For as long as there have been blogs the most common ad you see on them has been the Google AdSense text and image ads. They are almost synonymous with blogging it seems with just about every new ad network that comes along looking to take a bite out of them. This works for the larger big name blogs but when it comes to the midlevel and starting blogs AdSense still rules.

However something I read the other day makes me wonder if we could be seeing a possible alternative starting to dip its toes into the murky water of ad networks.

Last week M.G. Siegler over at TechCrunch had a post up where he was talking about a new ad block that he had seen over at Digg

As you can see in the first such ad, for the new Warner Brothers film Where The Wild Things Are, the movie studio picked three previously popular stories on Digg about the movie. Each already had several hundred diggs before the studio wrapped it in the ad unit. One of Digg’s weaknesses is that once a story is off the main homepage, the likelihood that anyone is ever going to see it again goes way, way down. But this is a way for Digg to surface older content, while giving them a huge incentive to do so: Advertiser money.

Naturally, the ad unit also features a big graphic for the film as well. Clicking on this area goes to the movie’s website, just as you’d expect from a normal online ad.

M.G. ends off his post with a great question

The next question is, what happens if Digg strikes some deals to place these types of ads on other sites? Would users click on them, recognizing the Digg branding and realizing that they might actually like to see that content? Would advertisers still pay for that on a massive scale? That could be a billion dollar question.

The more I think about this type of advertising block the more it seems like a great idea. Especially if you were able to narrow down the focus of the ad blocks based on the kind of content you provide on your blog. So I would be able to sign up, indicate that my areas of interest here are social media and the internet, and then display a Digg ad block that has a list of hot stories in the area along with a more targeted ad.

What would also be a nice touch is if the ad was also able to add related posted from our own blogs. Such a combination would definitely be a win-win situation for everyone involved. Readers would be able to see what other hot stories are happening in the same space. Bloggers would be getting more targeted advertising which would possible bring better revenues due to reader interaction. Advertisers would know that their ad money is being spent to actually reach the demographics they want.

I’d sign up tomorrow.

How about you?