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Life After Text Links: ScratchBack
Since the Google crack down on text link ad sales this month many in the blog related advertising industry have been scrambling to introduce new offerings. Text-Link-Ads.com (a TechCrunch sponsor) launched ShoppingAds.com this week, a nice looking CPC advertising system geared for blogs.
New comer ScratchBack, led by well regarded online marketer Jim Kukral, offers an online “tipping” system. It allows a publisher to accept tips and “give back” links or images in return. Each listing has a unique message; when a visitor mouseovers a listing, a custom message shows up in the form of a bubbletip. Publishers name their price on tips, and earn money from every interaction through the ScratchBack system. The service is free to signup, and publishers get the code for a “TopSpot” widget in minutes. ScatchBack will be taking a small cut from each transaction, although the percentage hasn’t been finalized.
Kukral calls it a “cross between textlinkads and blogads, but more fun and more options for publishers, and more fun for readers (who become your best advertisers).”
Notably, the system has been approved by Google (they checked) as every link is “nofollow” and the widgets are built in javascript; this is a product that provides an alternative advertising model that won’t see publishers punished in future Google crackdowns.
This isn’t a product for the top end of town, but it does provide a creative alternative to the many bloggers out there looking for new ways of making money.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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Text Link Ads Gets Bought by MediaWhiz
New Yorks’ Media Whiz advertising firm has acquired Cincinnati’s Text Link Ads. The deal was announced this morning, but the financial details aren’t being disclosed.
Text Link Ads typically sells small text ads for a fixed monthly rate, not pay per click. They advertise on blogs extensively (disclosure: including this one). The company recently released a product called “Feedvertising” that allows publishers to easily place ads from Text Link Ads, ads the publisher sells themselves directly or other messages into their RSS feeds. We use this service to promote other sites in the Crunch network. I hope that this product continues to flourish post acquisition.
Media Whiz was founded by Jason Cohen in 2001. The company offers lead generation, affiliate, display and email advertising services. It looks fairly old school to me and acquiring Text Link Ads is probably going to be a big step in moving into the emerging social media space. Jason Cohen’s previous company, Wise Ads New Media was acquired by About.com in 2000. Cohen began his career at DoubleClick. People talk about the power of PayPal alumni - I’d like to write a post about all the interesting things DoubleClick alumni are doing around the web, they’re everywhere.
There has been some amount of controversy around Text Link Ads because they don’t use javascript or “no follow” links to serve up ads on blogs and thus carry more weight with search engines than some people believe paid links ought to have. The Text Link Ads site is very clear that customers are buying inbound links and search engine weight, not just traffic. Some people contend that this is not a problem and that the more granular control over individual ads that Text Link Ads can offer its publishers by not using javascript is positive. Still others contend that “the link is dead” (perhaps because of things like links for sale) and all of this will be irrelevant soon.
Patrick Gavin, President of Text Link Ads, tells us that this is just one of several acquisitions in the pipeline at Media Whiz. It looks like a smart one; look to start seeing the Media Whiz name more and more around the blogosphere.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.