The impending Age Of Abundance was prophecied in the scriptures thousands of years ago.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising
Michael Arrington
going after Anu Shukla a few months back would be like Michael Arrington
saying Google is an evil company because click fraud happens, link farms happen. Click fraud
happens despite Google's best efforts. Crime happens in New York City despite Michael Bloomberg's best efforts. "The safest big city in America
just became safer."
First Anu has to work within the FTC guidelines and she does, or she would not be in business very long. Then there are the Facebook guidelines, and Facebook
has chosen to have higher standards than the FTC because they don't want to compromise the user experience in any form or fashion. And if Anu did not follow those Facebook
guidelines, some of the games Anu is involved with will no longer be on the Facebook
platform. But they continue to be. That is to say they follow the Facebook guidelines. And Anu's company Offerpal Media has strict guidelines of its own. Because they know not compromising the user experience is good for their bottom line. And Anu's company allows its vendors to kick out individual advertisers from their platforms without having to explain why. You don't have to be a fraudulent advertiser to get kicked out. If a particular game does not like you, you are no longer welcome on their platform.
Despite these half dozen layers of policing, some slimey stuff does end up happening. And that can be talked about. That has to be talked about, sure. But to make that slimey stuff the center of the focus is to miss the fundamental point, which is that Anu has done nothing less than found the new frontier in advertising.
Yahoo
used to do banner ads. Then Google
came along and said no to that. They said, we don't want to have any ads on our main page, and we want to offer contextual text advertising. At some level that was like going from color movies to black and white, from colorful ads to text ads. But Google
had hit the new frontier in advertising at the time. Zuckerberg
said search contexts are less relevant than the social graph. And that was the new frontier all over again. Anu has come along and said, wait a minute. Banner or text, context or social graph, you are missing the point. The real action is that people are interacting. That is what gaming is about. The ads and the money transactions have to be part of that gaming
experience, not a banner apart. Now that is fundamental insight. That is a paradigm shift.
More than 160 million people and counting play Farmville. Of those less than 100,000 file complaints. Most of those complaints are people saying I paid real cash for virtual coins, and I did not get my coins. Farmville takes care of all those complaints. Usually it gives players more coins than they paid for but say did not get.
Michael Arrington wrote 22 posts on TechCrunch
about those 100,000 people. I look forward to seeing 35,200 posts on TechCrunch about the rest of the "scamville" users.
I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla
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going after Anu Shukla a few months back would be like Michael Arrington saying Google is an evil company because click fraud happens, link farms happen. Click fraud happens despite Google's best efforts. Crime happens in New York City despite Michael Bloomberg's best efforts. "The safest big city in America just became safer." First Anu has to work within the FTC guidelines and she does, or she would not be in business very long. Then there are the Facebook guidelines, and Facebook
has chosen to have higher standards than the FTC because they don't want to compromise the user experience in any form or fashion. And if Anu did not follow those Facebook guidelines, some of the games Anu is involved with will no longer be on the Facebook platform. But they continue to be. That is to say they follow the Facebook guidelines. And Anu's company Offerpal Media has strict guidelines of its own. Because they know not compromising the user experience is good for their bottom line. And Anu's company allows its vendors to kick out individual advertisers from their platforms without having to explain why. You don't have to be a fraudulent advertiser to get kicked out. If a particular game does not like you, you are no longer welcome on their platform. Despite these half dozen layers of policing, some slimey stuff does end up happening. And that can be talked about. That has to be talked about, sure. But to make that slimey stuff the center of the focus is to miss the fundamental point, which is that Anu has done nothing less than found the new frontier in advertising.
Yahoo
used to do banner ads. Then Google came along and said no to that. They said, we don't want to have any ads on our main page, and we want to offer contextual text advertising. At some level that was like going from color movies to black and white, from colorful ads to text ads. But Google had hit the new frontier in advertising at the time. Zuckerberg said search contexts are less relevant than the social graph. And that was the new frontier all over again. Anu has come along and said, wait a minute. Banner or text, context or social graph, you are missing the point. The real action is that people are interacting. That is what gaming is about. The ads and the money transactions have to be part of that gaming experience, not a banner apart. Now that is fundamental insight. That is a paradigm shift.More than 160 million people and counting play Farmville. Of those less than 100,000 file complaints. Most of those complaints are people saying I paid real cash for virtual coins, and I did not get my coins. Farmville takes care of all those complaints. Usually it gives players more coins than they paid for but say did not get.
Michael Arrington
wrote 22 posts on TechCrunch about those 100,000 people. I look forward to seeing 35,200 posts on TechCrunch about the rest of the "scamville" users. I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Blogger + Amazon = Wonderful Things
One of the things I have done during the final weeks of 2009 is to make a serious attempt at blogging as a secondary career in 2010.
