Why Would a Publisher with Own Vertical Network Hook Up with Federated?

DeveloperShed, Ziff Davis Enterprise’s 12-site tech network of developer communities, has joined Federated Media, a blog aggregator and service provider that brings independent publishers into its network by offering to take on their ad sales.

The five-year-old DeveloperShed will become part of FM’s Technology federation—one of about 10 other verticals that include sports, automotive, media and entertainment, and video gaming. DeveloperShed merged with ZDE in August 2007 as the tech publisher completed its spin-out from Ziff Davis.

Twelve sites strong, one could argue that ZDE already has its own budding “ad network,” and the company is no newcomer to integrated ad sales with a fleet of established products that span print, online and events.

But why would they hook up with Federated?

It’s a move that’s contrary to efforts by publishers that have started up their own vertical blog networks to boost their ad power (Forbes.com, and IDG, among others). It’s also intriguing, as VentureBeat points out, in light of some big-name sites that have dropped out of Federated’s network as they get scooped up by other, traditional publisher-backed companies—Ars Technica, bought by Wired, and Celebrity Baby Blog, bought by Time Inc.’s People.com, for example.

DeveloperShed’s 12 sites aggregate a large, IT-oriented audience—6 million unique visitors and 27 million page views per month—so it’s a significant partnership for Federated, which gets a big audience and a presumably large chunk of real estate to sell.

ZDE, as it turns out, actually does need the sales muscle Federated provides. Plus, ZDE CEO Steve Weitzner tells me DevShed’s user-generated content fits with Federated’s blog network profile. “DevShed is a subsidiary of Ziff Davis Enterprise,” he says. “It has its own sales team and marketing addressing its audience of software developers. Historically, DevShed has maintained a small sales team to call on key accounts and has employed sales reps for mid-size and smaller accounts. The vast majority of DevShed's content is—and always has been—user generated, we believe it fits well with Federated’s ‘conversational media’ approach so we have signed them up to replace our previous reps. DevShed’s direct sales team will continue to serve the sites’ key customers.”

By Bill Mickey --

COMMENTS/DISCUSS: 2

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Thanks for asking and answering a great question.

Submitted by Pete Spande on Fri, 06/13/2008 - 14:35.

Bill, I work for FM and we're thrilled to partner with the DeveloperShed sites, because they have all the elements that allow us to be successful: Strong editorial voices that are the leading information sources for their communities, active and engaged audiences, significant scale, and the entrepreneurial spirit that leads to innovative conversational marketing programs. While the first FM authors were independent, some of those authors are now joining major media companies. In most cases those companies have asked us to keep selling for the site they acquired, because they like our innovative approach. We're now in partnerships with a number of large publishers, and we're happy to be working with ZD Enterprise. We've learned in recent months that our model works not only with authors who are officially independent, but with any publisher who has those attributes I mentioned: Strong voices that are the best in the category, with active audiences and a passion for new ways to engage audiences and marketers. The first examples may have come from startups, but we're happy to report that the potential is everywhere. Pete

Re: Thanks...

Submitted by Bill Mickey on Fri, 06/13/2008 - 15:06.

Hi, Pete- Excellent points, and thanks for expanding the story. From our point of view we see so many publishers hashing out their integrated team approach, whether content or sales, and it seemed unique to me that an established company like ZDE would seek out your services. I'll look forward to hearing about your upcoming deals with the larger publishers. --Bill

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