Jared Kopf's brainchild, Adroll, launched in April this year and is gaining traction. Adroll is an advertising network that matches advertisers with communities of small online publishers. Last week (9/16/2008) they raised several million dollars in a first round of funding with the expectation that as players in a crowded market for ad networks they offer an edge on their competition. Small publishers (like yours humbly) can join topic specific communities which offer a more targeted advertising network, on an aggregated basis, to advertisers.
Advertisers are projected to get more than the $2 CPM typically offered by their competition which includes Federated Media (which focuses on specific industries), Glam (which covers women's fashion) and Adify.
** Update: 9/24/2008 **
According to Adroll's community development team an article published in Venture Beat did not accurately reflect the company's involvement in direct ad sales. John Lem states "We do have an in house sales team who are actively pursuing major brands and agencies, and the majority of ad sales so far through Adroll have been the result of their efforts."
With this clarification and given the economy of scale of a community of publishers - Adroll might be on to something. I have signed up for the service, as you will notice ads placed on the right hand area of the blog. I will let you know how things work out in a follow up post.
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