B.E.T.A. Daily » Ad Networks

PublisherSpot: Review All Ad Networks For Making Money Online From Your Blog Or Website

Vikrant — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:39:51 +0000

PublisherSpot is a place that you should check before deciding on any advertising network for monetizing your blog or website. The site has information, reviews and rating for various ad networks which includes CPC, CPM and affiliate networks.

PublisherSpot provides comprehensive information about the ad networks which includes:

Features

Sign up process
Ad Types
Control Panel and Reporting
Payment terms and methods
Technical support information
Reviews and Ratings

The ratings and reviews are provided by the user community which rates the ad networks based on the experiences and their money making potential.

Users can browse through the details of ad networks as well as search for ad networks according to the payment type, ad creative type, payment frequency, payment method etc. The site also has a Forum for publishers for sharing their experiences, discussing monetization issues and asking questions about the ad networks.

I found PublisherSpot to be a very useful and informative site and a must visit for anyone planning to make money through online ads.

Global Top 100 Blocked Sites

Vikrant — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:47:08 +0000

eDoors has launched a list of top 100 websites which are blocked in various countries across the globe and are accessed using anti-jamming and anti-censorship softwares.

Below is the screenshot showing the top 10 websites.

There are few interesting points which come out of this report:

Google, a search engine, has the number 1 position. Why would any country or organization stop its people from searching the Internet?
China is the top country globally in terms of Internet censorship as there are lots of Chinese websites in the list.
eDoors itself is being censored as it is ranked 11 in the top 100 list.

See the full list of top 100 blocked websites at eDoors.

ESPN Sparks Media Companies Battle Against Ad Networks

Vikrant — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:31:25 +0000

ESPN is, in a way, pioneering a revolt by traditional media companies against the ad networks. ESPN.com, which has stopped Specific Media and other networks from serving ads on the site, is rallying support from other big publishers. Forbes Inc. and Turner Media are also expected to announce a similar move as reported by MediaWeek and Mercury News.

The reason for this backlash from big media companies is commoditizing of their brand and, supposedly, high value content by ad networks. These publishers feel that the ad networks are cashing on their brand value to attract advertisers and their content is undervalued when compared with the long tail of publishers for serving ads.

If these companies are able to garner support from other big media companies and publishers and execute their own ad networks, it can seriously impact the earnings of the ad networks like Google, Yahoo etc. Although it seems unlikely as the publishers are best at producing content and ad networks at selling advertisements, but Sarah Chubb, president of Conde Nast’s online division, CondeNet, differs. She says, “We’re pretty good at selling advertising, too.”

Can ESPN and others change the rules of the game? Highly unlikely as none of the publishers can afford to lose advertising dollars by leaving their inventory unsold. The Ad inventory is like an airlines seat which loses its revenue every time it flies vacant. Moreover, the value of content is uncertain in nature and keeps changing. Since ad networks do a good job of filling the unsold inventory, they are the best bet for publishers for earning extra dollars. Another reason is the problem of scale and reach for these publishers which will invariably be lower than those of ad networks.

The best solution for these publishers would be to look at a hybrid model of selling high value advertising themselves leaving the rest for the ad networks.