• AdAge, Thursday, November 10, 2005 12:55 PM

Unlike most small to mid-size online publishers, a panel of bloggers speaking at the Ad:Tech conference in New York said they're very picky about the ads they'll accept. Nick Denton, head of Gawker Media, publisher of several tech and media gossip sites, said he would reject an approach by Wal-Mart and other big brands that wanted to buy advertising on his site, because it doesn't fit with Gawker's hipster image. Other brands like Sony and Nike apparently do, as Gawker Media has run ads from those brands before. In fact, Gawker and other blogs actually encourage feedback from their readers about advertising, providing a link to comments that are sent to the advertiser. Other bloggers on the panel noted that blogs can actually poke fun of their advertisers and still successfully run their ads, because of the irreverent and snarky tone many carry. They're also able to see which ads connect with their users by tracking conversations about them, which also underlines the uniqueness of the blogosphere: users are heavily involved in every process, from content creation to ad sales. As Gawker's Denton says: "There's a reason why companies are no longer co-creators of soap operas--companies are notoriously poor creators of content."

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