I met with some very nice folks from outbrain the other week and I just added their widget to my blog. To bloggers, outbrain is a great ratings system that also shows related articles about their post to their readers. Similar to the way Amazon recommends 'other products you might be interested to buy,' outbrain suggests 'other stories you might want to read.' It's a great way to offer value to your readers and to be part of a larger traffic chain.

To marketers, outbrain means visibility and getting more out of online PR hits. Imagine being mentioned in a post on Mashable or Reuters.com. In addition to being viewed by readers who go to these outlets, your link can appear under many relevant blog posts that are part of the outbrain network.

Similar to sponsored links on Google, brands can sponsor links on outbrain. These sponsored links are indicated by a small icon above the link headline. May take some time to educate consumers about who is pushing them content exactly. If used right, outbrain can be a great way to aggregate content. The widget delivers both relevance and reach, by matching related articles across numerous blogs.

I wonder what's next for the company. After all, they are gathering a huge community and they must be seeing an extensive media index develop based on reader ratings and click throughs... hmm....