Singaporean Entrepreneurs

As Google shares continue to drop ($85 Billion off its market cap in the last 3 months), is it just a sign of investors fleeing in fear of an economic recession or a sign of a much bigger problem?

THE COMPETITION

PAID REVIEWS
We’ve stated before in our blog that Google has been losing a lot of its advertisers to paid review sites, and that is most likely why they have been “punishing” the most successful blogs by dropping their page ranks. In the beginning of 2007, there were only a handful of players (Payperpost, Blogitive, Blogsvertise, Sponsored Review, etc.). But today, only 14 months later, the internet is awash with these “advertising brokers” (for want of a better term) all promising a source of revenue for bloggers whether they have any readers or not. Even in Singapore, there are already many small players trying to stake their claim in this space, the most successful of which, for now, seems to be blog2u.sg which does a mix of paid reviews and branding ads.

OTHER TYPES OF ADS
In addition to these paid review sites, there are other types of ads becoming available such as the auction ads (displays the stuff being auctioned on various auction sites), shop-direct ads, “peel away ads” (the glowing corners on the top right), the incredibly irritating audio ads (!!!), video ads, and of course what every money-making blogger swears by these days, affiliate marketing (commissionjunction, pepperjam, neverblueads, etc- click here for the recent lowdowns).

FREE ADS REDUX
(1) Free, (truly) Contextual Links
Lastly, “free ads” have returned and this version 2 cannot be taken lightly since many of Google’s advertisers are not big companies, but the bloggers themselves trying to get more readers. Now, they don’t have to go through Google adwords anymore. Most bloggers are linking to each other for free, creating a brand new way of searching that is truly contextual and not based on a computer’s algorithmic best guess. I can find more relevant information by going to a really good blog that then tells me about where to find other similar information vs. making a search on Google (although of course I still need Google).

(2) Free 125×125 Ads
The free ads have also taken the form of 125×125 standards, where webmasters (mainly bloggers) can place their ads on other sites by agreeing to have them place their ads (in rotation) on their own sites. SPOTTT, for example, does this. As does, buzzfeed. But both are just Link exchange revived.

An ingenious Web 2.0 version is Entrecard, which allows you to actually control where your ad gets placed and which ads you agree to have placed on yours. In fact, if you don’t want to display anyone else’s ad, you can as well. You just need to earn or pay for the Entrecard credits to do so. The click thru rate on the ads is also higher than any other ad exchange has ever seen (1:100 vs 1:1000).

Projectwonderful has a similar idea as Entrecard, but you have to bid for the adspace with real money (although this can be set to 0 cents, making it effectively free). The biggest drawback is there is no incentive for anyone to click on those ads and someone can outbid you at any time (meaning your ad may only be displayed for 1 minute) so you have to watch your space like a hawk or be willing to fork out more money than you may want to.

So what does all this mean? Simply put, Free/Exchange Ads 2.0 is nothing to scoff at because this time around, you know it will work.

SO WHAT’S THE VERDICT FOR CONTEXTUAL ADVERTISING?
We leave you with this last thought. “Contextual advertising isn’t the right thing for most of the Internet,” says AdBrite’s Fanlo. “It’s like selling Superbowl ads. They don’t sell me cleats, jerseys or helmets. They sell me cars, beer, and erectile dysfunction medication because they know I’m an old, fat guy.”

What’s next? We’re sure Google figured this all out before we did so expect them to either unleash something radical soon or buy some of these guys up!