The web is increasingly filling up with ads. Many sites, including this one, have a bunch of them all around with the hopes that you’ll find one relevant to you, and click on it. Of course, most of you don’t. And if you do, it may be by accident. As you can tell, I’m not exactly bullish on the model. But the problem is that there are few alternatives. Contenture is trying to offer one.
The service has been getting some buzz over the past few months, but mostly because no one seemed to know what the hell it was all about. An email today finally revealed their model. Contenture wants to be the “anti-ad network.” What it means by that is that it wants sites to adopt their monthly-fee based network to offer visitors the option to do things like turn off ads. Yes, this would basically turn your site to the subscription-based model.
But there’s a somewhat interesting twist. Contenture wants to sign up a bunch of sites to this model and have users pay one flat monthly fee to have access to all of these sites. That money would then be distributed to all of these sites. These sites could determine what Contenture subscribers get as a part of their subscription. Some may lose the ads, some may have special commenting ability, etc.
A similar model has been tried by the likes of TipJoy and others, but grouping sites together and offering users a place to pay one-fee for multiple sites is interesting if nothing else. Plus the site has a comic homepage that features a drunk Twitter Fail Whale and makes fun of its competitors. That’s pretty cool in our book.
The service is still in private beta testing, but apparently it’s getting ready to launch on May 21.
Disclosure: This morning for four hours Contenture sponsored our CrunchCam.
So if I want ad free access to a sports site and only a sports site then I wind up paying for a bunch of other sites that I dont care about?
yes, but the monthly fee would supposedly be “small”
Kinda like Kachingle?
http://news.cne...10236893-2.html
I’d never heard of Kachingle before but it is nothing like Contenture, if that’s what you’re getting at. Kachingle is basically like an automated TipJoy. Contenture lets any site create premium features on their site with maybe 5 minutes of work. There’s never been anything like that.
I can’t think of one app/site/service that I can’t live without. There’s always a free alternative. I don’t mind ads, if they are tastefully done and don’t take me out of the experience of the page I’m on. I think TechCrunch handles ads perfectly. They are non-obtrusive and relate to the general subject matter. I’ve clicked on several to get more information. What I can’t stand are the moving flash and animated gif ads. That’s when I let adblock take over.
How small is this “small”? Any idea MG?
Your money only goes to the sites you actually visit. Doesn’t that make sense? How much you end paying each site is determined by how much you use that site. If the only Contenture you site you actually go to is a sports site, then they wiill get all your money.
Ok, if thats how its broken down thats fine, it was the “users pay one flat monthly fee to have access to all of these sites. That money would then be distributed to all of these sites” that threw me off a little. Made it sound like it was shared euqally between sites that I would go to and sites that I would not go to.
Thanks for clearing that up.
The reason we think we’ll succeed is because we are bringing options like “turn your site into a subscription service” with almost ZERO work on the web site operator’s end. They just do the old “paste a bit of javascript on your site” bit and they’re done.
One other thing. We’re aiming for the online newspapers too. Noticed all the stories recently about them failing, and Rupert Murdoch talking about a subscription model for all his sites? We’re beating them to the punch with the simplest micropayment implementation of all time. That’s why all the others have failed – too complicated. With Contenture, you have one account, and it’s good for every site that uses the system.
So what happens to my adspace Sean. If you were to remove the ads from techcrunch what content would go there? I imagine the developers behind TC worked hard to make ads fit as part of the overall design. What you are proposing is that they have to maintain 2 websites?
Until you can offer a large amount of money which covers that cost then it makes no sense to do so.
Most sites look fine with ads just blanked out. (I know, cuz I’ve been blocking them for at least 5 years now)
So if I pay I can visit a site with no ads, or I can do like you and use adblock (I assume that’s what you’ve been using for the last 5 years) and not pay a dime and screw the publishers.
Good luck with that part of the business model.
I see how this might be a solution for premium paid content, but it’s pretty funny you’re pitching this as an option to remove ads while using an adblocker yourself.
Ads are irritating as hell. That’s why I block them. It’s not that I don’t want to support the site, it’s that it makes my browsing experience 10x better without them. If this is the only revenue model for a site, that’s a serious problem. Hence, Contenture to save the world. Sure not everyone will pay, we don’t expect that. But we thikn this will work well for a number of sites.
