uT.ag allows you to tag ads onto outbound links, either from your website/blog or social media like Twitter.
It works by placing a banner of ads across the top of the page when people follow your external links. In the case of blogs and sites, the panel includes customisable links back to the originating site, including using the site name and logo. The linker gets the majority of ad revenue from the ad panel.
It has two ways of linking:
1 - “Vanilla” - these are shortened URLs like tinyurl.com etc. These are made on demand and are useful for publishing in social media like Twitter or Facebook status.
2 - “Cherry” - this is the more enterprise-class service. The site owner just places a small script in their page just like they would do with Google Analytics. The script recodes all outbound links as uTags, which display the ad panel. The Cherry service allows the more powerful custom features like custom back links, logos, and panel options. The script also excludes certain types of URLs such as RSS feeds to prevent it from breaking the functionality of these. It also allows the site to add its own exclusions, say if they own multiple domains that they don’t want panels on.
CPM rates are reportedly quite high, and the ads seem to be fairly contextually relevant. I think it has a good chance of becoming a new soruce of revenue for bloggers. It is also currently the only way microbloggers (ie Twitter) have to make any money out of their posting.
