Ever visit a blog for the first time, and wonder if they have other posts that might be interesting to you, or wonder what other readers like you found popular? What about wondering if there were other blogs like the one you were reading that had similar content? A new offering called LiveFlows, from the team behind AssetBar and FanFlows, is now available to do just that - hoping to show each visitor the most enticing posts for them, based on how they found your site.

Companies like Outbrain are working to help readers see related items from your own blog and others in their network, while Lijit is working to show you related items that are in your social graph. LiveFlows' approach breaks up the potential content based on whether you have a new visitor, one who found you from search, or even to track what they call "dedicated fans", showing them stories they haven't yet read.

The LiveFlows widget, rather than being tacked on to each post or positioned in your sidebar, operates in a thin bottom bar at the base of each blog using it, just like you can see here on louisgray.com, on the liveflows.com blog and on other trial sites, including Jesse Stay's Staynalive.com and on Bryce Roney's blog.


LiveFlows Says "You Might Like These" Popular Posts
The widget has two parts. The first says "You might like these", showing other pages from the site, with a % probability based on other readers' statistics and your own history. The second says "View my network", highlighting the best content found in blogs that are connected using LiveFlows.


LiveFlows Highlights Other Top Posts In My Network
If you add LiveFlows to your blog, you can connect with other LiveFlows users just by clicking "Join My Network" on any widget you find on the Web, and you can see statistics for how many times users across the LiveFlows network clicked through to your content. LiveFlows' goal is to find your best content, feature it and promote it to new users, both of your site and of others. It's a solid way to get your posts more visibility, as you see fit.


You Can Check On Your Network at LiveFlows.com
Check out LiveFlows at http://www.liveflows.com.

When Outbrain announced it had raised $12 million in its latest round of funding, I openly speculated that the team and its VC partners had wind of a revenue plan that the blogosphere at large hadn't been alerted to. Sure enough, just a week later, that secret has been revealed, as Outbrain, today, rolled out a new program that will display sponsored related links, attached to blog posts from its network of users, myself included. They call it "sponsored but good", and it represents an attempt to find a solution that is beneficial for readers, publishers and advertisers, which has proven very difficult for many vendors.

Outbrain is well-known for its rating widget that sits below users' posts, and tries to find related stories, both on the blogger's site and the service's network. Starting today, some posts will also feature a sponsored link - not to a paid-for blog article, but instead, to an organic article selected by the advertiser which will put their product in a good light.


An example sponsored ad, via Outbrain
I spoke with John LoGioco, the company's vice president of business development, yesterday, and he said he hoped the new program delivered a "perfect balance," as readers would find new and interesting content that was non-disruptive, advertisers would put sponsored content on trusted sites, and publishers could gain revenue.

The benefit package delivers a good share of revenue to the blogger in today's announcement, LoGioco said, adding he hoped the program would be one that be trusted and adopted by bloggers looking to add another incremental revenue stream along the more typical display ads, dominated by Google.


The hope? An advertising plan that works for all
"Advertisers are excited so far, because they know the power of trusted voices driving demand creation if people are considering a product but are in the discovery phase," LoGioco said. "They haven't really had a chance to take a piece of the conversation that has been positive about them and amplify it. We can reach the influencer audience, and it is scalable."

With Outbrain's growth in popularity, serving an ever-increasing number of recommendations from sites in the network, the company has reached the point where advertisers are looking to reach readers - ones that are tired of seeing pop-up ads and other tricks that get in the way of their information browsing.

"We have all seen how platforms can be good for the advertiser or the publisher, but rarely for the reader," LoGioco said. "The advertising is in a non-disruptive format, and it leverages authentic brand endorsements. We are being very honest and open with bloggers and publishers."

The target for the "Sponsored but good" program won't be for direct marketers, and it won't be self-serve. Bloggers can opt in to receiving revenue from the program, and can remove specific sponsored links, once registered with Outbrain, and use what they call a link zapper to zap live sponsored recommendations. And if you think you're share of the revenue pie isn't going to impact your life, you can even choose to pass it off to charity.

See Also: Coverage from CenterNetworks, Mashable and VentureBeat.

While venture capital is said to be very expensive these days, hard to obtain, and with questionable potential returns given a closed market for public offerings and multiples for mergers and acquisitions, companies on the periphery of blogging appear to still be hot. We saw Auttomatic acquire Intense Debate late last year. You also remember strong funding rounds for my personal favorites, Lijit and Disqus, who are adding strong search and commenting functionality to sites like mine. Now, you can add Outbrain to the list, following this morning's announcement the company scored a $12 million round to expand its blog rating and recommendation platform.

Now, before you cry foul and ask where the money is in such a little widget, as is tempting, you can read between the lines in today's release to see that Outbrain has bigger plans - ones they no doubt shared with their VC partners, and not necessarily with me.

Outbrain is talking less about a widget, and more about finding great content across the Web. As one VC partner said, "Finding great content is getting both more difficult and more important... Outbrain's personalized recommended links offer great value to readers by combining their collective wisdom..."

If you think about it, Lijit and Outbrain are solving similar issues, from different angles. Lijit scours your personal blog and your social network of approved sites to find content you are searching for. Outbrain analyzes your individual posts, your previous blog entries and other blogs in their network to provide recommendations of what to read next. Both are useful, and both are getting traction. And it's good to see that good ideas are going to be rewarded, even when times are more difficult.

Outbrain is best known for its easy to install blog widget that allows readers to rate posts on a one to five star scale, from "Bad" to "Excellent". I've been running it myself the last few months, and have seen some consistent, if not overwhelming, activity on the widgets each day. Outbrain is looking to extend their service by adding stories they believe you may like in addition to the current post, both from the site you own and from third party sites who are fellow Outbrain users. The idea, in their mind, is to deliver a wider range of content to readers, no matter the source.


Outbrain recommends other posts you might like and lets you rate posts.
Today, those who install Outbrain's blog widget also see stories "You might like", but they are limited to the blog on which the widget is installed. The new extension will, in effect, act like the "Web rings" of old, by syndicating your content on similar sites and extending the potential audience. Outbrain also is a big fan of Scott Karp's recent article on Publishing 2.0, which showed that sites which have the highest reader loyalty also are heavy linkers outside their own blogs.

This change is expected to roll out in the next few weeks, Outbrain told publishers late Tuesday night.

While the most visible aspects of Outbrain are the stars on users' blogs, there is actually a good set of statistics being tracked on the back end today, including a record of all blog post ratings, including the score, the post and the rater's country, the ability to sort all posts by total number of ratings, average rating and total popularity score (tabulated by the number of votes and average rating), and how many page views you have gained from the Outbrain network at large.


The most recent ratings on Outbrain.

The most popular posts, by rating, on Outbrain.
Given I'm not a high-traffic destination site, I doubt I'm exactly lighting up the Outbrain leaderboard. Most of my posts get a couple votes, and the most popular posts have received from 12 to 15 votes apiece. This could be due to people's unfamiliarity with Outbrain, reluctance to use the widget, or my low visibility.


My most active post on Outbrain got 15 votes.
Tonight, I logged in to my Outbrain account, and turned on story recommendations, both from my own site, and from third party sites. Over time, we'll see if Outbrain can deliver customized, quality, suggested links, and if this will increase the reader experience. Keep me posted on your thoughts.