Spottt, which went into private beta at TechCrunch40, launches to the public today. The product is part of the Adbrite advertising network, but is being run as a separate brand.
It is a reincarnation of sorts of LinkExchange, an advertising network that launched in the mid nineties and was later acquired by Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million. LinkExchange co-founder Tony Hsieh (also the CEO of Zappos) is advising Adbrite on Spottt.
The basic idea is that you place the Spottt 125×125 ad unit on your site, above the fold (no adult content). They provide a simple embed code, or you can use your own ad serving software (we use OpenAds). For every two ad impressions that you serve, you’ll get one free ad somewhere on the network (you can see the ad unit here on TechCrunch, we’ve added it into the sponsor’s area to the right to test it), and it is also on CrunchBase.
That leaves Spottt with 50% of the ad inventory for itself. For the first year they’ll just place their own ads on sites. After a year they’ll add the extra inventory to Adbrite and let advertisers purchase it.
This isn’t for everyone, of course. Sites that can sell ads will want to do so to make the money. But Adbrite founder Philip Kaplan notes that there are millions of websites that cannot afford to advertise, and this gives them a way of doing so without paying. And even sites that have advertising units on their site may want to add this to get some inventory on other sites. “I think this is the coolest thing we’ve ever built,” he said.
Spottt is also providing real time statistics for users, including the number of ads you’ve shown, the number you’ve received (half of that) and the number of clicks on both ads you are showing and those you are receiving. Click on the image for a larger view of sample stats.
Spottt is run from Amazon’s EC2 web service, and advertising images are hosted on Akamai (Kaplan says he wants to be able to scale quickly in the event it grows anything like LinkExchange did back in the day). They are also working with Gigya to enable the placement of the ad unit on MySpace and other social networks. If ads aren’t accepted on any particular social network, he says, they’ll just run their house ads on that site.
If you’d like to sign up for the service, use the code “techcrunch” and get 1,000 free impressions to start. The first 1,000 registrations qualify.
binaryday - this isn’t an SEO activity (there’s no actual link from one site to the next), so it isn’t a problem with google or any other search engine.
Entrecard wasn’t even around last year, Michael. And again, you’re ignoring the fact that it has striking similarities to Spottt.
[deleted] Enjoy your censorship.
mmmm. you sure about that?
oops, you can’t respond. you’ve been banned.
It amazes me when people think they somehow have the right to literally say anything in the comments.
Just thought of another reason why services like these are useful. Smaller sites that want some advertising to fill their slots to look more appealing for future advertisers. It is a turn off for an advertiser to be the first one. Having a couple slots filled with exchange ads at least helps fill that space until other ads are sold to replace it.
Why is this a good idea? This is being done already by dozens of banner exchange networks that give way better than a 1:2 ratio on impressions. There are networks like this for many targeted niches such as gaming, film, blogs, etc.
The only thing that’s good about this is that Adbrite is behind it, and it will one day give advertisers a way to advertise on small niche sites that wouldn’t normally run adbrite/adsense.
@Michael,
I did not mean google search engine but adsense TOS. They clearly say that they do NOT recommend traffic exchange programme. I hope I am not panicking but if google decides that this programme is against adsense TOS, then many small publishers may get into serious trouble.
Thanks for responding.
binaryday - I’ll defer to adbrite to respond.
Some examples of 125×125 traffic exchange networks for arcade/games that tend to offer a 10:9 exchange ratio
Arcade Banners - http://www.arcadebanners.com
Player Traffic - http://www.playertraffic.com
GamerFlux - http://www.gamerflux.com
FunKlicks - http://www.funklicks.com
GamersBanner - http://www.gamersbanner.com
Let’s not forget the issue that TC and everyone else ignored when Spottt was first announced:
http://ronaldlewis.com/2007/09.....es-exposed
Spottt looks interesting, but I’m not really digging the banner-ad model for link exchanges. I think most people tend to visually tune it out, plus to make a decent one takes a lot of time. I prefer text ads since writing the copy is easy and it kinda makes you go :).
