Archive for the 'Informational' Category

ShoppingAds.com - AuctionAds / MediaWhiz new site

Published
by
Christian Flickinger
on October 6, 2007
in Informational, affiliate, auctionads and shoppingads
. 1 Comment

AuctionAds.com is a non-contextual, 3rd party, eBay affiliate program that earns YOU (a publisher) money for linking to eBay auctions. When someone clicks on your AuctionAds link/banner, they are taken to the respective eBay page, and are also given a cookie. Anything they purchase, including the original item they were interested in, within 30 days, earns you eBay affiliate commission. You earn 50%-75% of the revenue that eBay generated off of that sale. “Revenue” is the listing fee, final value fee, and all other fees associated with selling something on eBay. The reason that AuctionAds is better than being a direct eBay affiliate is because AuctionAds’ large user base means they receive the highest payout per successful eBay transaction, which earns you the most money possible.

Now, I got wind of a new product that MediaWhiz / AuctionAds / Text-link-ads is about to release called ShoppingAds.com. ShoppingAds is their new CPC (cost-per-click), versus the AuctionAds CPA (cost-per-acquisition), product. The website, internally, is exactly the same as Auctionads.com, with a different color scheme. The ad-formats are the same, the Get Code section remains the same, but the ads are different. ShoppingAds.com has teamed up with “a number of online merchants”, and, so far, I can tell Amazon is one of them.

A CPC revenue model will work wonders on some sites, and fail horribly on others. For instance, if an AuctionAds publisher is receiving 700 clicks per day, but it only translates into $20 via the CPA model, that same user, receiving 700 clicks using the ShoppingAds.com CPC model, with a payout of $0.05 per click, would make $35. There is no information up yet as to how much each click is worth on ShoppingAds. It now appears that ShoppingAds is claiming a $0.25 CPC on average. I cannot back this up personally, but I received an email from Patrick Gavin (of TLA & ShoppingAds) that this was the case. This new estimate of $0.25 CPC brings the test case above to a total of $175.00, without taking into consideration the difference and variation in product selection (so it is not likely you will receive the same 700 clicks using ShoppingAds that you were receiving with AuctionAds, because the products may not be the same). It will work out for some this way though, and they will make more, on average, with ShoppingAds; as long as their keyword selection yields sufficient, similar, products on ShoppingAds. If your users click on your AuctionAds links, but do not follow through with sales, the ShoppingAds CPC model may have a higher payout for you.

I have noticed one problem so far, and it is inherent to the affiliate sources. With AuctionAds, eBay is a crowd sourced database of products. You have a lot of people putting a lot of random stuff up for auction. Your chances of finding fake dog poop on eBay are very high. However, online merchants tend not to carry as many specialty items as they would regular items. ShoppingAds has a much smaller database of non-standard products. For instance, with AuctionAds, the keyword “sewing” is going to show you never ending random auctions for sewing products, and machines, and tools. With ShoppingAds, the keyword “sewing” brings up 5 items (3 sewing machines, and 2 sergers). Sony PSP, iPod, xbox360, and all other currently popular items show great results in both products. So, ShoppingAds may not be the best for specialty websites that deal with topics that wont show relevant products. It would be nice if a keyword such as “sewing” was not taken literally, and a contextually similar set of items were returned (sewing would then yield results of sewing machines, fabrics, sewing books, thread, etc).

With all of that said, I am glad that MediaWhiz is releasing a CPC product that is similar to AuctionAds. I can see it performing well on one of my sites that generates clicks, but no follow-through on the auctions. According to Patrick Gavin of Text-Link-Ads and AuctionAds, their new ShoppingAds.com product will be out of private beta within the next week or two.

The wonders of Microsoft Office compression

Published
by
Christian Flickinger
on September 25, 2007
in Informational, how-to and microsoft
. 2 Comments

So I am currently an IT professional for a company in the Midwest. Just like any large company, there are plenty of presentations where Power Point is the main visual. We have a graphic design department for our advertising. They maintain a large database of images, logos, photos, flyers, etc. They have a total hard-on for ultra-high-res images. I respect the idea, and the proper uses, of high-res imagery! There is one problem though: they don’t believe in compression. I LOVE compression. I love being able to compress server logs by a factor of 88%, or compressing a jpg from 3.4MB to a wimpy, yet still usable 45KB. The Power Point presentations that are generated here contain 10-50 images, all in their 10 mega pixel glory, along with transitions, lame type-writer effects, and horrendous page backgrounds.

After the presentations are created, the users attempt to send it to people inside and outside of the company. They quickly receive a “Mailbox is over its size limit, or you are trying to be a dumb ass and send a 91MB Power Point presentation to someone”.

They then call me and yell at me for putting limits on their email. I try to explain to them how stupid sending a 91MB Power Point presentation is, but they wont listen. So I grab it off the network drive and work magic on it. I quickly turn that 91MB Power Point into a 7.2MB Power Point, which is the EXACT same quality on screen and in print.

Here is how:

  1. Step1:
    Open your gigantic Power Point presentation. The one I am using in this demo is a sexy 33.98MB (35,631,104 Bytes).
  2. In Office 2007, click on ANY photo/image in the Power Point Presentation.
    1. Up in the Ribbon (fancy name for Office 2007 Tool Bar), click on the “Format” menu, under “Picture”.
    2. Now click on the “Compress Pictures” option to the left
      Office 2007 - Step 1
       
    3. Make sure “Apply to selected pictures only” is UNCHECKED (see below)
      Office 2007 - Step 2
       
    4. Check the top 2 boxes, and select “Screen (150 dpi)” (or, if you are really advantageous and wanna stick it to the MAN, choose “Email (96 dpi)”)
      Office 2007 - Step 3
       
  3. In Office XP/2003, you simply right click the photo, click “Format Picture”, goto the “Picture” tab, in the bottom left of the window, click “Compress” and use the same options as above!

This works in Office XP/2003/2007 in all programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc)

The Power Point presentation used in the example above is now 3.36MB (3,527,168 Bytes).

Enjoy.

An Introduction

Published
by
Christian Flickinger
on April 20, 2007
in Informational
. 0 Comments

It is very awkward writing in a blog. I need to write to an audience that I can not see, count, or gauge immediately. I need to pretend that someone is reading this, and I need to speak to them. Why would anyone really care what I have to say? Why now, at this time, do I feel that a blog is even necessary?

I do not feel that a blog should be a diary or a journal, but more of a place to document and discuss ideas and information. I will not use this as an outlet for my feelings, or for keeping track of my day-to-day life. I wont display my personal life to the public or tell everyone what I ate for breakfast. I want to use this blog as an outlet for my ideas and creativity. I want to share things that I have thought of, or am thinking about, with the world. I want others to share with me.

Most of all, I guess I just want my small piece of “fame”, and I hope by doing this, by documenting my ideas, someone will eventually recognize the potential of one of them and I will become the next short-lived buzz-word.

My name is Christian Flickinger, I consider myself a young entrepreneur, and the following is a collection of my ideas.