Cable. It also animated.

But it was the third ‘ad’ that really caught my eye. The third ad looks like Digg.

The “ad” is for a “Hilarious tee at threadless.com for green-leaning Star Wars fans!”

The t-short isn’t altogether that hilarious, but this ad has been Dugg 1030 times! A quick ‘refresh’ of the page, and I was delivered a less Dugg Ford Ad:

These are ads, written in the style of Diggers. And even more interestingly, people can “share” or “bury” the ad. And to be clear, this is important because, as the Digg Blog notes, if people Digg the ad, Digg charges less for it:

“A recap of how it works: your Diggs, buries and clicks influence a quality score that determines how often the ad gets displayed, and ultimately how much the advertiser pays per click. The more you Digg an ad, the less the advertiser will have to pay; the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, eventually pricing it out of the system. The success of this system depends on your participation and feedback, as it will help advertisers to create the best possible experience for the Digg community. Our goal with Digg Ads is to encourage advertisers to create content as compelling as organic Digg stories, and to give you more control over which ads you see on Digg.”

I think this is important because it’s not an example of doing a banner ad on a social media site. It’s an example of doing an ad that fits into the stream. This is “sponsored content” that’s written to be like the content it sponsors. And I think this is how Social Media sites will be profitable.

We all want to figure out how to market using these sites. And tests like Digg’s will go a long way to showing both the site and marketers what can work.

BTW, if you want to Digg my Twitter entry, the URL is here:

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