Tech Network NetShelter Rebrands With Expanded Offerings

Vertical ad networks are all the rage lately. Big media players including Forbes, News Corp., Burst Media and BET have all launched networks built around specific categories--business, entertainment, food or fashion.

The aim is to capitalize on the Internet's fragmentation by tying together like properties to offer advertisers greater reach in particular content areas. Large publishers expand their targeted inventory while "long tail" sites stand to gain more traffic and higher CPMs on brand advertising.

Quietly cultivating this ground for the last several years has been technology content network NetShelter Inc., which has grown from a dozen to 150 niche tech sites in the last two years. The company joins the vertical network buzz today by rebranding as NetShelter Technology Media, offering expanded publishing and advertising options on the site.

"We've been in the business of helping small to mid-sized sites to grow their media businesses," said Peyman Nilforoush, co-founder and CEO of NetShelter. "We created a new platform for tech publishing online, and the rebranding is just to emphasize that."

NetShelter already ranks as the second most-trafficked technology news property online behind Cnet, with about 26 million unique visitors as of December, according to comScore. The site has nearly doubled its audience over the last year, while Cnet has seen its traffic slip by 17% to 61.5 million.

As its better-known rival struggles with falling traffic and financial woes, NetShelter is seeking to gain ground by enticing traditional publishers to join its network. "In the conversations we've had with them, they're all going through a difficult time of transferring their business from print to online while offering the same scale to advertisers," Nilforoush said.

So far, NetShelter has mostly aggregated smaller, techie-oriented sites with names like PhoneScoop, Geek.com, and GamersHell.com. These fall into five broader categories covering mobile, games, developers, IT and consumer electronics.

CPM rates across these sites typically run from $10 to $15 for banners, $25 to $35 for rich media placements, and up to $65 for highly targeted buys. Advertisers include big tech brands such as Microsoft, Intel, Sprint and Dell.

Now NetShelter will offer syndication deals to big media companies and team up with them on joint properties within NetShelter. "Publishers will generate more revenue from existing content by distributing it across our network," said Nilforoush. Unlike Cnet, which in recent years has expanded beyond tech to include food and parenting sites, NetShelter doesn't plan to venture far from its core subject.

"We see a tremendous opportunity for traditional media partnerships in tech as well as in complementary categories such as gaming and business tech," Nilforoush said.

While not commenting specifically on NetShelter, David Cohen, executive vice president of digital communications at Universal McCann, said the vertical shift is here to stay.

"As the digital media ecosystem continues to increase in complexity, clients are increasingly looking for partners that can reaggregate their best target prospects," he said. "Vertical ad networks do that by delivering highly targeted scale with limited waste. We anticipate this trend to continue for the months to come."

NetShelter is also tapping into another Web marketing trend by unveiling a widget-based campaign. The Widget Base platform will let publishers and advertisers create microsites housing online stores, resource centers or online communities. The widgets will be promoted via branded buttons and banners throughout the network.

Research in Motion is already running a widget campaign for the BlackBerry on the PhoneScoop site that features product information, user reviews and an online store. "For larger brands, this is a way to create a viral effect as well as a direct response channel," Nilforoush said.

Among other initiatives, NetShelter also aims to work with individual tech editors to develop more niche sites and help raise their profiles by hosting industry events. It will also partner with its existing sites to help them spin off new properties--a PDA-centric site might launch another that is focused on laptops, for instance.

For his part, Nilforoush expects NetShelter to double in size to 300 sites and more than $20 million in revenue by the end of 2008. He can only hope a recession doesn't keep ad spending from growing in line with expanding inventory across the network.

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