Advertising and new ideas?

Normally I don't jump on the big ad generating band wagon, it was a hard choice for me to just select the little "Google Adsense" on my blog but I figured it's not that annoying and if it generates a few bucks then OK. I refuse however to push it and try to "optimize" it for big time revenue. Maybe I'm behind the times but I do this for me and anyone who might want to listen...

Anyway I received a mail, unsolicited and I almost deleted it as SPAM however, I didn't. The mail was from Nir Dahan and he has a website called BidTheGrid.com and after a few emails I learned that he was inspired by that young guy in England with the "Million Pixels" website, the one where he sold each pixel of space on his webpage for $1 he sold them all and made a million - not bad. Well Nir has a new idea and that is sell grids on his website of various sizes.

I cant deny it was the "milliondollarhomepage" from Alex Tew. it was indeed genius. I also saw all the other pixel sites trying to imitate him and I thought I wanted something different. it is true that I will be labeled as a copy, but I think it is not avoidable after his success. I truly believe I got something different if people dwell upon it for a while. bidthegrid is supposed to be dynamic, ads change, and hopefully will reflect the TRUE value of my advertizing space. it is a sort of internet-economy experiment one can say. One of the things that intruige me most is to see the dynamics if (hopefully) the site will shoot off.

After paying your image is there for 24 hours but afterwards it stays there until someone else pays to basically remove yours and add there's.

I chose one of the small Grid points and I uploaded my "favicon" and linked things to my main Cmehil.com site.

Now the terms and conditions are pretty straight forward:

• Your banner and link will be displayed for a minimum of 24 hours from the time it is posted.
  
• After the initial 24 hours, your banner and link will be displayed until someone else pays for the square at the higher price point.
  
• Banners are for hire, you would not own any part of the site by paying for these squares.
  
  
• BidTheGrid.com reserves the right to accept or reject any of the applications. Adult and offensive material will be rejected; this applies to both banner and link content. What's adult/offensive? We decide; if you are in doubt, email us.
  
• After your payment has been accepted, there will be some processing time for approving and updating the site. This period will be as short as possible and will depend on how active the site is.
  
• There will be no refunds, so take care choosing the information you provide us (i.e. link, banner, etc...) Once submitted they will not be modified.
  
• We only accept banners in the exact size of the square, they must be in the JPEG (.jpg) format and not exceed 20KB.
  
• All links must start with 'http://'.
  
• Banners should be sent to us as soon as payment is made... we'll allow for 24 hours for them to arrive.
  
• BidTheGrid.com reserves the right to remove your banner and link and resell the space IF your link ever points to adult or offensive content.
  
  
• It is possible to pay for several successive denominations in order to guarantee multiple 24 hour periods.
  
• Once a square reaches a value of $10,000, it will no longer be available for hire and the current owner's banner and link will persist.
  
• The site will be available at least until March 2009. We'll do everything in our power to have it available 100% of the time for the duration; unfortunately, events beyond our control may bring it down for short periods.
  
• Only the information you chose to be displayed will ever be shown; no other information will ever be provided to 3rd parties.
  
• Only one free square per customer.
  
• All times displayed on the page are GMT.
  

However, and it's a point I will have to ask - it says only one free square per customer - is a customer a person or a website?

Taking the chance I chose one of the larger grids for a photo of me and a link to this site, my blog. Now as I view these two things as completely separate and one does not really link to the other, sub domain yes but for me complete separate that should count as a second customer.

I spoke with Nir and he of course confirmed that,

both, as long as the site is different, we accept both ads!

The next question I had for him was of course what type of traffic to expect? I mean I Googled "Bidthegrid" and got nothing (a day later 2 entries), I Googled "bid the grid" and got quite a few hits but not this particular site, so where is the value - OK intially free so that's fine I don't spend and if I get hits from it then "bonus" but what if I do spend for a grid how do I initially calculate the value? Nir had this to say,

ok, that is a fair point, but this is the whole idea. We intentionally
didn't advertize ourselves before we started (5 days ago officially). We wanted to be anonymous to the world and one day "just pop up". We spread the word to a few friends, and to several weblogs, and we hope it will start the ball rolling.

