WebProNews

Kanoodle today announced its partnership with MSNBC, bringing over 200 new topics and over 300 million pageviews per month to their advertisers. The ads will appear in April.

Visit WebProWorld and discuss this major partnership.

Kanoodle Stepping Up

I spoke with Lance Podell, president of Kanoodle (and a Phil Collins fan in college), to get the inside scoop on the deal.

First I asked him why he thought MSNBC went with Kanoodle instead of, say, Google for its contextual ad partner.

MSNBC's decision, he said, "is a great confirmation of our publisher based approach." What he means is that because Kanoodle places ads based on topic rather than keyword (like AdSense does) you don't get mistakes like car polish ads next to your articles about Polish sausage.

Kanoodle's system allows for (dare I say it?) more relevant ads than AdSense - as well as separate keyword and contextual ad bidding.

These were all factors in MSNBC's decision, as was the fact that Sprinks, Lance's old company, formerly owned by Primedia and bought by Google, supplied ads to MSNBC.

One of the factors in Lance's decision to take the helm at Kanoodle was their foresight - they had already organized their current clients by topic. Now that they've added the 200 new topics (including autos, sports, health, news, shopping and more) the sales force went down the list and informed their clients of the soon to be available MSNBC adspace.

They've sold over 300 ads in 2 days, and expect to sell thousands more as word of their new product spreads.

Kanoodle bases your minimum bid on your topic of choice, with prices ranging from $.10 to .50 a click. These ads will appear primarily "above the scroll," meaning you won't have to scroll down to see them. Lance also pointed out that the MSNBC family includes properties like NBC's Dateline, the Today Show, Nightly News, Newsweek, and The Washington Post.

What I like so much about Lance is his pragmatic mindset: "I don't need to be Google's size to be successful," he told me. At the rate they're growing though it won't be long before Kanoodle has Google singing "Kanoo, Kanoo, Kanoodio..." And wondering why they bought Sprinks but didn't keep the star player.

Garrett French is the editor of iEntry's eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.