nerdcereal.com

I read a couple of Gawker Media blogs and frequently see the weirdest ads running on their network of sites—weird in that they don’t look like advertisements. They look strange and out of place and in turn, intriguing. Clicking on the image, I’m taken to a page with more of the same imagery but with some context. It appears that Gawker fills their unsold pageviews with art from drawing, film, sculpture, digial art, painting, photography and more. Click on the ad and you’ll see the particular artist featured in the pageview. You can also see all artists.

Gawker also lets interested publishers display the rotating gallery of artwork on their own sites. I think it’s an excellent way to display art and better than selling your remnant inventory to bottom-feeding advertisers that aren’t going to pay much anyways. If you let everyone advertise on your site, how can you command a high CPM and maintain your site’s integrity?

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I had my first success at Retail Me Not tonight. A website where consumers can share online promotional codes, deals, etc. It’s definitly a good website to check before you make any purchase online.

In my case, I was ordering more contacts from 1800Contacts.com. Lo and behold, there was a promotional code for $12 off any order of $75 or greater. I typed in the code and now I’m $12 richer.

A curious reader has always been able to see any edits made to any Wikipedia page but the information has always been hidden under the history tab and behind a cryptic IP address.

The security researcher known as Virgil, has created a wikiscanner, that deciphers and organizes all IP addresses of people who edit pages, making it easier to see what pages any given organiztion has edited.

Some of the local SF corporations I tried:

• Salesforce (edits the Marina)
• Ernst & Young (edits KPMG)
• Gap Inc. (edits Gay Bar and Banana Republic)

Craigslist finally got over its minimalistic and idealistic design strategy and added some minor graphical UI elements to the famously no-frills site. Upon viewing listings in the San Francisco Bay Area, the user will notice that the sub-regions, once separated by pipes or “|” are now represented by tabs. This comes after, a week or so ago, a change where the layout for the flag links was shifted from horizontal to vertical.

I think the changes are an improvement but more so, they are significant simply because the craigslist interface changes only on rare occasions. There’s more room for improvement in other areas of the interface and I wonder if this marks a trend towards a better UI. Perhaps colors other than blue, purple, and grey?

I’ve always liked the homepage of craigslist and appreciated its quirky brand. It’s an example of a site where content is king and design takes a back seat.

I just found a list of a comprehensive list of all the online advertising networks there are in existence. Intimidating to say the least; but most of these are probably pretty tiny.

