New Idea...suggestions please

[tonog1]

I've been a long time lurker in search of an idea, and right now I think I may have found an opportunity.

Much of the inspiration comes from this board. We are always collaborating and helping each other out with projects, mainly posting links to other sites for other support. Wouldn't it be nice to get some sort of compensation for that? You are esentially driving some traffic to the company's website...and there's a good chance someone's gonna buy something through you (I know I did).

So what I'm thinking is an online solution where people and businesses sign up, and whenever people post a link-either on a discussion board, blog, or other medium, they would get some sort of the advertising paid by the advertisers. Businesses would get traffic relative to them, as well as tracking where people post links to them the most.

So that's the basic jist of it, there are alot of questions to be answered and a lot of kinks to work out before I can even consider this a viable opportunity.

Any suggestions, comments, concerns, or citicisms welcome!

[jack1887]

what a good idea!! at first it seems very nice for those who get online all the time to make money, and a new industry may arise ,with a lot of people keeping posting and posting links.but the difficulties is how can you contact with advertisers as a individual not as an agency, i mean can't enjoy an economic scale.

[tonog1]

Yea, I understand that it would be hard to scale for the compensation and number of companies. But I think good programming would by-pass this obstacle. I'm thinking tinyurl.com and ebates.com technology. For example, if I'm looking for some good running shoes, and you post a link, I'm thinking you could use the technology of tinyurl.com or maybe ebates.com. So you put the actual link in a sort of tinyurl.com format, and the ebates.com technology would track it for you and the advertiser.

[akula]

what you're talking about is called affiliate programs

[radreality]

the one concern I would have is if your revenue is solely based off of advertising, would there be enough to pay out to people and make a profit? Advertising is way over-rated online. Most people don't make as much as they thought they would.

good idea, but like you said, there are some kinks that would need to be worked out. There are some other complications too, I'm in a hurry at the moment. I do have experience starting businesses in these two industries (self help and affiliate programs / opportunities) that you are describing. If you want more of my thoughts, just send me a message and I'll get back to you later.

[tonog1]

Right, it could be a type of affiliate. But I'm curious if there's anything similar to my idea? I believe it being one step up of an affiliate.

[tonog1]

RAD,

I'm not saying that the payout would be substantial, but you're right there is the issue of DUH not making enough money. I think that providing additional marketing services such as reporting to businesses where people are posting links to their webpages-this could be valuable as it could get the business to focus their marketing on segments they never thought possible.

[dosrotties]

Sounds like barter. What you do is set up an agreement or contract that state that anything you buy from my contacts You get a 10%.
In Barter if you put together a printing company who wants a vacation with a resturant who wants printing and a vacation guy that want to provide food for a corporate chistmas party.You make 10% per transaction. they do a trade for 3000 dollars each. The printer makes the fliers for the resturant. Printer cost is 1000.00. the resturant for $3000 in food. Food cost is 1000.00 and the vacation guy trades his $3000 cruise which he got for $1000.
they all pay you 300 a piece = $900.00 bones. They each saved 1700 each.
and they all got what they wanted and people want stuff.

[chanson]

digitaljournal.com is doing something similar you get paid for your activity.

I have actually thought about doing something like this but int he style of a forum or community of some type rather thern an article posting site.

[tonog1]

Interesting, I'll look into it. Thanks for the links and thoughts everyone.

[tonog1]

So I've done a bit of research, and though I may not be explaining myself right, I haven't found anything that really matches my nitch service. It is a type of affiliate, but basically businesses sign up for my service, as well as web users, and then whenever the user posts something on a discussion forum, blog, or other medium, and someone clicks on that link, then that user gets a percentage. Businesses will sign up and pay much like with google adwords. Basically monetizing another form of online advertising.

Here's a scenario:

On an import car forum, someone is asking for a certain car part. Or someone else posts their sweet ride and everyone asks where they got the kits. That person can post a link to the company that they bought them from. Now this company and the user are signed up with my service. Since people are bound to follow the link that the person with a sweet ride posted, that is instant and specific traffic for the website. Good for companies signed up. The user gets a % of the advertising. Good for the user. Everyone wins.

I hope I explained this in a somewhat helpful manner. As always, suggestions and comments welcome :-).

[akula]

Here's a scenario:

On an import car forum, someone is asking for a certain car part. Or someone else posts their sweet ride and everyone asks where they got the kits. That person can post a link to the company that they bought them from. Now this company and the user are signed up with my service. Since people are bound to follow the link that the person with a sweet ride posted, that is instant and specific traffic for the website. Good for companies signed up. The user gets a % of the advertising. Good for the user. Everyone wins.

I hope I explained this in a somewhat helpful manner. As always, suggestions and comments welcome :-).

there's no need to be confusing. what you're talking about is called affiliate programs, and what you want to be is an affiliate network where merchants can recruit affiliates, and affiliates can recruit customers for the merchants (as well as sub affiliates for them selves)

The opportunity in this space is not where you think it is. The opportunity is in either in:

a) what companies like http://www.efrontier.com/ are doing (helping merchants buy into an efficient portfolios of network-disparate affiliates) and

b) doing what http://chitika.com/ and http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/ are doing: providing bloggers with blog promotion and blog monetization tools

personally, I don't see you doing option A (because it's hard an expensive), so what I think you should do is a blog audit service

This is a tool that bloggers can use to a) diagnose if they are getting enough traffic / money from their blog and b) correct any problems picked up in the diagnostic, using a range of products and services offered to them by your recommendation engine

Over all, forget the problem of helping merchants move product. You do not have the capacity to go around signing up merchants for your programs. Instead, focus on the problem of helping bloggers get more exposure and financial return from their websites. That's a problem that you are capable of solving.

[allysa]

yup, its like more of affiliate programs. Forums is a great thing, where you members helps each other regarding some problems & issues. A great way also to advertise your site.