The British are coming to content monetization. London-based Skimlinks, a content monetization service already on more than a half million international sites is reportedly looking to be more aggressive on this side of the pond. Yesterday it announced the launch of SkimKit, a new tool that helps online publishers increase the value of their content by creating affiliate links within several different types of platforms.

“It’s fair to say that this represents or at least coincides with a new push into the U.S.,” said a spokesperson. “Skimlinks CEO Alicia Navarro is looking at setting up shop here. Skimlinks has many U.S. clients and has been available to the U.S. market since its launch in Dec. 2008.”

The most high profile client in the US is Time Out North America.  Its solution so far  has aided website publishers of large content website, blogs, or commerce sites by automatically turning normal retailer links in their editorial content into affiliate links. Each time a user clicks through and makes a purchase, the website earns a commission from the retailer. The service is ideal for publishers lacking the resources or capacity to harness affiliate marketing as a revenue source, in a market is expected to $4 billion in the U.S. by 2014.

SkimKit is a desktop tool that empowers editors and bloggers to easily produce revenue-generating content in a way that the company says distances them from the commercial side of the process. “SkimKit offers a live, searchable database of millions of products from Skimlinks' merchants. The tool lets publishers research, find and link to products they are writing about, with immediate access to deeplinks and image URLs,” according to the company. “It also features a service that creates shortened, monetized links for use in Twitter and email newsletters, turning a means of communication into a potential revenue source.”

"Skimlinks gives publishers a way to generate revenue streams beyond banner ads and text ad units by making the most of the commercial value of the content they are already writing," said Navarro. "SkimKit makes it even easier by allowing editors and bloggers to actively play a role in the monetization process without feeling any impact on their integrity or impartiality, as they are still writing about the kinds of products and retailers they normally write about."

"SkimKit places the content and the commercial opportunity together," said Paul Hood, Head of Digital for Mirror.co.uk, and Skimlinks publisher. "The editors have complete control over the content that they're selecting and the commercial happens automatically. We're not missing any opportunities."