And you don’t have HAVE to disable ads. It’s just one of the many options we’ll be offering on launch.
If you can save newspapers with this model, more power to you. It just might work.
heh, you can buy Crunchcam coverage by the hour? Is there a premium price during peak hours or when Laguna is chasing the Segway?
To clarify further, you will not be restricted from accessing certain sites if you’re not a user. Sites will simply have the option of offering certain features to paying members only, such as no ads, or no comments. But they don’t HAVE to do any of that. By simply putting Contenture on your web site, you automatically make money from any Contenture user who visits your site.
That makes sense. By the way, your site’s design in innovative and the whale is a real teaser. Hope contenture gets hot with users! Good Luck!
I get the idea, and it’s nice to get rid of ads. However, there’s no way I would ever pay to get rid of the ads on even a dozen sites. I mean, is it really worth my money to do that? What if the sites included Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace. For one, it wouldn’t stop all ads. People would post links like “Hey visit my site http://tinyurl.com/degzln” and there would still be those ads. Also, what if I log out and my husband logs on in. Will the ads return? Or would the monthly charge remove all ads from those sites on that compuer? Also, the biggest problem I see is that there are free programs which block all ads and banners, and picutres that you select and ask to be blocked. Did I mention those programs are free?
There’s WAY more to Contenture than just turning off ads…
> Did I mention those programs are free?
You did, twice. But you fail to mention you’re hurting site owners with ad blocking scripts, where as with Concenture you’re donating (if you will) a small amount of your money to reward them for their hard work and getting the ads removed (or access to special perks) in return. How cool is that?
(not a Concenture employee, just a hard working site owner who’s anticipating the beta access)
Not a contenture employee but I do blog with one of the start ups workers.
I think it is a fabulous idea and looking forward to implementing this on TG
“sign up a bunch of sites to this model and have users pay one flat monthly fee to have access to all of these sites.” – Isn’t this the porn model as well?
That is two adult entertainment articles in one day, TC!
It’s a good idea in theory, but I have a hard time seeing a lot of people signing up for it. Unless somebody visits sites that are simply unbearable to look at because of how badly they’re cluttered with ads (for example Askmen.com). Sites like Techcrunch have a lot of ads, but they’re well placed and don’t draw attention from the actual content.
haha arnt ads supposed to draw attention away from the content?
And lastly, we’re still looking for a logo. We have a $550 offer on 99designs.com. If you got skilz, we welcome your submissions: http://99design.../contests/22005
I love it!
Can’t see this working. While I agree that most people don’t click on the ads, you could probably get more attention if you got rid of the boring static square ads. Advertising has been trying to reinvent itself for the net and while some folks have been successful most have not. We need more creativity.
This makes it seem like the reason sites aren’t subscription based already is because building a subscription system is too much of an exhaust on the development team.
While a large portion of people wouldn’t pay for a lot of these things, there are people willing to pay for lots of things I’d have otherwise thought they wouldn’t. Like Flickr pro, or Photobucket pro, or Livejournal premium accounts, so on and so forth. How large the percentage of users who get subscriptions and whether that offsets the amount of ad money it replaces (you guys are commenting this blog it’s not just about ads but your website is pitching as the anti-ad alternative) makes or breaks the viability of this sort of thing.
to funny…
“Disclosure: Yesterday for four hours Contenture sponsored our CrunchCam.”
I guess you guys are for sale, so I will remember to first pay for your cam, then you will write about my new start up!!!! this is great news!!!!!!!!
A lot of people have paid for there cam and have not been written about
Yeah that’s the key point. The company name actually came up a while ago and no one was sure what it was — lot of chatter on Twitter, etc. We got an email today and found out and it happened they bought a sponsorship (for a few hours) this morning. Obviously we disclose that but we would have written anyway and sponsorship in no way means coverage by any means.
Hi, I’m a founder at Contenture. That is plain ridiculous, and you know that it is false. Why would the biggest/most important tech blog sell out for a small ad on a webcam?
There are people out there would probably pay $50K to be featured on TC. If TC was going to sell stories you think they would really do it for just a few hundred dollars? Come on
It really depends on how “micro” the micro payments are.
Sites are earning $X/eCPM with their current advertising models. If the micro payments total up to something approaching that it will be an alternative.
On the other side, if you get above a couple of dollars a month for joe user, then you are going to greatly restrict the number of people who are going to be willing to kick some money into the pot.
