ChasNote

Today at Digg’s blog, Mike Maser announced Digg Ads:

“Digg Ads will appear alongside stories in the river. The sponsored content will look and feel similar to regular Digg content, but will be clearly marked as sponsored. It may link to stories, video trailers, independent product reviews — many of the same types of content you see on Digg every day. The goal here is to give advertisers a way to present content related to their brands and get immediate input on whether it’s relevant to the Digg audience, or not.”

Advertisers will define the maximum CPC price they’ll pay (like Google’s Adwords), but Digg readers will determine which ads get the most exposure — the more they Digg a particular ad, the more exposure that ad will receive. They’ll also have the opportunity to “bury” ads that aren’t relevant to them, with each “bury” reducing the frequency that ad will be served to Digg readers.

Readers and advertisers will both have skin in the game: Advertisers need to work to make their messaging relevant and appropriate to the Digg community, and the Digg community can improve the quality of advertising by voting up the brands, products and promotions that are most native to the Digg conversation.

Some early coverage:
NY Times
Mashable
VentureBeat
TechCrunch
PaidContent
TheNextWeb
CNET
Adweek
PC World
SF Chronicle
TechMeme

(Disclosure: For those of you who missed the news last week, I’ll be working at Digg instead of FM starting June 22. So be careful or I’ll end up selling you one of these Digg Ads.)