There are three components: content, traffic, and monetization. Unless you have great content, there is no reason for people to come to your blog. You can have great content, but unless you get your word out there, you are not going to get traffic. You can have top notch content, and thousands of visitors per day, but unless you actively take steps to monetize, you are not going to make any money
from your blog.
There are five layers to monetization.
The list is a spectrum. Item 1 makes you the least money, item 5 the most. And there is a gradation in between. In 2009 I did a lot of 1 and 2, mostly 2. And I had been gearing to focus more on 3 in 2010. I had mentally picked Amazon as the affiliate program to focus on. My reasoning was the same as why I picked Blogger as my blogging platform years ago. 10 years from now Google will still be there. I guess Amazon
will be there 10 years from now. And they sell millions of items. I might try out other affiliate programs later on, but Amazon liked a good one to start with.
And so I was thinking I was going to start embedding links to Amazon products in my blog posts. That kind of embedding is the best way to do affiliate marketing in the first place. That was the impression I had from reading around the blogs of the pros. And then Sunday afternoon I discover after logging into the Amazon website that Amazon had integrated with Blogger and now embedding links to Amazon products in your blog posts was almost as easy as using Zemanta to jazz up your posts. Perfect timing. Just when I was waking up to affiliate marketing for my blog, Amazon and Google gang up to do this for me. This makes life so much easier for me going into 2010. Thank you Amazon. Thank you Blogger.
December 16, 2009: Amazon Associates And Google Blogger Now Integrated
search box at my blog for months now. You could do that long before this integration happened.
How have you been monetizing your blog? Please share in the comments section below.
The Pro-Blogger's Daily Routine
This Blog's Alexa Rank Is Up Substantially
Bill Gates Drove Up Traffic To This Blog
Seth Godin And Blog Traffic
TechCrunch Has Linked To A Blog That Stole My Material
7 Ways To Make Money Blogging
15 Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Blog
How To Become A Professional Blogger
The Big Money Is Not In Blogging
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There are three components: content, traffic, and monetization. Unless you have great content, there is no reason for people to come to your blog. You can have great content, but unless you get your word out there, you are not going to get traffic. You can have top notch content, and thousands of visitors per day, but unless you actively take steps to monetize, you are not going to make any money
from your blog.There are five layers to monetization.
- Google AdSense. This will make you little to no money starting out.
- Blog post ads. Text link ads. Try Sponsored Reviews, Blogsvertise, LinkWorth, and InfoLinks.
- Affiliate Marketing. Try Amazon Affiliate.
- Using Aweber
software to collect emails to sell eBooks and online courses to.
- Corporate
blog. Say if your blog is an instrument that helps you raise money for your tech startup.
will still be there. I guess Amazon will be there 10 years from now. And they sell millions of items. I might try out other affiliate programs later on, but Amazon liked a good one to start with. And so I was thinking I was going to start embedding links to Amazon
products in my blog posts. That kind of embedding is the best way to do affiliate marketing in the first place. That was the impression I had from reading around the blogs of the pros. And then Sunday afternoon I discover after logging into the Amazon website that Amazon had integrated with Blogger and now embedding links to Amazon products in your blog posts was almost as easy as using Zemanta to jazz up your posts. Perfect timing. Just when I was waking up to affiliate marketing for my blog, Amazon and Google gang up to do this for me. This makes life so much easier for me going into 2010. Thank you Amazon. Thank you Blogger.December 16, 2009: Amazon Associates And Google Blogger Now Integrated
Bloggers highlight the relevant text and the AmazonWell, I have had the Amazon
search box at my blog for months now. You could do that long before this integration happened.How have you been monetizing your blog? Please share in the comments section below.
The Pro-Blogger's Daily Routine
This Blog's Alexa Rank Is Up Substantially
Bill Gates Drove Up Traffic To This Blog
Seth Godin And Blog Traffic
TechCrunch Has Linked To A Blog That Stole My Material
7 Ways To Make Money Blogging
15 Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Blog
How To Become A Professional Blogger
The Big Money Is Not In Blogging
Monday, January 04, 2010
I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla
I just accepted a Facebook friend request from Anu Shukla
. I am guessing the friend request is a direct result of a long comment I left on TechCrunch earlier in the day: Zynga Investor Calls Scamville Debate Irrelevant And Unfair.Hey. Wait a minute. After I sent you the email, I googled up your name because it sounded kind of familiar. You are t-h-a-t Anu Shukla. ArringtonAnd so that is that, I got myself a new friend.dragged you into a controversy a few months back. I remember reading in real time.
I am honored you should send a friend request my way. I am accepting it right away.
I am guessing this friend request came from a looong comment I left on TechCrunch
Hello friend.
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My second email to her a few minutes later: