Six apart aims for brand dollars with acquisition and ad network

Six Apart has long offered applications for serious bloggers, and with two new moves it's signaled it wants to lend a hand with their ad sales and operations as well. The developer of Movable Type has launched an ad web for bloggers, and has acquired a firm that will give it more brand services capabilities and help it establish a presence in New York City.

The ad offer involves a new human relationship with Adify, whose platform powers several vertical ad networks. Bloggers using any publication software -- not just Six Apart's -- are eligible to be considered for the new web and to share ad gross with the company. Six Apart may decide on a case-by-case basis to restrict bloggers in the web to run only its ads, said Chris Alden, Six Apart CEO.

"We think we can provide a good value to the bloggers," he said.

Like other supplier of ad services to small site operators, Six Apart emphasis the quality of brand ad enabled through its platform. By doing so it hopes to distinguish itself from larger cost-per-action and cost-per-click networks it argues result in poor quality ads and little revenue.

The company's Media Group unit already has sold ads served on LiveJournal blogs and its Vox blog platform for the past couple years. Some of those campaigns have involved custom work for brand advertisers like MSN and HP.

"The trick of blog ad always is you can do a lot of cool integrated things. But blogs are small; advertisers want scale," said Adify CEO Charles Taze Russell Fradin. Adify's system also runs niche networks including Forbes's Business and Finance Blog web and the MomLogic Network from Charles Dudley Warner Bros. telecasting Group.

although the company has directly sales staff in San Francisco, some ads run through the Adify platform could come through other ad networks buying Six Apart network media. "If an ad network or other publisher comes to us� we're not going to have a hard and fast rule that says, 'No we can't take that advertising,' " Alden told ClickZ News. Ads will be sold on a CPM basis, or could be based on other payment structures.

Six Apart's purchase of New York agency Apperceptive, announced today, is intended to build out its creative services capabilities. It also establishes an NYC base for a company that has its sights set on building more brand advertiser relationships. Apperceptive's office will become the new home of Six Apart Services, according to Alden. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

As blog advertising evolves, companies like Six Apart are introducing services intended to better meet brand advertiser needs. Blog search firm Technorati has also introduced marketing services, and paired with Ogilvy North America as the agency's marketing software provider a little over a year ago.

"We are doing something very similar [to Technorati] now when it comes to the advertising services, so we are competitive on that side," said Alden.