Greetings,
After much discussion, and skepticism on my part, I've been convinced to experiment with selling Advertising Inventory without the middle-man, direct to the Advertiser. These ads, however, will follow Google's groove and will be solely textual. Some discussion on this decision is needed...
I was once an FWP seeking Internet user, myself. This is one of the reasons I started a host of my own and the primary reason for going with the type of advertisements I have chosen. Criss-crossing from host to host, like many do these days, I was painfully aware of the advertising styles in use. Popups, in-browser popups, popunders, banners top and below, etc., etc. While going ad free was certainly the best a member could hope for, after a certain time it became infeasible, considering the decreasing pay rates throughout the brief history of the internet. Once ads became a necessity, it was then a choice of choosing the lesser of umpteen evils. While operating RedRival over the years, going from banners, top and bottom, to popups that never ended--not to mention the javascript in each format that inevitably crashed a number of visitors browsers--to the Bravenet.net-style "ad bar", it became clear that, as a user and as an operator, a balance needed to be met between intrusiveness, annoyance, advertiseable traffic, and pay rate.
While popups are certainly a good bet these days, and a good pay rate can be found with reliable partners, it is still an intrusive format.
To lessen the agressiveness of the ads, RedRival has instituted an essentially ad-free period of 15minutes, every 15 minutes. You can surf RedRival, from site to site, without seeing a single ad(barring our Searchbox at the bottom of each page). If you've been surfing for 15 minutes, you'll see one popup. Then you'll surf for another 15 minutes ad-free. Combining this with frequency caps put on by advertisers, you may not see an ad all day.
And this has worked, and worked well. It's an excellent compromise between ad agressiveness, pay rate, and visitor comfort.
But I think we can all do one better than this, especially if the environment and business model you operate under allows it. But this alone doesn't explain the reasoning behind text ads.
As a format FWP-user, I knew ad-free was preferable to anything else. But, we all know that isn't feasible. So the next step up was banners, for FWPs, and later popups.
But it wasn't the next--best--step up.
Text ads, if executed well, with enough demand, are a natural progression from ad-free to banners. No siezure-inducing flashing, no bulky images, no annoying monkeys, no crash-prone scripting, etc., etc.
This is the reasoning behind my experimentation with Text Ads. Google has apparently proven it can work through large amounts of small orders. F*****Company.com also recently launched HTTPADS.com, with the experience that spur-of-the-moment, small-buy advertising was profitable and a good direction to travel in. And this is the logic that has bred the desire to go into textual advertising. FWP users like it--rather, prefer it, as ads are usually looked down upon--and it can combine attributes of banners, buttons, classified-types, etc. all without needing to be a artist nor take the time and effort putting into perfecting the creative. It is simple, straight forward text, designed in a language FWP users already know: HTML.
And this is where it becomes really important. Knowing full well there are many Networks out there providing text ads, but not the necessary pay rate or model which has proven to work in this environment, I have chosen to allow the actual FWP Members to become involved and, in fact, become _the_ advertisers. Moreso, if this experiment proves nothing else, it will show whether or not FWP members really care for less-aggressive, more professional looking ads with their free hosting, or if they'd simply go right along with intrusive, annoying advertising.
---
This isn't meant to claim to be something new. It's simply an explanation of an experiment I think will be fundamental in determining what FWP seekers want and what they're willing to(or pony up) to get the absolute best of free hosting and the advertising that necessarily comes with it.
So, let me put it out there, what do other FWP owners think? Any ideas, suggestions? Any previous experience doing this type of thing? Let me know, I'm very interested in seeing this be successful, not solely for the money(although a real salary would be nice
), but to be successful in providing a comfortable surfing atmosphere, while providing free hosting.
More information and insight can be found here, at the RedRival Support Forum Updates:
http://www.redrival.com/discuspro/messages/23/1708.shtml
Farewell,
After much discussion, and skepticism on my part, I've been convinced to experiment with selling Advertising Inventory without the middle-man, direct to the Advertiser. These ads, however, will follow Google's groove and will be solely textual. Some discussion on this decision is needed...
I was once an FWP seeking Internet user, myself. This is one of the reasons I started a host of my own and the primary reason for going with the type of advertisements I have chosen. Criss-crossing from host to host, like many do these days, I was painfully aware of the advertising styles in use. Popups, in-browser popups, popunders, banners top and below, etc., etc. While going ad free was certainly the best a member could hope for, after a certain time it became infeasible, considering the decreasing pay rates throughout the brief history of the internet. Once ads became a necessity, it was then a choice of choosing the lesser of umpteen evils. While operating RedRival over the years, going from banners, top and bottom, to popups that never ended--not to mention the javascript in each format that inevitably crashed a number of visitors browsers--to the Bravenet.net-style "ad bar", it became clear that, as a user and as an operator, a balance needed to be met between intrusiveness, annoyance, advertiseable traffic, and pay rate.
While popups are certainly a good bet these days, and a good pay rate can be found with reliable partners, it is still an intrusive format.
To lessen the agressiveness of the ads, RedRival has instituted an essentially ad-free period of 15minutes, every 15 minutes. You can surf RedRival, from site to site, without seeing a single ad(barring our Searchbox at the bottom of each page). If you've been surfing for 15 minutes, you'll see one popup. Then you'll surf for another 15 minutes ad-free. Combining this with frequency caps put on by advertisers, you may not see an ad all day.
And this has worked, and worked well. It's an excellent compromise between ad agressiveness, pay rate, and visitor comfort.
But I think we can all do one better than this, especially if the environment and business model you operate under allows it. But this alone doesn't explain the reasoning behind text ads.
As a format FWP-user, I knew ad-free was preferable to anything else. But, we all know that isn't feasible. So the next step up was banners, for FWPs, and later popups.
But it wasn't the next--best--step up.
Text ads, if executed well, with enough demand, are a natural progression from ad-free to banners. No siezure-inducing flashing, no bulky images, no annoying monkeys, no crash-prone scripting, etc., etc.
This is the reasoning behind my experimentation with Text Ads. Google has apparently proven it can work through large amounts of small orders. F*****Company.com also recently launched HTTPADS.com, with the experience that spur-of-the-moment, small-buy advertising was profitable and a good direction to travel in. And this is the logic that has bred the desire to go into textual advertising. FWP users like it--rather, prefer it, as ads are usually looked down upon--and it can combine attributes of banners, buttons, classified-types, etc. all without needing to be a artist nor take the time and effort putting into perfecting the creative. It is simple, straight forward text, designed in a language FWP users already know: HTML.
And this is where it becomes really important. Knowing full well there are many Networks out there providing text ads, but not the necessary pay rate or model which has proven to work in this environment, I have chosen to allow the actual FWP Members to become involved and, in fact, become _the_ advertisers. Moreso, if this experiment proves nothing else, it will show whether or not FWP members really care for less-aggressive, more professional looking ads with their free hosting, or if they'd simply go right along with intrusive, annoying advertising.
---
This isn't meant to claim to be something new. It's simply an explanation of an experiment I think will be fundamental in determining what FWP seekers want and what they're willing to(or pony up) to get the absolute best of free hosting and the advertising that necessarily comes with it.
So, let me put it out there, what do other FWP owners think? Any ideas, suggestions? Any previous experience doing this type of thing? Let me know, I'm very interested in seeing this be successful, not solely for the money(although a real salary would be nice
), but to be successful in providing a comfortable surfing atmosphere, while providing free hosting.More information and insight can be found here, at the RedRival Support Forum Updates:
http://www.redrival.com/discuspro/messages/23/1708.shtml
Farewell,
