Media veteran and popular blogger, Steve Hall, busts some chops when considering the recent move by Volvo to act as sole sponsor on MSN Spaces, thereby seemingly embracing blogs as a desirable venue for online ad spending.
A quick review of weblogs listed as recently updated on MSN Spaces revealed few, if any, containing more than a post or two. Many simply state, “There are no entries in this blog.” Apparently, Volvo, in its decision to sponsor MSN Spaces weblogs, did not see this as an issue.
Volvo, seemingly unable to realize MSN Spaces is filled with newbies with nothing to say when a plethora of intelligent, quality blog content is right around the corner at the BlogAds blog advertising network.
Hall also makes mention of Boing Boing’s report on MSN’s poor decision to censor blogs on their network, keeping them free of “dirty” words, while flying in the face of blogger convention (a.k.a. free speech).
BlogAds is cool. I have no issue with them. But an enterprising media buyer at Volvo’s agency could just as easily negotiate deals diretcly with blogs that fit the auto maker’s criteria. This is the path we’ve chosen here. We have a sponsorship deal with Talent Zoo, and we are looking for other opportunities that work well for us and the advertiser.
