Madhens auctions timeshare image ads

With such a high share of the proceeds going to the publisher, there is still room for the publisher to get involved in the auction (under a fake identity or through collusion with a 3rd party), driving up the price. If they should happen to “win” their own advertising spot, they could simply veto the ad. Even without the veto, the cost would only be 10-20% of what they bid - which could easily be offset by inserting a real ad for another company. Or am I wrong?

Oskar, you are an evil genius. That certainly seems like something that Madhens will have to contend with.

I think this is a great idea.

About the above scenario, they can figure this out — Ebay has, for the most part.

Nice going zach! Finally a Web 2.0 start-up with a real business model.

First let me say that I’m very impressed with this application considering it was put together by a recent high school graduate. Unfortunately there are a few major problems that are preventing me from using it.

1. In order to place a ad one much insert code in three different places. Not a issue for power users or those of us who don’t have a problem hacking into blog templates, but difficult for the average user.

2. You have to pay into your account before placing a bid! I don’t know why but when I came to that part of the process my desire to progress any further ended.

Yeah, it is a good business model. Philip Kaplan (Pud) from AdBrite has been doing it for YEARS.

AdBrite has been selling time on a website (as a text ad or an image) for a long long time and paying lots of publishers lots of money all that time. Before it was called AdBrite it was called MarketBanker, before it was called MarketBanker it was called HttpAds.

So while this isn’t totally new, it’s branded much better than AdBrite is now (AdBrite used to have a simple message too) and is indeed a very solid idea that can make a lot of money. Some companies already do.

fixed price auctions in adsense? i dont think thats right. advertisers put bids in , and apparently pay the price that is 1 cent higher than the second highest price. although advertisers are told this, they dont really know since google does not actually share the data!

AdBrite does the same thing and I used it once for my site once and it wasn’t very effective.

This one isn’t bad looking either but if they don’t get bids they like they will just veto. Why waste my time bidding to place an ad only to not get to run it? It’s like Reserves on eBay. Kills the whole point of an auction.

I think the veto is to veto ad content or advertisers that the publisher doesn’t like or feels won’t fit in with their site’s content.

If they veto the ad, they will get $0. If they let it run, they’ll get 80-90%, even if it is a low bid. So why would they veto low bids?

I must agree with David that this is exactly like Adbrite, except with a lot less buyers, a lot less sellers, an unprofessional design, and an unprofessional name.

I don’t believe that Adbrite puts ad space up for auction. And Bri, I hear what you’re saying about the name - but it’s kind of ironic coming from someone whose name here links to a service called “Zurpy.”

What’s in a name? It will be what Zack makes of it. His success will come from proving out ease-of-use and gaining a critical mass of publishers. As with Andy, pre-funding the account prior to bidding was a turn-off to moving forward.

Damn! Hoisted by my own petard!

However, I think Lars raises a good question: What’s in a name? I’d answer everything.

Would Microsoft have been as successful if they had call themselves “Crapsoft?” I think not. IBM would never had purchased Crapsoft’s software for their PCs and the company never would have worked. The same might be a problem for Madhens, the first time you hear it you think, “what?” Which can only prove a negative for potential advertisers and publishers who need to partially entrust their websites and revenue to this service.

David points out that AdBrite has changed its name many times for this very reason. They needed to sell their service to professional companies and they needed a professional, marketable name to do so.

However, the naming scheme for consumer services follows a different set of rules. Services like Google, Yahoo, del.icio.us, Zurpy, etc. don’t need to sound professional but need to be short and memorable. Madhens actually fits this criteria quite well, however it’s the wrong criteria for their business.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Zack is in a great business and I wish him luck. But my advice to him is buy a new domain name and redesign the site, it’ll make sucess a lot easier!

This is giving me a strong bubble deja vu. The only interesting thing here is that the site is launched by a high school kid. That’s about it.
Other than that, there are a zillion sites out there that offer this type of service already. May be not in an auction format. But does anyone really need an auction format for this type of stuff?
I don’t think there are too many sites over which advertisers would really consider going on a bidding war or anything for getting their ads placed. The sites that really have hordes of advertisers running after them can already do that-they set their own prices!

