booBox To Help Bloggers Sell Stuff
Michael Arrington
71 comments »
Brazil-based booBox is preparing to launch a set of tools for bloggers and other website owners that will help them sell items they are writing about. They’ve submitted some basic information to us, but there is clearly a language barrier and we are still digging into the details.
For now, the best way to understand how it works is by walking through the working demo on the booBox site. Go to this page and click on one of the images. Clicking on the iPod brings up a lightbox above the blog content with a number pictures of related items. Clicking on any of the items then brings up Amazon, within the lightbox, where a purchase can be made. I went through the entire checkout process and completed a purchase, so the demo works. At any point the box can be closed by the user, and they will return to the original site.
It’s not clear at all how blogs will integrate booBox into their sites, and that will be a very important issue (I’ve asked the company for an explanation). However, sales occur with the blogger’s own affiliate code, and the images that appear are based on tags that the blogger associates with the image. The company says they will work with other etailers besides Amazon as well.
It’s clear that there will be a great deal of interest in booBox by bloggers currently monetizing their site with Google and other ads. I imagine Gadget and fashion sites, in particular, will be looking into this quite closely.
Conflicts of interest will always be an issue with sites both discussing/reviewing items and then taking a cut of any sales. However, today sites like CNET already have links to purchase items along with reviews. This tool will simply make that linking much easier and more user friendly, and sites will have to decide on what constitutes appropriate action themselves.
Since sites will be using their own affilate codes, booBox won’t be able to directly take a cut of transactions. It isn’t clear if they are launching this for free, or charging for the service. Pending their position on that, as well as details on how difficult this will be to integrate with websites, I’m giving this an early thumbs up. This may be quick acquisition bait for Amazon or eBay.
Sign up to be notified of the booBox launch here.
I am curious if Cooqy (which is similar) tried to get in-widget checkout with ebay affiliate auctions or ebay would not let them do so. It seems Slide or others could move in on this space fairly easily. There is another company in NYC that has patents on all of this btw. email me if you want to know about them (not sure if they want me naming them on a blog).
I hadn’t heard of Cooqy, although the basic idea is somewhat similar. booBox isn’t a widget approach, though. It’s just a much easier on the eyes version of direct linking with an affiliate code.
I’d love to hear more about the NYC company. It sounds like you know a lot about this space.
It sure caught my attention. I am checking it and hoping that this works out fine. Adsense earnings are falling, and have really been looking for alternatives.
So in America, the “ONE e-commerce store that’s able to offer the highest number of products and with the best delivery system” would be Amazon, right?
So they’re helping people link images to Amazon affiliate accounts.
How does booBox get there money? Is the Amazon affiliate account in booBox’s name and they pay out to the blogger? What percentage do they take?
I’ve checked their demo aswell, it is indeed a good integration, my only problem was the navigation within the box itself, but that’s only a personal behavior.
Regarding how’s the integration process will go within the blog and how much they will charge, i think only the future will tell us.
Anyway good luck! and a good alternative for Adsense.
ventureblogalist:
It’s great to know that a different company has this idea tied up in patents.
I wonder if that prevents Amazon from widget-izing their affiliate links.
thats really kool,
I signed up for beta…now waitin for more
Did they just create a new word (emplowered) or am I missing something here?
Quote from their website. “We believe in the web. We believe in blogs and how they can influence their audience. We are developing a new tool to emplower bloggers and help them monetize their influence.”
I think they mean “empower.” They’re Brazilian…I’m just happy they are launching with an English site.
yep, they arent english native.
i’m not really into this sort of company, but this sounds really cool. imagine supporting your favorite bloggers buy buying products through them rather than viewing ads on their site.
It´s great to see a brazilian service featured here in TechCrunch.
Fabio Seixas, from Brazil.
omg black nano 8Gb. i want. drooooooooooooooooooooooool.
Hrmph, it seems to work for me. Its always the product that matters, not the pop-up. If its interesting enough, your gonna get some clicks.
This is an interesting idea, but I don’t like having the checkout page inside the frame in the lightbox. There is no way for me to tell that I am visiting a secure website (or even the real Amazon website) unless I open the framed page in a new window.
If this system was to become mainstream enough, it could open up the possibility of having fake versions of it used for phishing attacks.
