Industry News; Digg.com Chooses Microsoft For Ads

Yeah I know this has nothing to do with local search but as our business evolves to providing blogging services the scope of what I watch is widening. As such search industry news relating to blogging tools and shifts in industry winds become more important to follow.

Digg is in the blogging tools arena. Used correctly Digg.com can bring a ton of traffic to a site.
In Digg.com news, Microsoft will serve ads for Digg. This seems to be another loss for Federated Media who may yet still be a part of the site delivering ads on some side pages.

With the apparent loss of Wikia to LookSmart and now Digg you have to wonder how badly the scandal brought to light by ValleyWag.com in June and summarized by the NYTimes, (who uses use the word payola) when describing the practice employed by FM and some of their Bloggers hurt their reputation.

Update; FM Responds