From blogs.adobe.com
Adobe AIR Marketplace is a central resource that allows developers to make their applications available to millions of potential users and makes it easy for consumers to find them.
The new AIR marketplace was launched a few days ago and features a brand new look and several new features. Do check it out!
Adobe Air is quite a new platform but it has been quickly getting an amazing name for itself. Adobe have their own marketplace (which received an overhaul recently) of applications but there aer a few new marketplace popping up. One of these new marketplaces is AdobeAirApps.com.
AdobeAirApps is a very simply marketplace that showcases the newest and greatest Adobe Air applications. AdobeAirApps reviews these applications and then just provides a basic screenshot, then finally allows users to comment and rate the applications. The site is very new and im looking forward to seeing them build this up over time. Im not a huge fan of the design, but im sure once the site starts making some revenues then it will get updated quite quickly.
Twitter names are suddenly becoming a lot hard to come by. Tweexchange aims at capitalizing on this increase in traffic Twitter is seeing by providing a marketplace for Twitter memebers to exchange, buy or find Twitter usernames from other existing members.
When you head over to Tweexchange you can search for you desired username and it also shows you what names are taken and recommends alternative usernames you might want to use. The site also lists Twitter handles for sale, which could be a lucrative business if the handles listed for sale are actually desirable.
If you do see a Twitter name available that you’d like to buy or negotiate, Tweexchange lets you send the owner a Tweet or email inquiry. Selling “free” Twitter names is apparently ‘against Twitter rules’, but it’s unclear as to how and if Twitter is enforcing this rule.
“Twitter Squatting” is become a popular phenomenon. People are taking up brand names, company names and famous individuals’ names as user names in the hopes of cashing in big one day, like many who bought popular domain names have in the past.
Tweexchange is a great idea but im not too sure if Twitter will allow this service to continue, but I cant really see why not, at the end of the day Twitter obviously has final say on all Twitter names and who owns them.
Are you looking to get a pet? Why not head over to Animaroo. Animaroo is an animal marketplace in which you can buy and sell dogs. For some reason this website seems a little wrong!
At Animaroo you can buy or sell a dog, see dog related websites and check out what breed you might want to purchase. Additionally, they have information on dog rescue, dog training, dog grooming and more. The site only has USA based ads at the moment but im sure this can be expanded over time to different countries and even different types of animals.
If you are a dog lover and looking for a new companion then Animaroo might be the place to look.
Over the last few months we have been doing a lot of work with advertising networks. I have noticed that with most CPM networks currently in the marketplace they provide quite low rates, apart from a few. With regards to these low rate networks I have noticed a key characteristic that most use Yield Manager from Right Media. Is this just a coincidence or does Right Media only provide their platform to remnant and low paying CPM ad networks?
Yesterday I was having a great conversation with Marshall Kirkpatrick (Vice President of Content Development at RWW, not sure what that means) about how to get your blog noticed in the current environment. The discussion started with me posing the basic question “how can I get my blog noticed because we seem to be producing very good content but not getting the rewards”?
It was first mentioned that Problogger is the best source for this information on the web, however I have been reading his site for many years now and most of the content seems to be getting a little reproduced. Additionally, Problogger talks a lot about social media and how to use it to your advantage, but these days everyone has been reading those articles for year and most bloggers use StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, Buzz and other very proficiently. If most bloggers are using these tools to their advantage then you still have the same issues, how to stand out from the crowd?
I know that here in Europe a blog that has been on the rise lately is TheNextWeb, but I know these guys have been writing that blog for several years now and they also have one of the best technology conference on the mainland of Europe. Therefore if I want to improve my readership it is a little difficult to just start a conference, or is it worth adding some add-ons to the site such as job board, marketplace or others?
Content is also a major player in this issues, cause most good bloggers say that content is king. However, I think that content is king when you are either a small blog or a large blog, but definitely in the middle content isnt king and it is all about promotion and push.
This is main problem with web 2.0, noise! Currently, there is just simply so much noise in most niche’s, so why instead of writing individual sites and keeping a little revenue, maybe the plan should be to join forces with other blogs and create a larger blog and take a smaller slice of a much larger pie.
I propose this question to you, “how can I get my site to stand out from the rest, especially considering we produce amazing content that is much better than the majority of our competitors”?
No more just Google Adwords CPC ads on YouTube cause they have just added a sponsored videos section. Anyone can now start and run a campaign for their videos directly on YouTube and they all based on CPC.
Concerned about costs? Don’t worry – Sponsored Videos puts you in complete control of your spending. There’s no minimum spending requirement–the amount you pay for Sponsored Videos is up to you. You can, for instance, set a daily budget of five dollars and a maximum cost of ten cents for each click on your ad.