As I said I'm not one for pushing ads BUT I do syndicate my blog and send out my RSS feeds to generate more traffic to my site, we all like to see those numbers increase - more importantly for me though is I like to my comments increase - OK separate issue. Anyway though this is why I felt not only OK with sending in my two links but also to take the time to speak to Nir (he's got an "Anonymous Coward" working with him as well) and to help him promote his site which in turn helps me promote mine.

Speaking of which I've had 5 hits from BidTheGrid.com as this blog was being posted, and that's after less than 24 hours. Not bad for the beginning I guess...

Qunu | live help when you need it most

Qunu | live help when you need it most, and it's true. This is one of those things that once you see it you think "How did I ever live without it?"

What's Qunu? Qunu is a next-generation expertise matching service. We use instant messaging to connect -- in real time -- people who have software or tech-related questions with experts who are passionate and willing to help.

I signed up today and I tried it out using Meebo, from my online office setup and within about an hour I actually had someone message me to ask me for help. If that doesn't cut it I later got an email from that same person thanking me for helping them out so much!

I'm all for helping people but the problem is that I've logged into about a dozen different services and websites to accomplish it and I feel I have to continuly go back and check all of them to ensure that I've not left anyone hanging. Well from now on I plan to tell all of them about this service, which doesn't require me to go to them.

How's it different to other ask-an-expert services? It's different to the ones you've seen because with Qunu you don't have to wait around for your answer. You can ask the expert directly and get your answer immediately. What's more, you can ask follow-up questions, again, in real time.

Also, if you're an expert in something and want to provide help to others, Qunu requests come in through your existing IM client software (finally!), so there's no need to monitor forums or websites anymore.

How to get some help NOW: Simply enter your query into the search field above. Qunu will return a list of experts who are online and possibly able to help. Please be polite and considerate of their time -- you're getting it for free.

How to get started as an expert: It's easy. First, add quser@qunu.com to your contact list in almost any Jabber-enabled IM client. Then, request authorization and follow the instructions given to 'tag' yourself with various topics.

I've already sent an email on to SDN to see what they all think as well.

Just this one line was a selling point for me:

so there's no need to monitor forums or websites anymore

What's even cooler is that this works with almost any Jabber-enabled IM client and right now on SDN, Piers Harding has just released a blog related to Jabber as well. OK a bit of a tangent but still very interesting! I mean how interesting would that be to get a service like Qunu integrated into your R/3 or NetWeaver system for your entire user base? Might make your job and life a whole heck of a lot easier - not to mention your support desk. Can we say "no more how do I do that in Excel".

Ok I've started to rant and ramble here so I'll bring this to a close.

How to See in the Dark - WikiHow

How to See in the Dark - WikiHow

Something everyone wants to do and probably something a few body mod folks tried after seeing "Pitch Black" with Vin Diesel.

Interesting, perhaps while traveling I'll try this in my hotel room, especially if it's like my last hotel and had no internet access :-(

Updated....

I decided to give this a try as my current hotel is ALSO with Internet (a bug of way I work) but needless to say I guess I can see in the dark.

Google Notebook

Google Notebook

Google seems to be pumping out programs left and right these days, from the Calendar to the Bookmarks, to the Spreadsheet as well as this nifty little notebook!

The interface is similar to the RSS Reader they have so it's quite easy to work with and you can make multiple workbooks and mark them public or private and you can also search other public notebooks easily!

Now if they started to integrate more of these applications together my life would be easier but for now I will simply enjoy the use of them and how it elminates the need for yet another program from my desktop, thanks Google!

Odeo: Craig's Ramblings...

Odeo: Craig's Ramblings... I don't know if anyone is actually listening but I am podcasting finally - again that is.

Quick ones just snippets...

Check it out!