
An alternative to google adsense - lsc
http://www.projectwonderful.com/
======
lsc
I've been hearing many cries of 'Google is the only game in town' and it's
simply not true. As an advertiser, I love project wonderful, and I wish more
advertisers would use project wonderful.

Personally, I think the auction model project wonderful uses works fairly well

<http://www.projectwonderful.com/abouttheinfiniteauction.php>

it's not perfect, nothing ever is, but I think it meets my needs (and resists
fraud) better than either the cost per click or cost per impression model.

~~~
jacquesm
Well, 'reach' wise google really is the only game in town.

~~~
lsc
eh, if you are a content provider, the question is "who pays more" - I can't
answer that question. but eh, if you have a popular site, I don't think what
advertisers are willing to pay varies that much. I know most of the sites I
advertise on, I saw the site first, then I tried to figure out how to get an
ad on the site.

that, and I think the time-based auction model is less vulnerable to fraud
than charging on total impressions or clickthroughs. Hopefully other ad
networks will copy that model.

~~~
jacquesm
> I think the time-based auction model is less vulnerable to fraud than
> charging on total impressions or clickthroughs.

Here we are fully in agreement.

It's just that if you have a site that has (tens of) millions of impressions
per day that it can be quite hard to get that inventory sold, and the ad
delivery network will have to be able to keep up with the demands such sites
make on its infrastructure.

If I have some time next week I think I'll set up a trial account with them
and see how well it performs as compared with adsense on the same body of
traffic.

------
pbhjpbhj
lsc, what's your association with pw? I've read 2 comments in one thread and
seen this post in the last 5 minutes - you appear to be on a marketing mission
for them?

~~~
lsc
Am I being too spamish? I thought I was within the standards for behavior on
HN.

But that's not what you are asking. I don't have a direct financial interest
in this; but as someone who buys ads, I do hope that more sites use the 'time
based auction' model of advertising, as it fits well with the way I advertise.
See, when I buy advertising, I want to say "Hey, look, I exist" I think my
prices provide a compelling argument to research my company further, and I
think that many people who need what I'm selling, upon researching my company,
will find me to be a good value (or at least worth a try.) I don't expect
people to click through a banner ad and buy what I am selling during that
session.

Also, I want to make the point that google is not the only choice in this
market. Without competition, google will stagnate like any other monopoly. (Or
maybe I am just cheesed at google because they bought dejanews, but no longer
allow you to search much of the historical NNTP archive. )

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Not too spamish, just thought it deserved a bit more transparency either way.
Your involvement or otherwise doesn't change the verity of your statement.

And look I gave you chance to enlarge your point, that's good isn't it.

~~~
lsc
hah. Yeah. The hacker news crowd is subtly different from a purely technical
crowd, in that posts like this are Okay. Actually, I think hacker news, and
the culture around it helped me to develop a healthy attitude towards
marketing. (If you had known me a few years back, well, I had an extremely
negative attitude towards marketing, something that isn't particularly healthy
for a business owner.)

One of these days, though, once I get myself setup with some cheap storage,
I'm going to start archiving non-binary NNTP groups, and setup historical NNTP
search. nntp-> email gateways, I think, are also one of the better ways of
making mailing lists searchable.

