It’s amazing what people are able to do when they work together. The web is the only project built by the entire human kind. It’s a work in progress, and this is what makes it exciting! With no users, there would be no internet.

It’s unexpected that we’re connected by technology instead of nature. It’s unexpected that people of any age, gender, rase or social statute take part in this amazing project. And I am sure it’s future is unexpected, in a good way.

You can be a creative who builds a website, or an artist that creates an image, a song, a video, something, that goes online, and you are part of it. We’re so far now, and yet we’re just touching the tip of the iceberg. We love the internet! We all do! No exception. :-)

I love how open it is. I’m browsing amazing photos, while listening to music, and at the same time putting down some ideas on my Evernote account. I don’t know how far things will be in the next 5 years, but I have a strong feeling it’s going to be even more exciting than it is today.

I bet that it will be interactive and we’ll not only read stuff, but engage with the content we consume. I am sure it will be everywhere.

Offline

When you want to bring users to your website, to a niche such as ours (Flash Components), there aren’t many ways of doing it offline, because the products we offer don’t exactly fit everyone. :-)

So we did two things:

1. We went to a conference for start-ups, called Webstock 2009, where we did what every start-up would do, and that is draw as much attention as possible, so we dressed in our Flabell branded t-shirts! This was a conference for nerds, so we fit perfectly!
2. We published an ad in one of the most targeted magazines we could FLASH & FLEX DEVELOPER’S MAGAZINE. We also got two copies, which we keep at the office, to show-off! :-)

The bad? We don’t know how many users we brought to Flabell, because there’s no way of tracking them.

Online

This is the interesting part! We started with a 9 months long advertising campaign, on the biggest website in the Universe dedicated to Flash, which is theFWA. Then, we also advertised on the second biggest website dedicated to Flash, and on some more blogs for Flash, which I will disclose in the second part of this article, with real data. I don’t want to make you click on the ads, because that won’t help us track down every real user. :-)

We also used Google Adwords and SEO. Search for xml banner rotator, xml image slideshow, simple flash mp3 player (to name a few) in any search engine you wish. Flabell is on top of those lists.

Having all this data, I dare to say that the current advertising model is broken. From almost one million targeted visitors, one would expect a better click through rate, and a better conversion rate. Is there nothing we can do to make the CTR higher?

My answer: yes, there is.

What’s the Solution?

Innovation. Both on the publisher side, as well as on the advertiser side.

The publisher needs to create outstanding content, in order to attract as many users as possible. (can’t complain here)

The advertiser needs to have exceptional products, as well as presentation websites, for not only attracting the users, but also for keeping a potential customer on the website. (can’t complain here either)

But there’s another side, which needs to be mentioned, and that’s the bounding side. Whatever tool is used to connect the advertiser and the publisher, that’s where the innovation is needed. The tool should allow the advertiser to be interactive, and the publisher to reach as many users as possible, without creating a negative impact on any of the two parts. This is where we have to innovate!

Such tools are Google’s AdWords (for search), or BuySellAds.com for blogs. We used these both, and we are unhappy with the results. There’s a need for an innovative and better tool, to help both advertisers and publishers get better conversion rates! We don’t need a tool that only connects both parties (AdWords, BSA), but a tool that does more than that, a tool that makes the first impressions on the user matter, a tool that will send the user on the advertiser’s website already engaged by their brand.

Lucky Advertisers!

My company, as an advertiser, needs more than just luck, and the tools we have today, make advertisers get new users through luck: the users see the ad or not, they click on it or not, they sign-up, or not.

Let me tell you that we, as advertisers:

1. Don’t want to pay for luck! We want to pay for efficiency, and targeted users.
2. Don’t want 1% conversion rates! We want the users that come to our website, to know what they will find when they get there.
3. Don’t want below 1% click through rate! We want to know that absolutely every user saw our ad, and they saw it without being distracted from the way they used to interact with the publisher’s website. The user needs to enjoy our ads, to understand them and relate to them, and then decide if they should click on the ad or not.

On Part 2, I will share some real numbers of our latest campaign, so you can see how the current advertising model works.

Let me give you some hints if you plan on using one or the other, but I strongly suggest you go with WP, the self hosted service. You can thank me later. ;-)

WordPress.com/WordPress.org

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform online – both the free, hosted version (at wordpress.com) and the free CMS you download and install on your own server (at wordpress.org). It’s easy to use and the admin panel is also very convenient thanks to AJAX technology.

Known blogs:

1. http://www.techcrunch.com (self hosted)
2. http://zainabdullah.wordpress.com/

Movable Type/TypePad

The main difference between the two is that TypePad is a fee-based hosted service and Movable Type is software that you license to run on your own server or web host. This is similar to WordPress (.com and .org).

Known blogs:

1. http://www.boingboing.net (self hosted)
2. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Blogger/Blogspot

The service itself is located at www.blogger.com, and blogs that do not publish to their own websites are hosted for free by Google at subdomains of blogspot.com (it redirects to Blogger).

It offers no software instalation as WordPress.org or MovableType.org. Google gives a way for bloggers to use their own domains though.

Google also allows for FTP publishing, which means the files posted by a user will be uploaded to that user’s FTP. Confusing, right? :-)

Known blogs:

1. http://www.americablog.com (self hosted)
2. http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

There are more than 184 million blogs out there today. Imagine that all these blogs can be connected through a platform that users would choose to use. Through this platform, users will be able to publish interactive content in a way that hasn’t been done before on the web.

Through Blogvio, the bloggers would have complete control over how they display content on their blogs, and what content they wish to display first.

I know it doesn’t make much sense now, but to sum it up I want to say that Blogvio brings interactivity to blogs. You will have to experience it to see what this means.

At the moment Blogvio is being developed, and I will keep sharing more about the project as we get there. This is a start-up that will change the world, we hope! :-)