So, today’s the day Sparky is let out of his private alpha chains…

IZEA’s latest innovation is being unleashed today at Ad:Tech, San Francisco, and the stars of advertising and blogging are already lining up to meet Sparky and the world’s first Social Marketing Network: SocialSpark.

I gave you a hint of what to expect when the site was being designed back in November, and as you can see, my tone has shifted from Ricky Bobby to The Rock. This is a seriously powerful platform for bloggers and advertisers, the likes of which hasn’t been seen before. In fact, before I even describe it, go signup and come back, I’ll wait…

OK, now that you’ve signed up and, possibly, reviewed the video above, what more can I share. There’s so much in SocialSpark, I’ll just focus on a few innovations that get me excited:

• 1st advertiser/brand/agency social network with direct publisher friending, blogrolls, street teams and a dashboard to manage diverse social media marketing efforts. Imagine: advertisers proactively identifying relevant bloggers and organizing vertical advertising networks for their brands.
• 1st face-based analytics: GOOG analytics plus MyBlogLog (faces for visitors, not just recent readers) plus visitor demographics in one end-to-end analytics, ranking, marketing and blog monetization platform. Imagine: understanding your visitors as people with faces and demographics, rather than pagevisits per unique, bounce-rates or IP addresses.
• 1st 100% automated, in-post human disclosure, including audit tools to help publishers and advertisers verify compliance with key corporate or industry guidelines such as WOMMA’s Code of Ethics. Imagine: a marketplace that provides the tools to maximize visibility for readers and 100% Code of Ethics compliance.
• 1st 100% automated, in-post machine disclosure via “nofollow”, including audit tools to help publishers and advertisers verify compliance with key search engine policies such as Google’s quality guidelines. Imagine: advertise and blog in the open with SocialSpark, without fear of GOOG penalties from SponsoredReviews, PayU2Blog, TLA or other paid-link companies that violate Google Quality Guidelines. Align yourself with SocialSpark sooner than later, I believe a fresh round of pagerank penalties are in process for those smaller networks and DIY link sellers.
• 1st one-click blog sponsorship ad unit requiring no blog design/template editing to position the ad unit and provides 100% publisher approval to match brands to readers. Imagine: brands you trust ask to sponsor you and it’s done with one-click. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the Blog Welcome, but I believe that is being decoupled from the easy/valuable bottom sponsorship banner.
• 1st clearinghouse for blog writer’s-block remedies called Sparks, providing organic post ideas such as inspiring charities, hot topics, etc. Imagine: more posts = more traffic, but without backstage passes and exclusive press releases like the elites get, how do you ramp your organic post inspirations? Sparks. I particularly like the potential for spreading your favorite posts or charities via free Sparks.

What else?

Well, I can share that advertiser appetite from the private alpha is already gobbling up sponsorship of the best tech, mommy and daddy blogs. If you are a tech blogger, a mommy blogger or a daddy blogger — the sooner you signup, the more likely you are to be added to relevant advertiser street teams. As the marketplace grows, competition will be tougher and getting noticed by your favorite brands could take more effort.

I’ve shared plenty here, but I probably also prompted some questions — let me have ’em…

Oh, and given my post title, I’ll leave you with a video montage of Method Man’s tribute to The Rock — “Do you Smell What the Rock is Cooking?” He reminds me of Ted Murphy, but with muscles, good looks and personality 😉