Darmik already allows bloggers to sell items and generate revenue
Mike,
Our coder in chief for iJigg is in Brazil and I know the language barrier you’re talking about:) For us fortunately his written communication is awesome so it works out well.
-Zaid
am i missing something here? seems to me that their product consists of little more than a pretty pop up window that frames the standard amazon affiliate program. does the nyc company own a patent on pop ups?
sounds cool to me…yeah its like amazon but it seems with their integration you would be able to have more products sold from your sites…because a site only has so much space for big amazon product affiliate graphics so with boobox a simple link could pop up into a full graphic and probably create more sales.
What gives? None of the booBox links work at this time.
I am happy to see some southamerican work being sptolighted here
Chitika has been doing something similar with their eMiniMalls product.
http://chitika.com/mm_overview.php
Amazon is a wise choice to kick off with, due to its size, but their plan is probably to work with every affiliate program under the sun. They will probably use redirects, so the blogger links to boobox/ipod and boobox can then decide, based on their relationships and market intelligence, which e-commerce site. An affiliate network marketed towards bloggers.
Unlike other offerings, the affiliate link will ensure the blogger’s motives are declared (electronically at least).
“How does booBox get there money? Is the Amazon affiliate account in booBox’s name and they pay out to the blogger?”
I can’t see how they could do that, as they wouldn’t know how much revenue each blogger drove. Unless Amazon has an “affiliates of affiliates” setup, they’d need to sign up each blogger with Amazon.
I agree with john, looks like an easy way for people to phish for info, just like on m y s p a c e its happening everywhere but now we are dealing with money which i wouldnt want people to fool me or people viewing my blog.
Very cool to see a Brazilian company here… I hope it becomes a trend…
I like the anti-corner corners. Trying to stay away from rounding them, I suppose.
Can be a nice thing now that Google stopped brazilian bloggers’ payments. Actually any affiliate program that includes Brazil is a niche - we do not have many options even though we have lots of good bloggers.
“[John] I don’t like having the checkout page inside the frame in the lightbox. There is no way for me to tell that I am visiting a secure website”
I totally agree with this. How about just browse within the popup & then open a new window for checkout.
BTW monetization could be easily accomplished by randomly using their affiliate code (instead of the blogger’s) 1-2% of the time. Or perhaps when displaying the “related items” in the popup, have one of them be tagged w/ booBox’s affiliate code instead. I’ve seen that done with some AdSense sharing networks.
“[joe laz]seems to me that their product consists of little more than a pretty pop up window that frames the standard amazon affiliate program. ”
Yeah I agree. I’ve already seen lightbox code that lets you do iframe-type stuff … couldn’t the techcrunch community come out with something similar in a few days?
In fact …. there. I spent 20 minutes & came up with my own.
http://www.developmentnow.com/.....fault.aspx
Totally free to use for sites and blogs. Acquisition offers welcome.
- Ben
This site has been down since a long time, without any downtime notice - anyone knows what’s going on?
Ajay, I’m having the same problem, did they get slashdotted maybe?
Ben:
Thanks for posting your demo. I also built a sample of this in about 20 minutes, but more of a test of how it could be used maliciously.
As others have pointed out, the potential for abuse of this type of system is astronomical. You have no idea where the pages you are loading are coming from, and since you have to enable javascript for both of the sites that are being loaded it becomes extremely easy to pick credit card numbers up from users that are foolish enough to use this system. While tech savvy users might open up the links they want in a new window instead of the light box the people that are at the greatest risk are the ones that will find it convenient to purchase from this type of system and will purchase within the iframe.
John: Yep, I agree. Just like m y s p a c e has an ongoing campaign asking users to “check your browser address bar when logging in,” I could see abusers causing Amazon to react w/ either a similar campaign and/or target affiliates & asking them to remove lightboxes. Granted, phishers are probably sophisticated enough that they didn’t need my demo to come up with their own solution. ;/
Sounds like a cool tool but their domain name is terrible.
I agree. Wouldn’t buy if there was no way for me to know the page is secure.
There are a few networks that do allow you to confirm if the page is indeed using SSL, like http://rightcart.com uses the “check this keyword” philosophy as does myspace.
That’s a blocker in my opinion, but easy enough to add !
Hi, I’m from booBox Team and I have some answers to you.
