Six Apart, the San Francisco-based blog hosting and software company, has linked up with VideoEgg, the video ad network, to offer bloggers the opportunity to integrate interactive video ads.

This represents a big development for Six Apart in becoming an ad services firm for its bloggers and advertisers.  The company,  whose brands include TypePad,  VOX and Movable Type, has been offering marketers and bloggers advertising opportunities for the past year or so.

Last week, Brian Birtwistle, VP at VideoEgg, recorded this video explanation for us. 

The ad unit is called Twig.  You can see the demo here.

Advertisers pay on a "cost per engagement" model CPE.  We're not sure how that breaks down into revenue opportunities.  But for smaller blogs, which fall below the size required by Federated Media, this could be a profitable way to get brand advertisers and revenue. 

ClickZ reported on this development this morning.

The relationship between Six Apart and VideoEgg goes back over three years.  It was in early 2006 that I first used VideoEgg to publish Beet.TV videos and crosspost to my TypePad blog.  Although VideoEgg got out of the video hosting and sharing business, we still use TypePad. 

Last month at the All Things D conference, I interveiwed SixApart CEO Chris Alden about the expansion of the company into ad services.

More coverage on today's news on Media Post

Here is the press release.

Andy Plesser, Executive Producer