Microsoft in ads deal with Digg.com

Goodbye Google ads

By Cian Ginty, ElectricNews.net • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 26th July 2007 09:27 GMT

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Microsoft and news sharing site Digg have signed a three-year deal that will see the software giant manage advertising on Digg.com.

The text-based Google advertising that currently appears on Digg is due to be replaced in the coming weeks. Digg says it gets over 17 million unique monthly visitors.

"As the Digg audience continues to grow and diversify, we believe that this initiative with Microsoft, and the resources that it provides, will enable us to focus less on developing an advertising infrastructure and more on developing new and innovative features for the site," commented Digg CEO Jay Adelson.

The new agreement follows Microsoft obtaining the right to sell and provide advertising for social networking site Facebook last August. Financial terms were not disclosed on this latest deal.

Federated Media, the current advertising agent for Digg, is to continue to work with the site in collaboration with Microsoft.

"It's no secret that Digg is the kind of property - like Facebook - that was bound to get the attention of the Big Guys as they continue to play an ever more fascinating game of internet chess. That's why I'm even more pleased that FM is continuing to work with Digg and with Microsoft to further Digg's goals," said John Battelle, Federated Media's founder, chairman, and CEO.

In other news, Microsoft has also announced that its games advertising division Massive Inc has secured the contract for the display of adverts on some of the top games from publisher EA.

The five games - mostly popular US sports titles - are Madden NFL 08, Nascar 08, NHL 08, skateboarding game Skate, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08.

At the time Microsoft bought Massive last year, the Wall Street Journal reported the deal was worth between $200m to $400m. No financial details of the EA deal have been released.

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