Approaching crossroads in media ad networks...

To follow up on Oliver's post below re: Forbes' planned ad network, paidcontent published a story earlier this week about ESPN dropping plans for their own network (and possibly Tuner doing the same): http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-espn-pulls-the-plug-on-ad-network-and-encourages-others-to-do-the-same. One reason cited was a possible dilution of ESPN's brand equity in the eyes of advertisers, due to being bundled with so many other sites. Much like the popularly-held notion that user-generated content will never attract sufficient attention from advertisers due to the unpredictability of the content, to me all of this speaks to corporate America's arms-distance flirting with the Long Tail: everybody wants to harnass the sheer volumes of eyeballs and niche markets, but nobody wants to bear the risk of exacty what's out there at the tail-end. ESPN would love to sell Nike inventory across hundreds of sites attracting "ESPN-like" audiences, but oh wait, site #230 gets a little risque at times so let's keep tabs on them. This sounds like the exception rather than the norm (MTV/Viacom recently announced launching an ad network as well), so we'll have to adopt a wait-and-see attitude with this one.