Month: September 2009

Online office and tools

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Web based applications, productivity suites and tools get a lot of coverage in the websites covering technology. These include online office tools like Google Docs, Zoho and personal finance management tools like Onyem, Boxfer , Perfios . These tools may be very popular but may not succeed locally because of several reasons

  • Internet access is still expensive, ISPs like BSNL, MTNL, Hathway charge users on the basis of every MB downloaded. For BSNL , the lowest plan has a download limit of 150 MB, so just uploading and downloading the documents can be expensive.
  • Internet connections are not reliable. At times, the connection is not available for more than  24 hours due to cable failure and other problems. You may need to review it , but will simply not be able to access it.
  • Security – Even when you deal with the largest internet companies today as a customer or affiliate, most of them are unable to ensure that your data is confidential, some times due to factors beyond their control. Uploading your personal information including finances and bank details online can lead to a new set of problems.

Ad Networks

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Recently I noticed some of my older websites get a significant amount of  traffic, so  I have been looking for suitable  advertising programs , preferably CPM or CPC,  with a low minimum payout. I already use 3 ad networks for this website,  but am always experimenting with new networks.  The  visitors for some websites are from different parts of the world, so I will first review the global ad networks.

There are many lists of ad networks published on many  blogs and websites,  but few writers bother to check whether they actual exist (often you are directed to a parked page), sign up  with them and most importantly find out whether they actually pay.  Some of the biggest ad networks are:

  • Valueclick
  • Tribal Fusion
  • Casale Media
  • Revenue Science
  • Vibrant Media

Many of these ad networks have very high traffic requirements are suitable only for generic news,  technology , entertainment websites.  For example Tribal Fusion site requirements are 5,000 unique visitors per day,   but few niche sites will have that kind of traffic.

The second requirement is that the website content should be regularly updated, which is not applicable / relevant to niche websites.   Technology and the internet changes quickly, offline things don’t.  A few years ago,  Myspace was the most popular social networking website,  today Facebook is popular and in a few years some other website will be.    I have a website on pests,  and there have been few changes in the nature of pests (not the online variety) over the last few years and unlikely to be in future too.  So till many of these ad networks are able to cater to these websites, monetizing them will continue to be a problem.