Arrington covers Sonopia.
It’s an affiliate program with a little touch of custom branding based on the affiliate.
I’ve seen similar offerings before. In 1998.
TechCrunch duped again, or a slow Web 2.0 newsweek? who knows, but credit to those getting the coverage.
Amazing. Simply Amazing. TechCrunch reviews Popuri, a site that provides a list of data like backlinks in Google, Yahoo and others. LifeHacker then reviews the same site. Here’s the thing, there is NOTHING special about Popuri at all, accept that they’ve given the site a trendy sounding Web 2.0 URL and a lite lick of Web 2.0 paint, the script that runs the site isn’t unique, indeed I regularly see sites running the same/ similar script come up for sale at DigitalPoint for $20, sometimes even less. Juan Xavier Larea of Florida, who ever you are, 100 pts for pure genius because you’ve duped Michael Arrington + LifeHacker, and that’s some pretty serious people to dupe. Am I a little bit jealous? hell yes, I nearly bought a site with the same script on it a couple of months back, but thought that it was so run of the mill that I couldn’t even be asked spending $20 to acquire it, it never occurred to me that I could freshen it up and market it as an amazing Web 2.0 breakthrough…maybe I need a change of scenery because I’m lacking in creative genius? who knows 🙂
Tags: TechCrunch, LifeHacker, Popuri
The Onion News Network has launched: some funny moments, but what I found even more interesting is the ad placements.
Dewars Scotch Whiskey first popped up on the Web 2.0 radar as a sponsor in the last week of Ze Frank’s the show, although only with small banner ads under the videos themselves. For the Onion News Network there’s a 5 second pre-roll then a 20 second post roll. Both ads tie into the sites content (news), with the longer post roll taking a humourous take on news and the Dewars product.
The difference in what we’ve seen previously? The ads are entertaining themselves without becoming an annoyance, after all most people can live with a 5 second preroll, and the 20 second post roll is so seemless that many will sit through it as well, where as 30 second ad spots taken/ inspired by TV commercials don’t work well in the medium, particularly when delivered preroll. Credit to the creative team at Dewars, and a question: are we seeing the future of online video advertising/ sponsorship? I’d think yes, it just works and works well. Would I go out and buy the product based on the advertising, yes, if I still drank Scotch Whiskey regularly (I don’t, but that’s not the point), and I’d do it because the ads entertained me and in all honesty I’d do it to support the company because they are willing to risk their advertising spend in an area I believe in that is otherwise not strongly supported by other advertisers, particularly in the non tech field. In terms of branding it also works to a broader audience, Dewars is not a name I’d immediately think of when thinking of Scotch Whiskey, I do now and so will others.
I was interested when I read the headline in my Google News feed: Start Your Blog Now – B?ɬ©africa-Opinions, listed as being Central African Republic. The content extract even sounded more appealing:
“You?Ǭ¥re about to discover the complete How-To guide to set up your very own Video Blog. And we also show you how you can pull huge profits from it?¢‚Ǩ¬¶.”
So lets click on this Google News story:
which takes us to:
Yep, another spam site with a listing on Google News. I’d complain to the Google News team but they either never listen, or just don’t respond to emails, I’ve sent quite a few in the past, maybe someone else can let them know, I can no longer be bothered.
I’m not sure whether I should include this in the side bar, but I’ll try it in a post for now.
TechCrunch reports on Yahoo BrickHouse, “a new semi-autonomous business unit to foster new product development”, but is she good looking, after all, brickhouse is slang for “Full-figured female. Really built.”, or alternatively “very voluptuous woman, NOT like Halley Berry or Jessica alba. Thick and tough like Beyonce or J’lo”. Maybe Yahoo! has a fat arse, or is that going to far? Certainly anyone who has used Yahoo’s publisher network knows that compared to Google she certainly is slow off the couch 🙂
SFGate: Where neo-nomads’ ideas percolate
If there’s no WiFi there’s no Web 2.0 office, there’s no Web 2.0 culture, there’s no Web 2.0 development on the scale we see in the US. Whilst the Australian Government (and Opposition) remain obsessed with regulating the internet, nothing is being proposed or done to increase the affordability of broadband, cost being the main factor that limits the offering of free wireless in Australian cafes. When you continue to act like a backwater, it usually means if you aren’t already one, you soon will be.
Mike Rundles BusinessLogs design business and site is on the market at Sitepoint, bidding from $25k with a BIN at $55k. Surprising move. As a concept and business I would have thought it was worth more, however without Rundle with it I guess the valuation is some what closer to what it should be. Question is, what has one of the webs best designers got planned next? must be something big if he’s flogging his pride and joy. One to watch.
Tags: Mike Rundle, 9rules
This is clever thinking. If you’ve got the aggregation backend in place why not open it up to outsiders if you’re confident of being able to sell advertising against it and can provide a decent cut (in this case 70%) to the content creator. My only query at this stage is what the direct benefit would be in terms of traffic given the three “magazine” sites are all in the 300,000 range at Alexa, but having said that for smaller blogs that’s potentially a reasonable figure in terms of capturing new traffic. TDH at 901am has more but congrats to John Evans on a good idea.
Phil Sim has the details. I wish them luck, particularly with Gizmodo Australia, but I ask this simple question: WTF do mainstream media folk know about blogging? I mean the best they can come up with in terms of how the new company “Allure” will operate is that they are ripping Nick Dentons model from Gawker (verbatim admission there, not me just saying this) which is 3-4 years old itself and arguably (and I’d think totally) past its used by date. They’re also entering by the far the most over saturated and highly competitive verticals within blogging, gadgets and gossip. Yikes! people said I was stupid when I launched Weblog Empire with a Gadget Blog two years ago, I was, and yet Allure will be rehashing the content from Gizmodo and adding stuff presumably from Australia, the gadget capital of the world. Not. Again though, I wish them luck 🙂