Digg Tests New Hybrid Ads

Digg has been on a quest to generate more revenue lately and has been putting a lot of effort into getting advertisers more involved with the site. The interesting part is that it's not content with just plastering ads all over the place and calling it a day; the social news aggregator has been testing several ad types that would increase the exposure for the advertisers but also provide actual functionality for the users.

“In the spirit of testing different ways to make ads on Digg better (similar to what we’re doing with Digg Ads), we’re launching some new ads today called Digg Content Ads and we’d love your feedback,” Digg's Chas Edwards writes. “Digg Content Ads are basically widgets that contain previous Digg homepage stories that are relevant to the industry or company that is advertising on Digg. For example, Adobe is testing the model with banners that pull in popular government-technology stories from the Digg archive.”

The idea is that by providing actual stories that have been popular on Digg users are much more likely to be interested in the ad itself. And, because the stories will be linked to the brand that is advertising or the market it operates in, the users that will be interested in the stories are the ones who are likely to be interested in the product being advertised. It's unclear what will happen when the users click on the stories, if they are redirected to the story on Digg itself, and also for what clicks the advertisers pay for.

Digg also assures its users that advertisers won't be able to add their own stories to the list; it has to be something that has been previously submitted to Digg through the usual means. Also, newer stories can be promoted only if they have been featured on the Digg homepage but if the story has passed the promotion eligibility age it can be promoted in the ads regardless. Digg is testing the ad unit with a limited set of users before rolling it out to the entire site.