1 - I’ll kill the person who built the copy of booBox =)
2 - We aren’t english native, so, VERY sorry for bad english. We’ll sold coconuts in a beach on Hawaii, so, our english will power up.
3 - The security problems will be solved soon.
5 - I’ll kill two times (again and again) the person who built the copy of booBox =)
6 - The website is up again, sorry
7 - I’ll disintegrate the person who built the copy of booBox =D
9 - The integration with the website will be with ONE line of HTML code ;D
Good luck to your new creation, Marco. Hope it sells well.
Marco - your site had gone down again! Good luck with it though.
Marco - what we really need is more detail on that one line of HTML code.
Details about website integration? Not now… It is a secret =D
In the end of week, wait.
The website is ok here, please try again…
Any blogger that knows a little bit of Javascript and CSS could replicate this on his blog, so I’m puzzled…
I see Interaction is also from southern Brazil (www.interactionchat.com).
Good luck to them.
This idea is nothing unique, it’s a div layer and ajax. I’m building my own in about 10 minutes using lightbox. almost done….I’m selling my for 10 dollars to the first VC company that asks.
Use this for the popup people…
http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/
Oh yea, one line of code for integration too.
Argentinians don’t get out much I guess.
#42 - Brazil. Different than Argentina.
Brazil, Argentina, whatever…it’s still the butthole of the americas.
Marco Gomerpyle, we’ll not create a flame war here ok? But this what you said in #44 is a %#@$¢%… US is the center of the Universe, right?
Sorry for wrong name in the comment above, number 45. I, Marco Gomes, wrote it.
Hey you guys - steady on - let’s focus on peace, mutual respect, the higher aspects of humanity…
Now, I just want to say a great big thanks to you all for sharing this information, testing it out, giving your opinion. It’s especially helpful for those of us who have a little technical savvy but not enough to discover and figure these things out on our own. My own involvement in technical communication (www.claimid.com/ireneallison) makes me doubly appreciative of community experts (SMEs) like you paving the way and making a real contribution for the rest of us (you’re our heroes)! So… you bet I’ll be sending this this link to everyone I know who can benefit.
Thank you!
It’s a smart idea. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out - I’d expect other start ups to come into the picture.
This is an great idea. I was wondering when a Brazilian entrepreneur will achieve success in web around the world. This may be the answer.
Alexandre, from Brazil
This does seem good and well. This is a very good alternative to Google’s adsense but reading through their site, it just seems too good. I might try it later on but i think i’ll wait a little bit and keep with the google’s adsense. When I figure out how the boobox works then i’ll think about adding it.
Funny name. The “boo box” as known in the Peter Pan movie, “Hook” (Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams etc.) was not a good thing to be in. If you don’t recall the reference, the movie was about a man (Williams) who spent too much time at work, and away from his kids.
This is thee Coolest thing I’ve seen yet!!
Fabulous & not having to leave yer Blog!!
& also the Ads are Positioned Perfectly throughout yer Blog - not just static in the Sidebar!!
It is Pure Brilliance!!
Bravo Marco & the rest of the booBox Team!!
U got a WINNER! here!!!!!
Cheers! Billy ;))
Q: How is this any different that an amazon affiliate link?
A: It’s not.
Q: How gay is this?
A: Very.
YAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!
I just added booBox! to my Blog!!
can’t believe i beat Mike Arrington to the Punch on this one but if i’m gonna be Web2.0’s FIRST BILLIONAIRE i gotta move Fast!!
;))
(now if i can just get HIRED to do the PARTYPIX! fer one of his Infamous Bashes we’ll all be in Busine$$)
;PPPP
@Antonio Sanchez* - i have an Amazon affiliate link on my Blog & it hasn’t earned me Squat*
plus - & this is Key - booBox is FRONT & CENTER on EVERY BLOG post & contextually oriented to what my Audience is reading*
Think VICTORIA’S SECRET LINGERIE or WickedWeasel Bikinis or HOOTER’S GIRLS!!
meanwhile the way Lame Amazon Affiliate ad altho featuring a Sweet Canon Digital Camera languishes at the Bottom of my Blog doing ZERO*
booBox is Amazing!!
in the words of that Great WorldWide Band from Australia - FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK!!
WE SALUTE UUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!
Cheers Everybody!! Billy ;))
Peace*