However, I have to admit I’m a fan of the low cost shared micro payment model. With javascript tracking it wouldn’t be hard to simply divide a persons monthly allotment into shares depending on the ratio of page loads on participating sites.
Thank God!
Someone trying to do something about the defecation of ads all over the place. It’s gotten so that you can’t even read a damn article that should’ve been put on 1 page, but ends up on 7 pages, so that they can shove ads at you.
Google has made this ad crap like kudzu on the Web and therefore has convinced a bunch of people that that’s the only way to make money.
Good on you Contenture and Godspeed!
- Bill
bill…
there are multiple plugins that can easily remove a good chunk, if not all of the ads you might see from a given ad network/provider…
and they’re free!!!
peace
Im not sure users are willing to pay for this…
The Fail Whale sucks big time! Is it me or has the whale been making a comeback on twitter?
The fail whale needs to go extinct!
http://killthefailwhale
http://killthefailwhale.com (link corrected)
spamfail.
Sounds promising, but it seems like with this model the fewer websites that have enabled Contenture the better each websites revenue per page view will be. As more sites adopt this it will dilute it. Example, lets say a user was paying a monthly subscription fee and only visited one Contenture ‘enabled’ website. Would that site get %100 of the subscription fee minus whatever Contenture takes as a cut. But if he visited 2 enabled sites and viewed the same amount of pages on each site then each site would get 50% minus Contenture’s cut? Is this how it works or am I way off target?
As more web sites sign up, so will more users. We’ll have lots of spiffy badges to put on your site to promote “support this site!” (meaning, your site). And we’ll be offering an affiliate system to give you incentive to promote to your users also.
“As more web sites sign up, so will more users.”
I guess that’s the dream. I will definitely follow your progress. This is something I would love to see succeed. Best of luck!
I’d like to note that the illustration design was made by Trendfort Design and was a great project for us to work on. We do many different projects, from web design to logo work. My work email is travis[at]trendfort[dot]com if anyone would like to contact us.
Yeah we’re real happy with the comic. Thanks for the awesome job.
This is an interesting concept. What incentive does a giant website have to use this instead of their own in-house subscription service? Techcrunch had an incentive to use Federated Media because it was easier than hiring their own ad sales staff. Why, would I, as a publisher, use this service in lieu of selling my own subscription service with an easy to install script that eliminates the ads on my site?
Because a lot of people don’t know how to do even that. But pasting one piece of Javascript on your site is as simple as anything gets.
Would it not be more cost-effective for a site to implement their own subscription based model?
For example, on PokerDIY, I plan on introducing a virtual currency (Chips of course
with a tiny monthly fee. So normal users get the ads and Silver-level subscribers who pay $12 a year get no ads. Why would I need Conteture or any other 3rd party service to achieve this.
I would have much greater control if I implemented it myself (PokerDIY runs on DotNetNuke which allows you to easily integrate with PayPal and assign users to roles). I am unsure what advantage there is to introduce a 3rd party in this equation.
I agree with one of the commenter that how many sites we come across where ads/popups are painful enough to shy away from them.
For e.g. techcrunch .. the ads are neatly placed dont even bother.
Apart from turning off ad, are there anything others valuable services?
Some of the other options available will include…
- Paying users can see content X number of minutes earlier than everyone else
- Comments can only be left by paying users (will help reduce spam and other types of unwelcome comments)
- URL filtering so only paying members can view content in certain directories (e.g. limit access to your archives with a */archives/* filter)
(I wish TC had reached out to us before posting this so the article was a bit clearer what the service is capable of, but hey, we’re still thankful for the post of course)
Sean, if this is javascript-based (as was mentioned earlier), how would sites using Contenture deal with people using Firefox + NoScript to get access to privileged sections of the site? There must be another way to tell if a user is “paying” or not.
Users smart enough to disable Javascript know perfectly well what they’re getting themselves into. But we do plan to have an API for manually checking this outside of the JS scope, but I’m not sure that will be available at launch.
I don’t think the issue is ads, so much as the way content presentation revolves around the need to have ads. As Bill says, it’s a real pain to have to load 7 pages of an article, instead of just pulling it down to your scrapbook in one hit. The content is spread over 7 pages to provide more ad space.
