Exclusive advertising marriage ends in
divorce
Digg is putting an end to its exclusive ad selling relationship
with Microsoft after two years and will try to sell its own adverts from now
on.
The site is so sure it can sell adverts better than Microsoft it is
ending the advert deal with Redmond a year early. Starting this Summer, the
social news service will begin to rely heavily on its own internal sales force,
which will be responsible for selling the majority of its ad
inventory.
Microsoft will still be involved, but will only sell leftover
adverts that Digg's team can't sell. Mike Maser, Digg's chief revenue and
strategy officer, the two outfits had an understanding that Digg would at some
point start selling the majority of its own ads.
The outfit pointed out that
the end of the deal was not a sign that Redmond was pants at selling adverts.
Digg stands to make more money from advertising running its own sales and such a
switch always happens when websites grow enough to build their own internal
sales teams.