The buzz is all about Pepperjam - and they’re very specific about what they are:
“Next generation affiliate marketing”, “one of the true pioneers of affiliate marketing…” “the culmination of eight years of development and includes the input and consultation of hundreds of affiliates and merchants.”
Or the same old same old, repackaged slightly? Time, as it always does in this game, will tell.
Here’s a really interesting post, rather angry - and I’d probably agree with about 50% of it, which is bang on correct.
I’d add to the list of grievances this one thing - Google’s creation of PageRank, the inevitable arrival of a market in this commodity, only for the originators to turn round and say this has to stop now, and here’s your penalty…
Although, it has to be said - live by the market, die by the market - perhaps some socialism is stirring in the heart of DIY US capitalism…
Everybody in the know used to smile when someone bragged about their site’s Alexa rank - well of course that’s very good, it’s just that Alexa rank is fairly meaningless.
But that all changed, when paid blogging brokers started using Alexa in their scoring algorithm - the better the rank, the higher the payment.
It’s an imperfect index, we know that, they know that - but what else are they going to use? So the possibility of manipulating Alexa rank for monetary gain opened wide…
It’s self-evident, isn’t it - slap an advert, or several, bang in the middle of the viewport and increase your ROI or CPM or any acronym you care to name… or is it?
Yes, if you have a well-established site, lots of backlinks, stable traffic, then the positioning will play a predictable part in the metrics of it - the stuff about eye movements makes perfectly good sense. But if you’re not a super-powered problogger what then? How many visitors take one look at the PPC, get the distinct impression they’ve arrived at a MFA niche site and close, never to return again?
The announcement has filtered out of a semi relaunch of MyBlogLog courtesy of its Yahoo benefactors - to near universal Ennui 2.0, for example here. Indeed, it was news to many that the takeover had been done back in January.
MyBlogLog - little more than a gimmick? A piece of javascript just too far?
One day, much along the lines of the WordPress download crack, someone is going to get to the relevant URI and create an interesting havoc on the few million sites that host the 3rd party code. It’s the downside of Web Services.
Yahoo bought the company and it subsided into a quiet black hole. Even with the data mining, where’s the real money here? And although this is not Yahoo’s question to answer, why is this service better administered by a web giant?
It’s very difficult to avoid the conclusion - a shiny Web2.0 acquisition made in some haste and repented at some leisure.
This seems to be a rough concensus over the state of play in the sponsored/paid/whatever blogging sector.
Currently this market is embryonic - similar to that for search engines around 1998, when early leaders, eg Altavista, Northern Lights, were eclipsed by one operation with a clearly better technical/business model. However, as it stands, the major brokers are:
Reviewme
Hand-in-glove with Text Link Ads - and probably the market leader. Had some problems with their scoring algorithm refusing to update and being open to manipulation - as are they all - but in general appears a competent operation, with potential for growth.
Payperpost
Took a lot of the flak over the ethical issue, has courted the good/bad publicity ever since and seems to be doing well enough for itself despite. Relatively low number of qualified posts for bloggers starting up.
Loudlaunch
As the name suggests, made a considerable noise but, ironically, problems with their startup. Lost a significant number of user accounts and could take up to six weeks to approve a blog. Seem to be getting their act together now.
SponsoredReviews
USP is was that bloggers bid the advertiser for the opportunity over price - advertiser may decline/accept. Bloggers seem to like this - except for the relatively large numbers of bids left hanging because the advertizer simply ignores and fails to decline - the blogger cannot plan ahead how much work may or may not need to be done.
Blogitive
A complex model, involving third-party, “ghost” blogging and a serious number of mail-order brides. May become big, probably won’t.
Other entrants: to early to judge, although Smorty shows promise, they look to have absorbed lessons from the other’s early mistakes.
What do you reckon? - if you’ve got any experience or feedback that contradicts all this completely, let us know…
