Ryan Hupfer’s recent guest post on TechCrunch provides an interesting comparison between MySpace and Facebook in terms of delivering an advertising return on investment (ROI).

Ryan is the Marketing Manager for HubPages - a kind of group blog where members earn recognition and money by publishing content on their ‘Hubs’ (content-rich Internet pages). In November 2008 he tested advertising on Facebook compared with advertising on MySpace.

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Early in 2007 Brad Fallon launched FreeIQ.com as the ‘marketplace for ideas.’ It was supposed to be the YouTube for information marketers – where you could, among other things, upload, show and monetize your videos.

It hasn’t been quite two years since the launch of FreeIQ, but if Google Trends for Websites is any indication… the site has never really taken off.

There could be a number of reasons for FreeIQ’s less than stellar performance. Perhaps the service has never lived up to its promise… perhaps there were some technical difficulties that hindered initial uptake… perhaps its selling proposition is unclear…

Who knows? I have no clue, as I’ve never used it. Then again, perhaps that itself IS a clue…

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It seemed like a good idea at the time. Allow bloggers to place a widget on their blogs containing the titles of related blog articles and this would lead to people visiting other blogs, which, in turn, would result in heaps of free traffic for bloggers all round.

And you know what? BlogRush - the brainchild of John Reese - captured the imagination of literally thousands of bloggers around the world. In the words of John Reese:

“When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web. During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world…”

Only it didn’t work.

Sure, plenty of bloggers used it. But it didn’t generate the huge volumes of traffic those who participated in the network had hoped for.

Bloggers tended to put their BlogRush widgets at the bottom of their blog pages. And of those blog readers who actually saw the widgets, very few actually visited the other blog articles appearing in the widget.

We could attempt to deconstruct the failure of BlogRush further. But a single article wouldn’t do justice to either BlogRush or the failure of BlogRush. And forgive me if I haven’t fully explained how BlogRush was supposed to work. It wasn’t just a blog referral widget – there was (among other things) some kind of credit system that I could never really get my head around!

According to John Reese, there were security issues and abusing users who tried to ‘game’ the system. There were also ‘quality control’ problems in terms of whose blog was - and wasn’t - allowed in the BlogRush network. Meanwhile, John Reese and his team never got around to monetizing the service and, despite offers, decided against selling it.

Together, these - and presumably a host of other - factors all conspired to cause John Reese to shut down the service last week.

But if you think the failure of BlogRush is a testimony to the wisdom of those who said it couldn’t be done… or to those who just love saying “I told you so”… think again.

While BlogRush may well have cost John Reese a small fortune, he should look back at the service with pride.

BlogRush is an example of thinking BIG. Of the entrepreneurial spirit at work. Of an idea that went beyond regurgitating what everyone else was doing in the Internet marketing space, to doing something DIFFERENT.

And ‘failure’ is, perhaps, unduly negative. BlogRush didn’t work. So what? Doesn’t mean John Reese didn’t learn a LOT about his target market or glean powerful insights about how something else might work in the future. While I don’t know John personally, I suspect he’ll be taking all the lessons learned from BlogRush to the bank.

I stress this because it’s important – indeed, CRITICAL - for YOU, as an entrepreneur, to be willing to fail or ‘find out what doesn’t work’. If you’re not out there failing, you’re not trying hard enough. Which means you’ll never achieve the success you seek.

There are players and spectators in business, just as there are players and spectators in sport (and life). Spectators sit comfortably on the sidelines and never get hurt or suffer defeat. Players endure hard training… get their fair share of injuries… and suffer many defeats.

But only PLAYERS get the chance to win, and to reap the rewards of victory. Rewards that may well be an Olympic medal… a multi-million dollar business… or a fulfilling personal life.

John Reese is a player. In terms of BlogRush, he may have lost the game. And if he’s a typical entrepreneur, BlogRush is unlikely to be the only game he’s lost or will lose in the future. But indications are that his wins more than make up for the occasional losses. And, chances are, BlogRush will be nothing more than a blip on an otherwise exceptional business record.