1. Chitika : Shopping mall banner advertising. (CPC)
2. Google AdSense (CPC)
3. Advertising.com : Large network. (CPA)
4. 24/7 RealMedia : Large network. (CPM)
5. Burst Media : Large network. (CPM)
6. Commission Junction : Large network. (CPA)
7. Kanoodle : Large network. (CPC); 50% payout.
8. LinkShare : Large network. (CPA)
9. ValueClick : Large network. (CPM)
10. Yahoo Publisher Network : Closed Beta (CPC)
11. MSN adCenter : Closed Beta (CPC)
12. Accelerator Media :
13. AdAgency 1 : (CPM) ; 60% payout.
14. AdDynamix : (CPM)
15. AdEngage :
16. Adgenta :
17. Adhearus :
18. AdKnowledge : (CPC)
19. AdPepper : (CPM)
20. ADServing Network : (CPM)
21. Adsmart : (CPM)
22. Adtegrity : (CPM)
23. AdZuba : (CPM)
24. AffiliateFuture : (CPA)
25. AffiliateSensor :
26. AllFeeds : (CPC); 60% payout.
27. AVNads :
28. AzoogleAds : (CPA)
29. Banner Boxes : (CPC)
30. BannerConnect : (CPM)
31. BardzoMedia : (CPM)
32. BidClix : (CPC)
33. BidVertiser : (CPC)
34. BlinkAds : (CPA)
35. BlueFN : (CPA)
36. BlueLithium : (CPM)
37. Casale Media : (CPM); 70% payout.
38. ClickAdsDirect :
39. ClickBooth : (CPA)
40. ClickShare :
41. Clicksor : (CPC); upto 85% payout.
42. ClickXchange : (CPA)
43. ContexWeb : (CPC); 50% payout.
44. CoverClicks :
45. CPX Interactive/Budsinc : (CPM)
46. DirectNetworks : (CPA)
47. Enhance Interactive :
48. Esource Media : (CPM)
49. Etype-Europe : (CPM)
50. EtypeUSA :
51. ExpoActive :
52. FastClick=ValueClick : (CPM); upto 65% payout.
53. FluxAds : (CPA)
54. HurricaneDigitalMedia : (CPM); 60/75% payout.
55. Hyperbidder : (CPC)
56. IncentaClick : (CPA)
57. Industry Brains :
58. Interclick :
59. JoeTec : (CPM)
60. Kontera : (CPC)
61. Mamma Media Solutions : (CPC); 50% payout.
62. MaxBounty : (CPA)
63. Mirago :
64. MIVA AdRevenue Xpress :
65. Nixxie :
66. Oridian : (CPA)
67. Oxado : (CPC)
68. Paypopup : (CPM)
69. PeakClick :
70. Popup Traffic : (CPM)
71. Quigo : (CPC)
72. RealCastMedia : (CPM)
73. RealTech Network : (CPM)
74. Revenue Pilot : (CPC); 60% payout.
75. RightMedia : (CPM)
76. Searchfeed : (CPC)
77. ShareAShare : (CPA)
78. TargetPoint : (CPC); at least 50% payout.
79. TextLinkAds : (CPC)
80. TMP Express : (CPA)
81. Tremor Network :
82. Tribal Fusion : (CPM)
83. Veoda : (CPC) ; 60-90% payout.
84. Vibrant Media IntelliTXT : (CPM)

(Read more from this post as to the quality of some of these networks)

If I’m not making any money from advertising, not even enough to pay for my hosting, why on earth am I tarnishing my site with ugly advertisements for unnecessary goods and services? Because I work for an ad network.

In order to design an interface for people to buy, sell, manage and optimize online advertising, I need a first-hand experience how people do it. Mainly, I run AdBrite ads, however, today I finally pasted some Google AdSense on my site. It’s the like the adage “eat your own dog food.” If I’m gonna be designing these interfaces, I damn well better use and enjoy them myself.

Want an exclusive advertising opportunity on Google Maps? All you need is a really, really, really big sign. Looking around Redwood City I saw this Excite @ Home building (who knows if they’re still located there or even in buisiness). Unfortunately it only works for the hybrid and satellite views. It’s a tactic similar to paying one of those kids to shake a sign on a street corner, but on a much larger scale.

Note to people gullible enough to try this tactic: make sure your message reads west to east.

From: http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/

It was one year ago when I first installed Wordpress and started blogging. Since then, I’ve written 58 posts and have gotten a total of 3 comments.

I still don’t have any readers and there are only a couple of pages that link here. I am getting a fair amount of search engine traffic and I’ve made a total of $1.13 in advertising revenue since May.

I’ve accomplished what I set out to do by this blog, which is to use it as an aid to learn web application development, that way, when it comes, stardom will just be a by-product. I’ve come a long way in my programming skills including PHP, MySQL and Javascript (with and without prototype.js). I’ve also got a full time job at a legitimate dot-com.

Nerdcereal still has no cohesive theme and probably won’t in the near future. But I’m still going to blog about anything, audience or not.

Photo-sharing website, Ringo, is one of AdBrite’s big publishers. I decided to give them a try because I want to be a pro-sumer and to see how it compares to Flickr, which I’ve been using previously.

The uploading process was easy. It lets you upload 4 at a time on the same page and as soon as one’s done, you can start another.

There’s no drag-n-drop organizer, instead you have to create albums and add pictures to them by selecting the appropriate album from a drop-down menu in the edit picture page.

I was a little creeped out when after I logged in again, it had somehow gotten a list of all the people I’ve ever emailed with my gmail account, asking if I wanted to invite them. There were random people on that list that I’ve only emailed once ever. I sent them a message to see what was up with that.