Is AdBrite About to Lose One Third of Its Ads?
AdBrite might have just secured an additional $23 million in funding, but at midnight tonight its business prospects may look decidedly dimmer. Competing ad network Etology is cutting deals with some of AdBrite’s biggest customers to take over their ads.
A big chunk of the ads that AdBrite serves are for porn sites on behalf of the AVN Media Network. These AVN Ads make up 31 percent of AdBrite’s total daily impressions (259 million out of 824 million total, according to the respective Websites). Yes, porn is the lifeblood of many of these online ad networks—don’t act so surprised.
Since December, 2004 AdBrite has been supplying the technology, billing, and payment platform for AVN Ads. Now that deal is going to Etology, who will manage the site from now on and relaunch it with a new look. Before that happens, AdBrite is trying to redirect all of its members to its own new adult advertising sub-brand, BlackLabelAds. If you go to the AVN Ads Website, you will see a big pop-up trying to switch advertisers and publishers with existing accounts over to BlackLabelAds. Yet, according to Etology, it has already secured the loyalty of 1,268 (and counting) of the biggest porn sites on AVN Ads, including YouPorn, PornTube, and RedTube. (Out of 6,614 total). Those 1,268 sites account for 108 million daily impressions (or 42 percent of AVN Ads’ total, and 13 percent of AdBrite’s total). The other 151 million impressions are still up for grabs. Etology is trying to lure them with a 75 percent share of revenues, versus the 70 percent they got from AdBrite.
I caught up with AdBrite co-founder Philip Kaplan on the phone to get his take. He notes that all the current 6,614 sites that run AVN Ads have AdBrite code on them, and that is going to stay there unless they take it off. “If you were an AVN Ads user before, you are automatically a BlackLabelAds user.” But he is really not too worried about losing the porn business because it is not where he sees the future:
Adult is an interesting thing. It is a lot of pageviews, it is not a lot of revenues. Most of the major players support it, but as the Internet advertising business is growing and more mainstream advertising is coming from TV and print, it is becoming less and less significant.
In the meantime, he is happy to fight it out with Etology for the porn advertising business, but it is not where he is planning on spending the bulk of the new money he just raised.
Here is what the new AVN Ads Website will look like:
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Liz Claiborne’s search for buyers
Liz Claiborne has received at least two final round bids for nine apparel brands - including Ellen Tracy and Dana Buchman - but the outcome of the auction was in doubt on Friday, after a handful of potential suitors dropped out, Fortune has learned.
Fuel efficiency and the American driver
More hybrids. More diesels. Smaller engines and fancier technology. And an initial sticker price increase that could total a couple thousand dollars.
Captain’s Blog, Stardate: 11/30/07
MARKETS: Deep Blue says: "The subprime problem we were told would not spread to other markets. It would be 'contained'. And it has, according to Jim Grant. Contained on planet Earth." (Ha Ha!) This is a Jim Grant kind of time now, right?....And indeed the subprime melt really has spread everywhere: From NYC, to E*Trade, to Northern Rock, to Norwegian and German banks, to the state of Florida. Like a dadgone nasty virus!......As for the fallout on Wall Street, when you take a step back, all of this is according to form if you ask me. Which institutions were said to be the worst run on Wall Street? Certainly Merrill and Citi were among them. Check. Which is said to be the best run? Goldman, Lehman, and now Jaimie Dimon's J.P. Morgan. Check. Bear Stearns was an old boys club run by a few really rich guys who didn't give a rat's petunia about anyone else. Check. And so on....
The Economy: Another Blow to Q4 Growth
Reports on October personal income and construction spending prompt Action Economics to slash its GDP forecast for the quarter to 0.5%
Don’t get crunched by your credit
Question 1: You say that bad credit will be forgiven after seven years. But what happens after seven years? Are creditors not able to see your past history or will they not use it against you? - Lawrence, PA
Flux Launches Self Service Product; Full On Ning Competitor
Flux, a new social network joint venture between Viacom and Social Media, had a limited launch in September.
The platform is the cornerstone of Viacom’s social network strategy. Instead of building independent networks for MTV and its hundreds of other brands, they’ve built a distributed platform that shares users, infrastructure and content, but allows for distinct branding and community building around each property. And Flux isn’t just for Viacom - third parties are using it as well.
When Flux launched it had only a few hand picked non-Viacom partners. Today they are opening up the platform for anyone that wants to join.
Like Ning, it’s fairly easy to create a Flux social network. The look and feel can be customized via templates or by uploading your own CSS, and the network can be mapped to your domain name.
Once created any Flux member can join your network with a single click. Since Flux is already gaining users via their launched Viacom and other properties, this gives young communities a deeper pool of users to draw from. And the fact that new users do not need to create a new profile, friends list or login credentials gives them a greater incentive to join. User data is exportable, Flux says, if the partner creates a privacy policy stating that.
Partners have three integration choices. fShare, the basic integration, allows users to take content from the site and easily embed it into other social networks. Flux Lite allows partners to create a basic social network. Flux custom gives nearly full control over the look and feel and has additional features. Partners can choose any integration, it just takes a little more work to use the custom features. Flux will add new developer features over time as well. The chart to the right (click for larger view) shows the various options.
We’ve created a test social network on Flux, at techcrunch.flux.com. And we’re also integrating their fshare functionality into the main TechCrunch site as an illustration of how it works - see the button below each post.
Flux partners can choose to show Flux ads on the site, or use their own. Flux says they are currently selling at a $1.50 CPM and will split that 50/50 with partners. If a partner chooses to display their own ads instead, they must split revenue with Flux 50/50 as well.
Flux v. Ning
Flux and Ning have very similar features and will compete for communities looking to build a social network (and there are lots of other choices as well). Ning has an established platform, lots of money, and 130,000 existing communities (including Playboy). Flux also has a great platform, and the leverage of all the Viacom properties to promote it.
Ning sees the threat from Flux. CEO Gina Bianchini wrote a fiery point-by-point comparison of the two services earlier this week - Flux disputes some of the facts.
Ning is currently supporting Google’s Open Social platform. Flux says they will fully support Open Social beginning in January.
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