Our buddy Matt is a pioneer over at Infoworld. Full text of press release is in the extended entry. Snips:

IndustryBrains, the only business performance based media firm that specializes in contextual, site-specific advertising, announced today it has expanded its business to include syndication of paid listings to publishers participating in RSS-driven content feeds....
Just as with IndustryBrains’ web-based paid listings, its RSS technology is private-labeled by partner sites and is completely transparent to the user. This enables publishers to leverage their brand and relationships with advertisers who are willing to pay more for placement on a highly regarded site. IDG’s Infoworld and CMP Media’s Techweb Network have implemented IndustryBrains listings as part of their category specific RSS syndication.

IndustryBrains Introduces Paid Listings
on RSS Feeds

IDG’s Infoworld and CMP’s TechWeb Network Computing First to Sign On

NEW YORK (February 25, 2004)  IndustryBrains, the only business performance based media firm that specializes in contextual, site-specific advertising, announced today it has expanded its business to include syndication of paid listings to publishers participating in RSS-driven content feeds.

RSS, “Really Simple Syndication” as some may call it, is content syndication method used by many online publishers to deliver news and story content to users that have opted in to a particular topic.  Users, on a daily basis, have the ability to specify content topics, which are presented mostly in summary format. A user, if interested in a particular article, must click to the web site to get the full content. RSS is viewed by many as a more efficient way to aggregate news and content tailored to individual interests.

“As more and more people turn to RSS to gather news and information, we want to meet them with listings resources than helps them contact advertisers with product offers that match their RSS content interests,” says IndustryBrains CEO Erik Matlick.  “This is a natural extension of the paid listings service we now provide for scores of websites.”

Just as with IndustryBrains’ web-based paid listings, its RSS technology is private-labeled by partner sites and is completely transparent to the user. This enables publishers to leverage their brand and relationships with advertisers who are willing to pay more for placement on a highly regarded site. IDG’s Infoworld and CMP Media’s Techweb Network have implemented IndustryBrains listings as part of their category specific RSS syndication.

“The success we have experienced from IndustryBrains’ paid listings on our web sites gives us confidence that the same results will be generated by using their technology to deliver listings on our RSS feeds, said Matt Mcalister, General Manager of Infoworld. “We expect that advertisers will also want to pay a premium to appear in RSS enabled pages and stories. Users are actively expressing an interest in a particular subject matter by subscribing to specific content offered by a specific publisher.”

Maria Bradley, Business Development Manager of CMP’s Techweb Network, also concurs. “This is a far superior model for us than generalized listings from SEM networks. Advertisers know they are reaching an audience of extraordinary composition, and are willing to bid far more aggressively to be near the top of our RSS listings.  This simply means more revenue for us.”

IndustryBrains already services more than 2,000 paid listing advertisers in the technology category.  The company expects to syndicate a great many of them over to RSS enabled listings.

Launched in 2002, New York-based IndustryBrains , is the only business performance based media firm that specializes in contextual site specific advertising. IndustryBrains offers custom publisher solutions for monetizing content and search pages. Real-time tracking and reporting allows publishers to easily manage advertiser relationships and optimize revenue. For advertisers, IndustryBrains offers contextual category placement on premium sites like Infoworld, ComputerWorld, PC Magazine, EETimes, Network Magazine and BusinessWeek. Advertisers bid for placement on site-specific categories that are related to their business. Listings are delivered whenever a customer performs a search on the specified terms throughout its network of 50+ premium sites.