Free advertising for your blog? What's the catch?
I got a ping recently about BlogUpp, a reciprocal advertising network for blogs. The concept is this: you submit your blog to the service, and it gets advertised to other BlogUpp users in proportion to the number of BlogUpp ad units you serve on your own site. And it's free.
It's not a bad setup if you don't mind running ads for your competitors. To be clear, though: you shouldn't, because they'll all be running ads for you in return. This isn't a zero-sum game. A user who is interested in the topics you're covering is not likely to abandon your site when they link over to another. A more engaged audience in any field is good for almost everyone (except perhaps for sites with large readerships that are coasting on their reputations).
BlogUpp makes money by reserving 10 percent of the ad spots for itself and monetizing them through Google. You'll never see that money, though. For its subscribers, BlogUpp pays only in traffic.
The service attempts to display on your site only links to blogs in your field. It does that by comparing RSS feeds of all its subscribers. It looks like it does a decent job; judge for yourself in the live demo spot embedded in this post. Update: Maybe not so much, at least at launch. Your results may be different from what I am seeing right now on my screen, and I hope they are: I get an ad for BlogUpp itself and another spot for a blog in a language I can't even identify. We'll see how well the blog-matching technology works as the network grows.
What I like about the service is that it is unbelievably easy to sign up. There's no registration, which is highly unusual for a product like this. You just give the service your blog URL and it spits back code you can embed in your site.
One downside, though, is that the service doesn't yet offer any analytics to you: What traffic are you getting from the network? From which sites in particular? Where are your users linking off to from your site? This is stuff that competitive bloggers obsess over, but there's none of it in this early version of BlogUpp. Also, you get no control of where your spots will appear or what spots appear on your site. The company does say it will filter out adult and illegal content, but it doesn't let you blacklist blogs you don't want to associate with.
Click-through on the BlogUpp units might not be huge, but if you have the real estate on your site, it's worth experimenting with.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
This a BlogUpp representative. Thanks a lot for this great review!
I'd like to clarify some of the issues, which looks to seem unclear.
a) Those 10% that BlogUpp reserves actually mean that for a total of 10 displays, 9 are community related, and only 1 is ours. Those 10% in fact cover also blogs that are getting additional bonus impressions; more info on that on http://www.blogupp.com, in "Be in the know about how it works" section;
b) Concerning "Google monetizing" mentioned above - well, that was a misunderstanding, as there is not such at BlogUpp;
c) The blog matching by blog field/topic is a technique we are proud of, and it will be enforced when the network is big enough;
d) Yes, it is easy to sign up; and actually that is not the best word (as there is no registration), rather refer to it as just one-click set-up;
e) Indeed, in this early version is not available the BlogUpp feature for stats analysis, but it is on the way. BlogUpp aims to make the service unprecedentedly easy, and properly automated. Nevertheless, here it is an extract on this issue from the official press-release at http://blog.blogupp.com:
"Even though no account is required with BlogUpp!, that doesn?t mean the bloggers can't benefit from monitoring their stats. Those willing to use this feature will get it just by following-up an easy procedure. Advanced bloggers could also use stats analytic services that are already available with their weblogs. BlogUpp! seeks to be referred as a simple, efficient and honest community service."
f) And finally, direct blacklisting of blogs by the community members is also an improvement that is planned for the near future.
So, stay tuned, and have a great blogging!
"Pimp" is neither cute or edgy, but rather a veneer by which detestable characters operate under. I respect CNET for many things, but I am baffled by your ignorance and insensitivity on this one. Just becuase every other publuication and "cool" media outlet uses this word does not mean you have to as well.
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/03/03/turning-microsofts-ad-trash-into-treasure/