Last August, social news site Digg launched a program that incorporates sponsored links into user-generated new streams. The questions at that time revolved around whether the experiment would succeed, and whether Digg's users would revolt against the effort.

The program enables users to vote ads up or down, much the way they handle news.

"The response has been overwhelmingly positive," assured CSO Mike Maser to The New York Times.

"Digg spent its first five years getting the community on its feet. We're going to spend the next five getting the business going."

The site receives about 40 million unique visitors per month. According to Maser, this effort is the first step toward increasing Digg's value.

The voting system doesn't just determine which ads users see most often; it also determines the cost-per-click rate of the ad.

If users "bury" the ad, the CPC increases and the advertiser is more likely to remove the ad from the site.

"In a way, its beneficial for the advertisers to figure out what does and doesn’t work," said Maser. "Digg is the world’s largest focus group."