Thanks for whoever link-dropped adgridwork.com though — looks like a winner to me. And it’s not pink (BONUS POINTS).
Adbrite sucks, and everyone here knows it. So why trust a ‘new idea’ they are coming out with, which is just a simple clone of Entrecard?
Worse yet: they allow animated ads. They will probably allow users to put their 100+kb ad on other sites without their consent, by paying them money. And trust me, this is going to fail as quickly as Blogrush.
Entrecard FTW: http://www.entrecard.com
#61 @mc2w: It’s not a simple clone, and anyone actually using the service instead of gaming it can see that pretty easily.
This doesn’t compare in the slightest to Entrecard (http://www.entrecard.com), who hit the scene a few months ago and have already revolutionized the ad space with this idea before AdBrite.
JoeTech - yes. “revolutionized the ad space.”
If spottt did their research, they would know this middle ground is bloggers, and bloggers aren’t going to want this spammy junk on their site. Spottt will probably bomb quick, this is for the middle ground.
Michael - You’re right I exaggerated. I guess I’m just trying to point out that Spottt is a little late to the game and barely even in use, so I’m curious how you could completely miss Entrecard but manage to post about Spottt, which does seem a lot like Entrecard, only not as community-based, perhaps. I have nothing against Phil and AdBrite. The guy is smart and develops smart stuff. I just don’t see Spottt unseating Entrecard.
How much is it for the dog?
@Mike Arrington - We went that route back in Deecmber of 06, however the site was less developed and much more minimalistic. Must have missed us in the queue
@Joe Tech & All the EntreCard lovers - The main problem with Entrecard is that you need to constantly participate in the service to reap its benefits. You need to drop your card on others, have others do the same, scour their ‘campaign’ page (crappy name imo for a directory of advertisers, but I digress) for sites to advertise on, create a flashy graphic button, etc. This is a lot of work for most advertisers who are used to the traditional Adwords/CPM model of being able to target their niche/demographic and let it fly on autopilot. This is hardly revolutionary and in some cases a pain in the ass.
Nick
AdGridwork.com
AdGridwork: I actually managed the top spot at Entrecard while not actively participating, but then that’s in large part to the Entrecard Slots and Free Ad Slots games I made. I think you get what you put in and that can be in the form of active participation, existing traffic (which would work the most in Spottt), or in my case, an idea that gets people to come and drop their card all day long. On a side note, I probably visited your site around the time you refer to above, so I’ll check it out again and see if it appeals to me.
I noticed the Spottt ad on your sidebar. Perhaps this isn’t really an objective review, after all. Maybe it’s even a paid review …. oooohhhh. Most people know that Adbrite, the co behind Spottt is Adbrite, which does not have a good reputation … just Google Adbrite and Scam
Adbrite is known for these innovations but they always seem to go nowhere, I know of no one using their video or brightpic products. Neat idea but where will it really go? The clock has to be ticking for these guys.
suzanne, thanks for the accusation. read the post, i mentioned we were testing it.
Suzanne certainly raises questions that you should know people have on their minds. Your defense of Adbrite is a bit unusual.
Jenkins - what defense is that?
On a side note, I probably visited your site around the time you refer to above, so I’ll check it out again and see if it appeals to me.
Michael I like the new “You” fighting haters and spammers punch for punch…..way to go man!!
They need to create a Facebook application.
got to be a record for Mike responding to comments.
Can you clear this up, in the thanks to the sponsors post that mark just did you have down spottt as a sponsor but in the above comment you say you are using the service. which is it?
Graham Langdon here, founder of Entrecard.
Ok, things got a bit out of hand here and we’re sorry about that. There’s no excuse for spamming someones comments, especially when the site owner has made it clear they’d like everyone to stop.
We are utterly proud of Entrecard and we really feel we’ve created a great thing, and when Techcrunch started talking about something so similar in some ways to us, we jumped at the opportunity to get our message out so we could help even more bloggers find the support they needed to take their blog to the next level. To be fair, Entrecard members are also acutely aware of my personal campaign to get covered by TechCrunch, which included commissioning artwork for Arrington, sending a multitude of handwritten letters, all of our stats (2m pageviews per month, 1200 weekly average Alexa, 3x growth in 30 days, etc).
