Ratings and content recommendation provider Outbrain has signed a deal with b5media that sees Outbrain featured on b5media’s network of approximately 300 blogs.
The deal includes both the Outbrain rating widget and the content recommendation platform. b5media will join a growing number of publishers using Outbrain who take up the option of recommending external amd well as internal content via the Outbrain embed, delivering a best of recommendations from across the Outbrain network of participating sites.
The Outbrain widget also personalizes recommendations to individual readers as more people interact with the content.
Surprisingly we haven’t written about Outbrain recently, but the company has been in regular touch, particularly as it has rolled out its “trusted sources” recommendations network. Sites on the network include Mashable , VentureBeat , The Inquisitr and CenterNetworks, and more recently the Chicago Tribune. As much as it annoys me when people come in with 1 star ratings over and over again (I wish I could IP block ratings), the service has worked well for us, and the recommendations, although not driving a huge amount of traffic, offer a value add for readers by automatically offering relevant content at the end of each post.
disclosure: I am a founder of b5media, although I have no relationship with the company today