Currently they only support users in the USA, but im sure that they will be expanding this very soon to other countries.
A lot of people have been talking recently about Performancing Ads, John Chow, Problogger and Shoemoney to name a few. I totally understand the system they are trying to put in place, but is it actually going to work? For a long time people have been saying that Advertising marketplaces are the way forward, but I dont think that the type of marketplace that Performancing ads has will ever work.
Performancing ads simply will add a banner onto your site so that you can self-serve advertising, a full automated system. While at the same time they gather information about your traffic and user demographics. This is meant to automate the system so the publisher doesn’t have to worry about negotiating individual contracts or the advertiser doesn’t have to worry about having a 5 email exchange before they can purchase.
Advertisers will only purchase advertising in this way on sites that are already major players in their niches, solid brands or emerging sites. Thus, it has a very limited return for publishers. A great deal of smaller sites have joined Performancing Ads in the hope that they will sell more advertising.
Selling advertising in this method for small sites simply doesn’t work, because they don’t have the traffic or brand to actually sell. Smaller sites really need to band together in a particular niche and use the safety in numbers method, cause then they will have a much better chance of getting more top quality advertisers with their broader reach.
This method of self service is great for only a very limited few sites. Therefore, I’m sure that Performancing Ads will only be a fad and they will die off soon enough. The only way this platform can work successfully, is if they have a huge amount of publishers, then a marketplace which makes it very simple to purchase across 10 sites for example, while at the same time they increase their sales team.
Currently, Performancing Ads is a company that medium or small bloggers shouldn’t be taking seriously!
Google Docs now offers a gallery of free templates. On first glance these templates are very basic but there are so many in a variety of areas. Template categories include Business, Calculators, Calendars & Schedules, Cards & Certificates, Letters, Presentation Designs, and more. These templates are for all types of documents such as, spreadsheets, documents and presentations. The new templates can be found right here.
In the last few weeks a new advertising service has been slowly emerging and has signed some of the power blogs around the blogosphere already, that service is BuySellAds. I came across their service a couple days ago via BloggingTips, and thought I would let all our readers know about their service.
Buysellads are basically an advertising marketplace or a serlf-service platform which allows publishers and advertisers to meet in one single location and automate all of their advertising needs. The platform itself is not overly new, because it has been done in a similar way by Adbrite for many years now. However, that being said Buysellads is blog specific at present and has a more professional and better layout style than Adbrite.
Currently Buysellads take a 25% cut from all advertising purchased across their platform, which isnt niether high or low, because more of their competitors charge in the region of 20-30% as their standard fees, eg Blogads.
Buysellads does I think have a better understand of what is required when it comes to blog advertising. On the publishers individual pages they have details stats like alexa ranking, compete ranking, delicious, technorati and inbound links. This allows the advertisers to gain more of a feel about the popularity of a site.
Publishers can set the number of ads which will be displayed in an ad zone and you can also sell more ads than are being displayed and simply put the ads in rotation. All ads are sold on a monthly basis and you can decide yourself whether banner ads use the nofollow tag.
The entire system is automated, thus allowing advertising to interact where appropriate, and allowing publishers not to have to worry about controlling advertisers schedules, invoicing, credit control, etc etc.
BuySellAds is still in a beta stage at the moment however the standard of websites seems to be very high so don’t be alarmed if your blog isn’t accepted (sites are reviewed individually). Current sites already using the service, bloggingtips, freelance switch, psdtuts, logopond and cssmania.
Im thinking about trying our Buysellads for myself so I can let everyone know if they perform or not. Should I try to get into their beta?
TNX is a text sales marketplace, but as I have found out, it is also a whole lot more. The site itself and services are very similar to Text-Link-Ads, but with so many more features and opportunities to make your site a lot more profitable.
The TNX system is based upon a points system, where more points are required to purchase links on pages. One text link can be purchased for as little as 1 point, with 1000 points available for just over a dollar. TNX currently has over 46000 members and they have sold over 25 million links.
The main advantage for a publishers within the system is the option onnot only selling text links on your home page, but also selling them individually on each page, this making your potential profit a lot higher. Additionally, publishers can also manually accept or deny advertisers through the platform, allowing a lot more control over inventory and keep relevance within their pages. As we all know Google dont like the companies or publishers who sell text links, thus publisher control their relevance and also advertisers can use a special tool from TNX to make all text links Google acceptable.
Finally, TNX have a great Partner (affiliate) program which allows publishers to place banners on their sites and make 13.3% TNX points made by their referrals. These points can quickly add up and will allow you to place a great deal more text links throughout the sector.
TNX is on the rise and is by far the best Text marketplace out there. Make sure you head over and give it a try today.