I think you guys should focus more on the “premium content” aspect rather than “ad elimination”. I’d be willing to pay for “realtime breaking news alerts”, “inside track” conversations with the editorial team, etc, etc. And of course to have the content available the way I want, instead of the way the web team/ad dept want to present it to me. I wouldn’t really be willing to pay just to put whitespace where there are currently ads.
In fact, I quite like having ads on the page, so long as they are relevant, and don’t intrude on the task at hand. The ads can function as sort of ambient information, that lets me know about related products/services. In an ideal world, of course.
So I would say the ad aspect is unimportant for me.
Thanks for the input. This article and our pre-launch site do focus on the ad aspect more than anything else, but that is not the ultimate goal at all. Just one of many “premium” options a site can offer to a paying user.
Maybe I’m missing something but I would say it is worth a try. I like that it automates giving readers a way to pay to have the site be ad free. I do wish it was specific to just my site though. Either way I think I am interested in giving it a try on my personal blog (that has been ad free up until now).
We do plan to offer “approved” sites the ability to set a specific amount of revenue per user. This would be something the user would have to authorize though and would be on top of their normal monthly fee.
We don’t want everyone to be doing this though as that would add up to quickly and the user won’t like that. So we’re probably only allowing major sites and services that option.
You guys are going to be bought out by Google or someone large.
We are not even thinking about that. We just want to make the internet better. We have enough funding to last us for the foreseeable future, so liquidity only comes up after a few drinks on Friday.
So, you’re making the internet better by restricting its content to paying customers only, a cast system for the web. Those who have the $ will live in the clean walled garden; those who can’t live in the sewer, but with even less content that they have now.
You’re a philanthropist, a visionary, the one that will create a better world for everyone… NOT!
Further, this is not even a new idea. Porno sites a being that for what…? since 8 or 10 years.
Will you use an age verification system and credit card details too? Sad!
Or it’ll fail hard because web surfers are generally cheap and aren’t likely to pay for what Adblock Plus, and dozens of other such plugins on other platforms do for free.
Silly VCs…
This is a refreshingly GREAT idea. Hope you get 1000’s of sites to sign up.
Thanks! Signups have been extremely strong thus far, and are accelerating.
Remind me of net neutrality issue and yes, those porn passes, not that I’ve used one, there are too many sources for free stuff anyway
This is crazy.
Your website is using the trademarks of major companies for corporate use without their permission and without so much as a trademark attribution.
Turning off ads for a fee? Small publishers selling subscriptions?
Haven’t we all watched this movie 1,000 times before??
I’d been thinking about this for a while (a decade of working in industries that were supported by advertising content can make you wonder about better solutions I guess) and finally got around to blogging about it a while back http://tr.im/l4XS – it’s really interesting to see that someone is actually working on the model…
Hope they make a go of it. As recent discussions have shown the era of “free” internet may be coming to an end and it’s a hopeful sign if site visitors will have an option to reward content providers without having to put up with invasive and annoying adverts…
I think ads will be handled in better and better ways by new and upcoming services. it is here way better to stick to your own creativity how you will present the user with the ad, if ads are necessarily to be your revenue model.
I’d not be for any subscription model whatsoever. this can get easily be abused and one day we may end up with a nasty picture of the web, much different from the promising one today. Please let us remember that internet is democracy and its credo is from people to people. even if the above service is an opt-in one, we don’t know where it ends once this seems to be opening up as a revenue door to many others.
Pandora is one of my favourite services, unfortunately they are not available in the country I live now. I can clearly see the role of ad revenue in their model, and I think businesses need to find their own sensible and tolerable (at best creative and even entertaining) adaptation of ads to their services, in which case, as existing services like Pandora show, they will be tolerated by users.
when new services surpass established ones in terms of everything in the name of quality, relevance and fun, advertising demands the same level of relevance. and a word here about targeting, it is not an answer, either. “you can fool some people some time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time”. so maybe the best way is starting by stopping trying to fool.
I think its a great concept. Maybe not so much for more traditional content based sites, but for more service or “app” like sites that rely on heavy ajax, it could be very good. These types of sites don’t have as many pageviews because of their asynchronous nature, so CPM ads don’t work well.
I am going to try Contenture on my new app’ish site http://politwitter.ca/ which I also didn’t want to clutter up with ads.
I have to say though, the Contenture “badge” banners are rather ugly, so I will be creating my own for sure.