Blogs aren't just for scaring politicians anymore. Weblogs - made famous last year when political bloggers toppled newscaster Dan Rather and spotlit a "transmitter" on President Bush's back - are fast becoming tastemakers in music and entertainment. Savvy entertainment companies have moved to position their music, books and films as part of the ongoing conversation taking place in the ad hoc community of blogs know as the "blogosphere."

To date, Eminem, Weezer, The Bravery, Touchstone Films, Random House Publishing, Sony Pictures, Lions' Gate Films and TBS are just some of the names in entertainment who've taken advantage of the uniquely influential and networked audiences served by blogs. Now, a group of leading music bloggers has formed the "Music Blog Network" to help entertainment marketers quickly target the blogs' influential music fans.

Tapping into popular music blogs like "Stereogum" and "Large Hearted Boy," ads will be seen by hundreds of thousands of music fans at a fraction of the cost charged by traditional corporate publishers.

The network currently has 9 members, all at the hub of the music blogosphere. "That should rise to roughly 20 within a month," says network organizer Jeff Davidson, who blogs at www.earvolution.com. "We want to work out the kinks with these nine blogs, some of whom have been selling blogads for more than a year now."

BlogAds.com founder Henry Copeland says the network "lets advertisers tap directly into the p2p mosh-pit. Information that used to take a days or weeks to climb one side of a corporate publishing ladder (from source to journalist to editor) and then trickle down the other (from layout to production to printing press to teamsters to newstand to coffee table) now passes directly from person to person in real time. The music blog network puts advertisers right at the junction where up-to-the-minute information is traded and opinions formed."

Successful blogads are far more interwoven into the community than traditional top-down advertising. For example, check out the links to blogger comments in this ad for a new poetry book by Camille Paglia.

The Music Blog Network is a uniquely affordable tool for entertainment companies looking to tap into the elite of the music grassroots. Bloggers are not part of publishing organizations and their overheads are effectively zero, so blogad prices are affordable even for indie artists.