The beta of FM's advertising platform is now live!

As I just wrote to the authors who have made all this possible:

Nearly two years ago, while researching my book, I came up with an idea about online media, based on an author-driven world where publishers acted more like partners, and less like bosses, and where talent - that'd be our authors - might find a way to be supported in their valuable work. That idea turned into FM. I sketched on a napkin to Chas Edwards, who left Cnet to join me, and I sketched it on the wall for Andre Torrez, who quit his job in LA and moved up here to build it. Ten more followed, then nearly 50 authors, and now....

I'm very excited to announce FM's public facing ad platform is live!

This has been a lot of fun to work on, and I'm very proud of the work the FM team - and all of of our wonderful authors - have put into making this happen.

I've attached our press release below. And if/when folks cover our launch, I'll add links here. I hope you all bang on it, help us learn, and find it useful. We're off to a great start, and there's even more news to report soon about more wonderful authors joining our ranks.

Whooooeeeee!

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For release 9 pm PST May 3

For More Information Contact:
Jennifer Charette
jcharrette@fmpub.net
Federated Media
323 Pine St., Sausalito CA 94965
(415)332-6955 Office
(415)785-1191 fax

Federated Media Launches Advertiser Planning Tool

By enabling online advertisers to directly create, manage and run campaigns on selected high-quality weblogs, Federated Media helps connect authors, advertisers and audiences in a robust conversation. FM’s network is now serving more than 70 million pageviews a month and growing.

Sausalito, CA May 3, 2006 – Federated Media Inc (FM), the Internet’s leading author-driven publishing services firm, announced today a new platform for advertisers looking to reach the Internet’s most engaged audiences. FM’s platform empowers advertisers to reach more than 70 million monthly pageviews on the leading technology, parenting and community-driven weblogs. Offering categorized and demographically relevant search and instant purchasing, Federated Media’s new online advertiser toolkit makes designing and launching cost-effective campaigns simple.

Included among FM’s growing network of nearly 50 high quality authors and publishers are Boing Boing (perennially ranked #1 by blog-tracking service Technorati), Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch, the wildly popular Digg.com and Fark.com, and Dooce, which focuses on parenting. FM’s platform offers detailed demographics and significant reach into highly desired reader markets such as technology, business, parenting, entertainment, and community-driven content. The online campaign creation and management platform is a unique tool for everyone looking to advertise on high quality Internet sites; from agencies to independent businesses.

“FM’s new platform lets advertisers tune their campaigns to some of the best audiences on the web,” said Chas Edwards, VP of Sales and Marketing at Federated Media. “The platform includes detailed reader demographic information, site profiles, and inventory forecasting. Marketers input their campaign targets, and FM’s search engine returns sites that are best positioned to deliver on that campaign's objectives.”

At the core of this new technology lies FM’s commitment to authors and their audiences. “What brings advertisers to FM is the incredible conversations between authors and their readers,” said John Battelle, Chairman and Publisher. “Our platform makes it simple for advertisers to participate in these conversations - to join the authors and audience in a meaningful way.”

Marketers as varied as Absolut, Adobe, Apple, Budget Rental Car, Citibank, Dreamworks, General Motors, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Sony and scores of others have already tested FM’s system. "The best blogs are conversations among members of a passionate, highly engaged community,” said Sarah Fay, President of Isobar US, a major advertising agency. “By locating and bringing together tier-one blogs, FM affords marketers an opportunity to join the most important of those conversations. I'm looking forward to the next wave of 'federations'!"

To try Federated Media’s new on-line advertiser tool-kit point your browser to:

http://advertisers.federatedmedia.net/

About Federated Media
At FM, we believe great voices attract great audiences. We're in the business of supporting those voices, by connecting them to great marketers, as well as providing a suite of services that let authors focus on what they do best: make compelling media. In doing so, we are creating federations of respected voices that prosper on their own terms. More information can be found at:

http://federatedmedia.net/


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