You will probably be as surprised as I was when you see some of the names in the The top 50 ad Network according to comscore
The top 10 Ad Focus properties also maintained their February rankings with Platform-A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, leading the ranking in March, reaching 91 percent of Americans online. interCLICK gained 9 spots in the ranking to position 14, reaching 58 percent of the 188 million Americans online. Real Cities Network and YuMe Video Network both entered this month’s rankings in positions 38 and 43, respectively.
The real question would be to rank the 50 advertising networks in terms of revenue rather than rankings.
About mid-week I received a phone call from a Doba representative. He was certainly a nice enough gentleman the appropriate balance of sales and telemarketing. Being the qualified “warm” lead that I am, you could tell he was reading the Doba sales script and inserting my first name every other 100 words to sound congenial and personal. All in all he did a good job. Doba was offering a 50% Doba special if I prepaid all at once. After his speech he clearly spelled out the savings over the normal $59.95 a month ($700 annual) he was offering. The total was $299.00 for the next 12 months. I would have hung the phone up at this point (because if Doba profit margin’s are so good, why do they need an annual prepayment, but that would be much of a case study for all you entrepreneurs would it? I said sure, let’s give it a go in the name of lifting the veil on Doba.
Shortly after this I took my research I conducted from (Doba part I). I used the fancy push to marketplace button and had 3 products on ebay in less than 10 minutes. A bar stool, piece of jewelry and a men’s watch. Fast forward 3 - 5 days (length of auctions) and Nada. I was out the ebay fees. So now my total investment is about 10 days being involved with Doba and about $303 dollars of total cash outlay.
I have noticed the supposed “wholesale” price of Doba products plus a 2.50 dropship fee plus and abnormally high shipping rate is starting to be the culprit for no sales in the Ebay marketplace. I also notice a plethora of no-name brands pushing product through Doba. I’m not losing hope yet though….Ebay is known for price-slashing shoppers and people looking for 25 -50% off retail (the same margin as the price for Doba’s products). Before I throw Doba under the bus I will forge ahead with other sales outlets on the Internet.
Stayed tuned for Part III of Doba case study as I ramp up the sales efforts.
18 hot news startups are confirmed at Under the Radar conference to present on stage in June
33Across - Identifies influential online users Animoto - Create personalized, professional-quality videos from images and music, offering a new alternative to traditional online photo slideshows AudioMicro - Stock music and sound effects licensing platform Aviary -Suite of web-based applications for people who create and a marketplace to sell that content Dizzywood - A virtual world that allows kids to dress up 3D avatars, play games, explore worlds and meet new friends in a safe environment ffwd - Organized, multi-platform, video content delivered via a browser, with social network awareness, and predictive recommendations. GumGum - A licensing and distribution platform for online content Hollywood Interactive Group - A mass casual mmo based on reality TV concepts and Hollywood stardom.
Jacked - Browser-based “second screen” for TV viewers, which provides synchronized content and a real-time interactive experience that complements what they’re watching on TV Kosmix - Categorization engine that crawls billions of Web pages in a unique manner to create algo-generated home pages Loomia - Social recommendations bridging established social networking sites with media websites Mochi Media - Provides independent game developers with analytics, distribution, tools and monetization while providing advertisers with turnkey opportunities to reach the one in three Internet users who play online games. MovieSet - Platform that brings behind-the-scenes filmmaking online, giving fans authentic access through its proprietary toolkit for Producers. Mytopia -Social gaming community for Web, Mobile, Smartphone and TV PixVerse - Web-based widget virtual worlds that are fun and simple to play from anywhere on the web.
PlayCafe - Online game show network Sometrics - Social Analytics and Social Ad Platform uiActive - Take all your contacts from your social networks with you — on your phone!
Amazon had a unknown server outage today starting at around 5am and lasting until quarter-past 7am. The reports in main stream media and blogs have been comical based on how quickly people want to throw AWS (Amazon Web Services) under the bus. Granted Amazon does not have a SLA (service level agreement) but, is that really any different than owning your own infrastructure. Unless you are hosting applications on the edge (think Akamai) and other CDN’s, hosting is bound to fail at some point….even SLA’s that offer 99.999% uptime have cryptic legal language that exonorates them from legal damages. I had a webhosting company for 2 years before selling off the assets and referring business to parnters and downtime is inevitable. It’s how well you manage the downtime and your customer service requests that matter.
