SocialMedia, BuddyMedia team up on social ads
Here's a deal that never could've happened in the absence of the developer platform craze: SocialMedia, a media network that focuses on the fledgling niche of "engagement ads," is set to announce a partnership with BuddyMedia, which creates branded applications for clients.
More specifically, SocialMedia clients will have access to BuddyMedia's new analytics and research product, which it calls "BuddyBrain" and formally launched last week. BuddyMedia licenses BuddyBrain as part of a program that it calls "App-vertising Resellers," and the two companies have already teamed up on ad campaigns for clients like FedEx, Anheuser-Busch, and sneaker company New Balance. Terms of this deal were not disclosed.
BuddyMedia launched its own ad network for social-network applications in April.
Right now, social advertising is the talk of the town in New York because of the Web 2.0 Expo this week and the Interactive Advertising Bureau-sponsored Advertising Week next week. There's still plenty of unproven idealism surrounding the niche, and deal-making like this doesn't assuage occasional industry concerns about social advertising's effectiveness. But analytics will likely be a boost for SocialMedia's clients--if they get statistical hints that their Facebook applications are having a legitimate impact, their confidence in the new medium could get a little less shaky.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
