IUpload and Pheedo Target Blog/RSS Advertisers

Two startup technology companies have joined forces to enable online publishers to insert advertising positions within their blogs and RSS (define) feeds.

iUpload, a Web content management provider that includes corporate blogging tools in its services, has begun offering Pheedo’s blog/RSS advertising solutions to its client base. IUpload’s clients include Advance.net, Internet arm for Advance Publications, and Conde Nast.

The product allows iUpload publishers to serve and track ads on their corporate blogs and RSS feeds, measuring the number of subscribers, what ads they click on, how often ads are served, and through which aggregators.

It offers three different ad placements: within an RSS feed’s header; as standalone blog units, where the ad appears as a separate blog post; and as advertisements embedded within the content of individual blog posts. The tool offers publishers the choice of pricing ads served on their sites by CPM (define), CPC (define), or cost per action (CPA).

Advertisers can buy the ads either at Pheedo’s site or through a link that appears near the ads on the publishers’ sites. Most ads will be text, but the company says text ads could occasionally incorporate a small image.

iUpload will offer Pheedo’s service to each of its current publishing customers, including Advance.net, Horvitz, Bakersfield, and Northwest Voice. iUpload plans to roll out the service to four new publishers per month in 2005. The technology company’s other customers, which include Cannondale, Molson, the Sierra Club, and Western Financial Group, have the option to use Pheedo’s service to offer ads on their blogs and RSS feeds as well, said Robin Hopper, iUpload’s chief executive.

Under the terms of the three-year partnership agreement, Pheedo and iUpload will receive 50 percent of revenues from ads served on iUpload sites. Pheedo and iUpload will split that share of the revenue evenly between them, said Bill Flitter, CMO of Pheedo.

That revenue-sharing agreement could formalize into an official merger between the two companies, executives from both companies confirmed.