Startup Addict has AWS in our business plan…although not implemented for 1.0 and 2.0 release it will be incorporated by 2.5 release, it just makes good business sense. The impressive aspect of the downtime was how quickly it came back up and you better believe Amazon will be throwing resources at rectifying and preventing this problem in the future. As I reported on earlier, numerous startups are attempting to compete with AWS and are offering SLA’s but, this practice is limited because the SLA is inevitable for Amazon. The reason one is not in place now is very clear after this event –Amazon is still working out the kinks. A new startup will not find a better economy-of-scale anywhere than at Amazon web services for infrastructure (unless your VC funded and have a high burn-rate).
Xobni is a cool plug-in for Outlook that keeps contacts organized and user-friendly (why didn’t Microsoft think of that?). Over the years I have acquired more add-ons, hacks and modifications for Outlook then any normal human should. Alas, the pain will subside and I can xobnize Outlook and realize the following benefits:
Automatic organization of my email and contacts.
Faster Search Functions…superior to native Outlook
Xobni creates a profile of all interactions with your contacts.
Xobni automatically extracts phone and email contacts from email messages.
If you are an avid Outlook user for communication but desire a higher high, then 20 lucky Startup Addict readers can download the program by entering the special invite code , ‘startupaddict’. The 20 lucky readers will in turn be able to invite 5 of their friends. Remember the product is still in beta so cracks may be visible under heavy fire.
Xobni is a fine addition to any entrepreneur’s toolbox in the mandatory world of clean, fast and intuitive communication. Now go grab those special beta invites, because like Ricky Bobby says in Taladaga Nights “If your not first, your last.”
Youtube opens up the money-sharing program that so many other video sites have adopted. Google is sharing the wealth of Youtube’s ad revenue for the hard work and dedication of video producers and entrepreneurs. It could be worth your while according to the wired article:
Partners who regularly produce videos with more than 1 million pageviews earn “several thousand dollars per month,” according to YouTube.
I’m still a fan of metacafe which pays you $5 bucks per thousand views. Nothing to write home about, but it’s better than a slap in the head. I have found the dumber the video the more it is watched, although there are a few how to exceptions that rival even instructables. It will be interesting to watch the success of the Youtube program.
The more popular the mo’money you will get….the shared wealth is finally coming to the web, after all if everything is user generated content, the user should benefit.
We all know getting attention to stakeholders (money, customers, talent, media exposure) in a newly formed startup is always a challenge. One of the most creative pitches I have read or heard about in recent months was from Mark Kern, president and chief executive of online videogame maker Red 5 Studios Inc (WSJ article here).
He sent a russian doll style pitch to prospect talent. They opened one box after another, and than another. Eventually the prospective talent got to an ipod shuffle that played the evoking voice of Mark Kern telling them why they should work with Red 5 and why all the great achievements upon until that point has lead them to Red 5. NOW that is a great pitch, that is something that stimulates the daily numbing emotions of our lives. I know from my brief but eclectic history of startups, that it is what sells the grand prize. Good for Mark’s usage and a lesson to all of us.
CBS isn’t the only network buying up successful web properties, Discovery is plunking down $250 million big one to connect Discovery content into the HowStuffWorks brand. Networks and traditional media companies alike are realizing the fragmentation of media continues at a rapid pace and rather than struggle for user attention why not meet users head-on in multiple mediums. Brand extension from traditional media outlets into new outlets is the only way to maintain a strong brand in a web 2.0 world. Discovery is certainly on the right track and I personally have to say the networks content is only getting better and more original. Can’t beat lobster wars or myth busters.
Twitter has generated more buzz than a blow-fly in 2007 and has all but set the trend of micro-blogging or mini-blogging. But it is Twitter rival Jaiku that steals the thunder with an undisclosed buyout from Google. The irony is interesting in this purchase…..Evan Williams (Twitter’s founder) originally sold Blogger to Google, so why did the “Big Search” pass on Twitter? My guess would be Twitter would have gone for a ton of dough in lieu of all the high valuations floating around the web 2.0 world and Twitter has received premium exposure. Always remember my 2 cents can sometimes be worth a penny. Let me know what you thoughts on Google’s purchase of Jaiku rather than twitter?
