WordPress.com Blogs To Get More Advertising

Federated Media in partnership with Automattic has signed a deal to sell advertising to potentially 25 million websites spread across WordPress.com. This isn’t the first time the two have partnered up as FM and Automattic have been launching a series of websites for specific subjects such as FoodPress and EcoPress. This deal presents Federated Media the opportunity to sell highly relevant advertising in mass. For example, Automattic most likely has details that allow them to know the best performing sites on specific subjects such as automotive, food, tech, etc. This data can be used to display relevant advertising from FM so that the content and the advertising are related to each other.

One of the quotes I’m seeing attributed to Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic rubs me the wrong way.

Automattic’s WordPress software supports 25 million blogs with a combined readership of 300 million unique visitors per month — a total of 15 percent of the web sites on the Internet, Schneider said.

First off, the only thing of Automattics’ is WordPress.com. Secondly, while it seems like Toni is talking about 25 million blogs on WordPress.com, how can that be 15% of the internet? That’s like saying 15% of the internet calls WordPress.com home and I highly doubt that. The only way in which that makes sense is if you combine the sites using WordPress the self-hosted software and those hosted on WordPress.com.

Based on the press release on MarketWatch, the advertising will be Opt-In. One of the most important questions that has not been answered is how revenue sharing will work. One would hope that those who are creating the content will end up getting a small slice of the pie. If not, it’s a bad deal all the way around.