But we’re sorry that things got out of hand the way that they did. We do stand by our service, and as you can see so do many of our users. Best of luck to Spottt, we look forward to taking a look once the dust has settled. The 125×125 market is big enough for both of us..although we also look forward to crushing them in the nicest possible way
We have asked our users to stop posting here, but hope to see some of you in the future.
Regards and respect, Entrecard
PS. Just for the record, we consider Entrecard a social network primarily, a traffic builder second, and a marketplace third.
Interesting service that I may have to check out
Oh and I posted a message on our forum kindly asking all our members to stop posting comments on this blog post. So hopefully all this will stop. Again, terribly sorry.
@Melvin
Spottt on!
Darren - I don’t think Mark knew they were just there for testing. They’ve been removed.
wow, these Entrecard folks seem more fanatical than Ron Paul supporters
Just a little extra debate
@Adgridnetworks:
Entrecard was designed to work for SMALLER bloggers, that’s why they are looking towards a free advertising program in the first place. Small bloggers won’t find ANY benefit from a program such as adbrite if they don’t have the visitors in the first place to generate credits.
@ rubu : your comment looks strangely familiar.
Well everyone I tried spottt out along side by side with entrecard,I got 9 hits from entrecard and 1 hit from spottt..This is in the last few hours of testing it.
Ill let spottt run for the next few days but if I don’t see any change I will definally pull them from my site,Lets face it that 125by125 ad spot can bring much more then it has so far.
I think the numbers will show in the long run..
clint
http://www.promomaker.blogspot.com
Joe, mc2w, can we stop talking about EC please?
The next Entrecard member to post another comment here WILL be penalized credits. Mr. Arrington has kindly asked everyone to stop and damnit we will respect his wishes.
hey - i just want the dog…
entertaining read.
Clint I look forward to reading a follow up of the actual results of both systems.
Nice idea, but 50% of the ad inventory for itself looks too much for themselves.
@Mike fair enough I guess he just looks at the sponsors bar and does the thanks.
BinaryDay is right Google AdSense’s TOS do not allow whatever form of participation in traffic exchange programs where the contextual aspect of the traffic is ignored if you run Google ads on that particular site/page. It is possible Google thinks those forms of programs are artificially increasing the traffic of the sites involved vs. the organic visitors, which on the other side is lessening the contextuallity and relevancy of the traffic being exchanged. This, I guess, surely results in fewer clicks on Google’s contextual ads displayed on the sites participating in programs like Spottt and from here the Google’s antipathy towards traffic exchange programs…
My 2 cents
Even though Spottt allowed me to place my blog into a category, it won’t tell me what sites my ad is getting shown on. Funny that all I’ve seen on mine are TechCrunch and CrunchGear. =]
Oh yeah….77 impressions, no clicks in. Five clicks out. Shocking.
Can’t there be a happy medium? Something I can finely target if I have time, but has a smart enough autopilot when I don’t?
Maybe I should save that 125 pixels of my sidebar and devote all this time to commenting on other blogs I read.
This is the problem with spottt, in my opinion. Just cruising the internet, all I’ve seen is spottt advertising TechCrunch and CrunchGear. I guess 4 million daily impressions convert into alot of spottt exposure, drowning out all the other members.
I agree with Lisa, there should be a middle ground where smaller blogs can get decent exposure and clicks.
Tried it out and TechCrunch ads are all that show up on my site. Obviously nobody who has joined so far can match the pageviews that TC delivers.
Overall I think it’s a cool idea and all the competitors mentioned look to have a good twist on it.
I don’t see myself leaving the ad on my site for long but it’s worth a shot!
This works great so far. This led the Knight Knetwork to coin “Spottt Hopping” - http://knightknetwork.com/2008.....-hoppping/
this chart pretty much sums it up:
http://leedoyle.com/wp-content.....spottt.PNG
That was a really great sponsored post. I’d like to see more in the future. Thanks,
killerbuffalo.com