So be a player. Try your guts out and be willing to lose. Because that’s the only way you’ll ever win big. And trust me: I practice what I preach!

Source: IMNewswatch, “BlogRush Is Shutting Down”, IMNewswatch, October 30, 2008

Webmasters using the free web analytics widget Sitemeter must have been livid when they discovered why their sites weren’t loading for Internet Explorer (IE) browser users last Friday…

Apparently the problem was caused by a bug in IE that Sitemeter’s coders hadn’t counted on when updating the widget. Okay, mistakes happen. But what is unforgivable is Sitemeter’s failure to come clean about the problem to its user base.

Instead of informing its users about the problem, Sitemeter said NOTHING. As literally thousands of webmasters were left floundering, wondering what on Earth had cause their sites to be inaccessible by Internet Explorer.

Bad form, Sitemeter. Not because you caused the bug (you didn’t, it was a bug in IE). Not because your developers failed to account for the bug when updating your widget (mistakes happen). But because you failed to TELL YOUR USERS.

Sources: Nik Cubrilovic, “Sitemeter Kills Thousands Of Sites For IE Users”, Tech Crunch, August 2, 2008, Corvida, “Operation Aborted” in IE7 Because of Sitemeter”, Read Write Web, August 2, 2008

Interesting article by Kevin Gold in the Search Marketing Standard yesterday. He notes that whenever he stops actively managing his pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns… his conversions fall.

Kevin explains that whenever he lets his PPC ad campaigns run without actively adjusting bids, testing ad copy and optimizing landing page variables (e.g. headlines, opening body text, images, etc) his cost-per-click (CPC) and average bid position remain stable… but his conversions (based on whatever most desired action or “MDA” applies) tend to fall.

Kevin notes that after putting a lot of time and effort into achieving strong conversion rates of 8-10 percent in a given month… if he doesn’t keep on testing and tweaking in the following month, conversions will drop by 3-4 percent.

Although he’s not sure why this happens, he believes conversions may drop due to decreased brand awareness and increased competition. Lower offline brand awareness may detract from brand recognition and credibility that might otherwise be attributed to a listing. Increased competition may shift a PPC listing out of a strong bid position.

For small online businesses, a change in offline brand awareness may be irrelevant (there may be NO offline brand awareness to begin with!) but it seems plausible that a failure to actively manage one’s campaign could lead to a drop-off in conversions. Given that online shoppers tend to research products before they buy (83 percent of shoppers use online reviews when shopping according to Opinion Research Corporation), it’s likely that they will click on several competitors’ ads when looking for a given product or service.

So if your competitors are constantly testing and improving both their PPC campaigns and landing pages in order to attract the most qualified traffic and get them to buy, then THEY will keep on improving their conversions at YOUR expense.

Bottom line: passively running a PPC campaign is not an option, especially in highly competitive markets. Just as you must continue exercising in order to stay fit, you need to actively monitor and modify your PPC keywords, ads, bids, landing pages, etc in order for your marketing to stay competitive.

Source: Kevin Gold, “PPC Conversion Landslide - Exploring a Slippery Slope”, Search Marketing Standard, July 16, 2008

Starting a business? Wondering which hot, new niche to get into? Stop!

Seriously. While there’s no doubt that the market for a certain solution, product or service may be bigger or growing faster than various other markets, starting a business in a given niche purely because it’s hot is a recipe for failure.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely a fan of finding out what people are looking for and then delivering it to them. Ideally, in a way that’s both unique and better than everything else. But just because a given market looks promising doesn’t mean you have the talents, skills, knowledge and other resources necessary to succeed in that market. Or that you have a business model that will allow you to be profitable in that market. For example, the online diet market is hot… but can you cost-effectively reach that market in a meaningful way?

I’m not talking about the need for you to be an expert in a given field. Running a successful business based on providing a given solution doesn’t require you to be an expert in that solution – it requires you to be an expert in producing and marketing that solution.

And that’s what I’m getting at. Rather than jump into what’s “hot”, I urge you to take the time to work out whether you (as opposed to anyone else) can profitably reach and deliver an appealing product to the target market.