Poncheg.com - State & Community News Blog

Things haven’t been so hot over at blog search company Technorati ever since Google debuted its Google Blog Search tool. But the company has kept going, and on Wednesday announced that it has launched its ad platform in an alpha test, after acquiring start-up AdEngage to power it.

In June, Technorati launched “Technorati Media,” an ad network that now has about 45 participating Web sites. With AdEngage, which uses the now-common “self-service” model, advertisers can buy ads in the Technorati Media network directly. The new network, the company says, will be called Technorati Engage.

“Our goal all along has been to open up something that works for everyone, and that is ideally suited to the ‘long tail.’ While the audiences here are smaller, the levels of engagement, influence and audience expertise are exponentially higher,” said Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra in a release Wednesday. “It’s also been an incredibly challenging space for advertisers to target and buy. With Technorati Engage, advertisers can very easily achieve the necessary levels of targeting and critical mass.”

In the past two years, Technorati has made a number of small acquisitions, like news aggregator Personal Bee and the “online magazine” Blogcritics. AdEngage itself, which has been serving ads on participating sites since 2004, will continue to exist on its own as well.