By this time, the web is probably dilluted with all sorts of news bits, blog posts and what-have-yous on the most controversial press release for this week. The headlines says it all – Digg and Microsoft reached an advertising deal. Some headlines framed it in a more controversial way such as – Digg Ditches Google over Microsoft in Advertising deal.
Digg hasn’t made a formal announcement yet, except for Kevin Ross’ post on Digg’s blog, clearly a ploy so as not to over sensationalize the matter.
But the Microsoft press release issued today more than compensate for the lack of official annoucement from Digg. Putting it simply, the deal is your usual advertising placement deal between two companies, a social bookmarking site and a major IT player. So what’s the big fuzz all about? Not because of Microsoft getting the Digg advertising rights or Digg getting Microsoft to place contextual and link advertisement on Digg’s site. But rather because of the question that is more for Digg to answer, why not Google?
Of course, we would never get a clear answer to that coming Digg. The best we could have regarding this issue coming Digg’s CEO Jay Adelson is that:
As the Digg audience continues to grow and diversify, we believe that this initiative with Microsoft, and the resources that it provides, will enable us to focus less on developing an advertising infrastructure and more on developing new and innovative features for the site.
But then, we all know that this is more of a “for-press-release-purpose” statement. Something that is for public consumption. If you want to take it as is, you have every right to do so. As for me, I still believe that there is a bigger reason on Digg’s part for such deal. Something that has to do with which is the bigger and hotter company, the client or the service provider.Go figure.
