Zemanta’s inked a deal with Federated Mediathat could make brand advertising via blogosphere contributions scale higher, faster. Federated Media lets independent bloggers participate as partner-publishers in programs to build brand engagement. For example, for Dockers, Federated Media had publishers with a strong male following write articles around the theme of men crafting lifetime legacies, which were used to increase page-views and clicks to, and reader interaction with, Dockers.

“If a brand is an expert in a certain topic, their reputation might make them a credible source of information,” said Neil Chase, svp of editing and publishing at Federated Media. “But if a company that makes toasters gives health advice, they might not be credible. If they’re sending out recipes, that’s a reason to trust them.”

At Federated Media, CEO Deanna Brown is aiming to make the company a top five media company in 2012. She said the company's acquisition of Foodbuzz and BigTent lifestyle properties contributed to the increase in 2011. "Unfortunately comScore does not measure/give us credit for the long tail sites that we work with as a result of our late 2011 acquisition of Lijit Networks - which serves more than 125K publishers," she said in an email interview.

What's more important in business, the idea or the execution? Well when it comes to digital marketing, if ideas are currency then execution is the Federal Reserve. Great execution is all about a having a strong vision, clear communication, a defined set of processes, and relentless attention to detail. The system falls down without the inherent trust that good ideas can and should be executed.

Another possible, but more remote angle to this acquisition has to do with the 500,000 websites that 33across says uses Tynt technology. The company could end up echoing the strategy of a Lijit (acquired by Federated Media), for example. Lijit provides a search engine to long tail publishers as well as an ad network.  33across could provide its Tynt tools and then start an ad network business where publishers could install media placements sold through 33across. But, the company isn’t going there quite yet - at least publicly.

Even as Facebook woos brand advertising dollars from television, the bigger near-term shift in brand spending will be from fading portals Yahoo, MSN, and AOL to emerging brand-safe venues such as Facebook, YouTube, Zynga, and perhaps networks of prime Web sitesrun by Glam Media, Federated Media Publishing, and others. One big reason for this: a concerted push by advertisers and at least some publishers such as Facebook, along with industrywide initiatives such as Making Measurement Make Sense, to use well-known metrics like television’s Gross Rating Pointswith online ads so that marketers can measure impact more or less equally across media.

Conlon was right on. Federated Media Publishing (FMP) surveyed 1,200 online publishers and bloggers this holiday season and found that the Apple iPad, tablets and MP3 players are in demand. “These bloggers spend all day sharing their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions with their readers, so naturally they would have some opinions on holiday trends,” said Deanna Brown, CEO of FMP, in an email interview. The survey’s results indicated that bloggers are saying cookbooks, books and magazines are also hot gifts to give in 2011.

If you ask the average community manager how they got their current job, you will likely get a wide variety of answers. A rapidly emerging field without traditional training paths, those looking to hire are often at the mercy of their resourcefulness when it comes to locating and hiring talent to fill this important role.

Keynoters included by Peter Shankman, Founder of HARO; Amber Naslund, VP of Social Strategy Radian 6; Jim Farley, Global CMO of Ford Motor Company; Brian Solis, Principal of Altimeter Group; Shani Higgins, CEO of Technorati; Mikal Belicove, Contributing Writer & Blogger at Entrepreneur Magazine; Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image; Deanna Brown, CEO of Federated Media Publishing; Michael Stelzner, Founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner; Lisa Stone, Co-Founder and CEO of BlogHer.

When you are dealing with advertisments that appear between blogs, on the sides of you blog frame and on the banner, the big question left is whether to go with the CPM or CPC models, and that really comes with knowing your site and the traffic you have seen going to it. Other providers of ads similar to Google's Adsense is Lijit Networks, which was just purchased by Federated Media. 

John Battelle, the founder and executive chairman of Federated Media Publishing, explains in a five-part interview what it means to understand content not as a constellation of sites, but as a system of conversations – and looks at the implications for marketers.

Boulder-based Lijit, the online advertising network and software developer which is now part of Federated Media, said this week that it has launched a new tool to help publishers decode the site's audience. Lijit said its new Advertiser Insights tool helps publishers see what the top brands are that align with their readers. The firm said the analytics inforamtion can help publishers support direct sales efforts and better develop editorial content which will attract those advertisers.

Lijit Networks, Inc. announced that it added new Advertiser Insights data to its audience analytics dashboard. With the new data, publishers can see a list of the top brands that align to their site's audience, supporting direct sales and encouraging them to develop content more attractive to advertisers. Advertiser Insights is designed to help Lijit publishers use audience data and data from brand categories to better monetize CPM lifts this holiday season.

Platforms like Federated Media's DailyBuzz sites are one example of content aggregators. As for the type of screens people are reading or watching content on, Federated's experts predict both Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle products will have banner years in 2011.

This year, BlogWorld attendees heard from an esteemed panel of online empire builders – host Mitch Joel from Six Pixels of Separation, BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone, Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examiner, and CEO of Federated Media Publishing Deanna Brown. If you want to check out the entire keynote, definitely pick up a virtual ticket. Here were some of my favorite quotes from the panelists: