Comments on: The Endorsement Gap

By: How Many Friends Do You Have? | How To Split An Atom

How Many Friends Do You Have? | How To Split An Atom — Tue, 27 May 2008 03:36:05 +0000

[...] is and how important your personal brand is. In a world where all of these factors will eventually turn into ad dollars, it would be crazy for the web famous not to constantly work to build these numbers [...]

By: Maggy Young

Maggy Young — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:14:31 +0000

'Sponsored endorsements' to most readers are just ads. Ads using stars do not work because of the endorsement factor, as everyone knows this comes down to a huge pay cheque. They work because they are selling lifestyle and hero emulation. The problem with ads. on blogs is that mostly they're not verticals. Eg. related ads on a fishing or motorcycle blog would probably score higher. Blogs suffer from the Facebook problem – users don't go to the site with an interest in ads. Ads might be more effective if they could be better linked to the content.

By: Poll: The Future Of Advertising | How To Split An Atom

Poll: The Future Of Advertising | How To Split An Atom — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:59:28 +0000

[...] web is fueled by advertising. My question is where is online advertising heading? Fill out your ballot then tell me your [...]

By: porch lifts

porch lifts — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:55:27 +0000

If you are doing a search for anything that is product related, then the front page is likely to be paid. This is true of most competitive niches. They have been doing this for years. It started as inserting their ads in between the normal search results, but has since grown. The service is “Yahoo Search Submit”

By: zeta

zeta — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:23:05 +0000

Can you put your source please ?

By: La Canada Flintride CA Realty

La Canada Flintride CA Realty — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:21:47 +0000

I do believe that there are quite a bit more blogs out there where bloggers are just writing to write. The purpose isn't actually to make money.

That happens down the line when some writers become much more successful and develop a sort of following.

I would be interested to see statistics on how many active blogs are actually bringing in a cash flow.

By: f

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:58:50 +0000

I don't think the results from Yahoo are paid for. Do you have any sources for that?

By: porch lifts

porch lifts — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:22:24 +0000

I think a large part of it is that most tech savvy people, at least the ones I know, can see through the reviews for what they are.

For instance if you are searching for reviews of hosting companies, or anything for that matter, you have to sift through tons and tons of fluff reviews that in essence just describe what is on the companies page to find just one honest review.

The best reviews are the ones where you can tell the person actually used the product, discusses both the positive things and the negative things, and objectively looks at the product/services. These are by no means the norm though because most companies don't want you to honestly review the product in this matter.

Now don't get me wrong, I personally fully understand paid posts, and in no way hold it against the blogger, but I think most people like me are able to see them for what they are and so they don't hold much weight. Sort of like a yahoo search where all the results on the first page are paid.

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:21:04 +0000

There is no doubt that there is a two way relationship, but the difference is that bloggers can have multiple motivations for blogging (hobby, professional development, monetization) while advertisers only have one.

Though I completely agree, blogging as a trend might not be as wildly popular if there was no one to make any money off of it.

By: 3dgamebabes

3dgamebabes — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:13:11 +0000

But bloggers need advertisers too. If there weren't advertisers I doubt blogs would be so trendy right now. If problogger or all those highly successful blogs wouldn't even exist, would you create this blog? Would you even know what a blog is?