This site is another product of Y-Combinator, home of Paul Graham, and the birthplace of reddit.com

http://ycombinator.com/

Fantastic, driven kids combined with Paul Graham’s sense and experience, yields some pretty intriguing ideas.

They’re also home to wufoo, youOS, some ad tech company, some simulated-market site, and probably a ton more?

bottom line: a good place to watch in the valley

Abstraction, thanks - I totally should have caught that. That’s totally cool. Here’s my review of Wufoo.

Bri I don’t actually agree with you on this one.

There is nothing in a name. Your comparison of Microsoft vs. Crapsoft is not really valid as hopefully common sense will prevail and you understand that you don’t use negative connotation in a name.

There is nothing in a name. The service that is being offered doesn’t even need to reflect the name.

Apple. Burton. Starbucks. Abercrombie. Motorola. Philips. Dell. Sharp. Vodafone. KFC. McDonalds. Teslar. GM.

The service and products made all of those brands. And thats what they have become - a brand. Not because of the name but because of the product.

If the product is there, the name is just a recogniser.

Zack, Congratulations on going live. I want to encourage you to keep moving forward, don’t be dissuaded by what might seem like “less then” supportive feedback. Distractions are what you see when you take your eye off your goal. Consider listening to Philip Kaplan’s pod cast on venture voice, it obviously covers your industry and you might find it beneficial. http://www.venturevoice.com/20.....-_phi.html. I have a few areas for improvement. With regards to the design, the name and logo are fine; it’s the red/orange that you might consider changing. My suggestion is to INVERT the colors, so that the hen and Madhens text are in the “red/orange” and what is now seen as red would be white. Obviously overall you want to have the customer to focus on the actions of the page, not the overwhelming colors. I would try and make the site as white as possible and use color to pull the eye where you want it to go, a good test is to blur your vision and look at your page, when you cant read anything, look for what sticks out, this is very likely the first thing your costumers will see. Ask yourself is this main action you want them to take, if not adjust. Good job, and I look forward to tracking your success

Madhens, according to the “Buzz” page, is not affiliated with Y Combinator. Just a heads up.

May be I’ve missed some unique point mentioned about this new adbroker service, but how is it any different from other sites that allow a publisher to list ad space and publisher to selectively bid or buy the space???

StartupHubs.com

The veto-system is awful. Yesterday I loaded my Madhen account with some money and I overbid the current bid on the Toughmechanics.
Today was the bidding deadline, and what do I see? They veto-ed my bid.

So if all publishers veto low bids, my money is definitly lost.
And I assume there’s now way to unload you Madhen account.

They could have created a lot of buzz when they let people advertise on big sites for little money, but they killed the service with the veto system.
It’s not gonna work.

Paul-Serge - I was just looking at the ThoughtMechanics auction today and wondering what happened. That totally sucks.

The first days after the Madhens launch were crucial I think: if they had some succesfull ads, they would have gone viral. But now it looks kinda dead .. Nothing happens. No bids.

These guys are not funded by Y Combinator. We’ve never heard of them, except as a startup that’s been repeatedly claimed to be funded by us.

Follow-up article: Madhens.net is up for sale on eBay (only $8,000 as of this writing) and about to close bidding on September 19 (Tues) at roughly 10pm pacific time. The business is a new type of advertising model where ad space is auctioned off in timeshares. Isn’t there something patentable here for $8,000? Suggested buyers: Six Apart, Blogads, AdBrite, or Digg.

I have an update on the MadHens.Net story.

Wi-Fi Guys, a Minnesota-Based Wi-Fi company recently purchased MadHens.Net to integrate with its Link ToAds™ application.

The Link ToAds™ application is configured to deliver location-specific advertising and to provide sophisticated tracking of advertising performance in Managed Guest HSIA Networks, Hotspot providers, WISP, Airport Wi-Fi and MuniWi-Fi networks.

Although only in Beta, Wi-Fi Guys has 2000+ locations using their Link ToAds™ application throughout the United States. For more informaton visit http://www.linktoads.com.