Zemanta launches a content recommendation network for readers of its network of 300,000 publishers

Zemanta, the startup that provides suggestions of media to use and content to link to as writers prepare articles in blogging platforms like WordPress and Tumblr, is expanding its offering today with a new plugin that recommends content to readers instead.

The new service is essentially a content recommendation network that shows links to relevant related articles on the other sites, as well as advertising. Publishers running the plugin on their sites get to control which sites are linked to either manually or via a blacklist that allows them to exclude, for example, direct competitors.

Aside from these controls, content is selected using the algorithms that have made Zemanta a popular choice for bloggers and other publishers looking for inspiration as they write. A back-end dashboard offers data about how many inbound visitors the service has driven, the click-through rate, page views generated and the like.

New York-based Zemanta boasts a network of 300,000 publishers, who will be able to tap into the new service. Using the service, which has mobile and tablet optimized formats available in addition to a traditional desktop mode, as a way to monetize via advertising is a clever move as long as publishers get a suitable cut of the action (we’re waiting to hear back from Zemanta about this) and the advertising is as relevant as the content recommended.

Features like this that harness existing publisher networks are nothing new, but as anyone who’s used Zemanta’s back-end plugin before will know, the recommendation technology here is particularly good.

Zemanta was a Seedcamp winner back in 2007 and has received funding from Union Square Ventures, Eden Ventures and The Accelerator Group.

➤ Zemanta