Wild Speculation
While Project Wonderful has been a big success in the webcomics world, there's a lot of territory left to cover.
What do you think will happen to Project Wonderful in the coming months? Hit "Read More" for some of my ideas, and don't be hesitant to comment with your own.
1. Better reporting.
As pointed out in the "Competing with Google" blog and forum posts, serious advertisers want serious stats. The data is already present within the Project Wonderful system - creating a few pages offering different views of that data shouldn't be too difficult, and I expect we'll see this within the next month or two.
2. Text ads.
The more ad types I see being added to Project Wonderful, the more I suspect there might be a textual option in the works, perhaps with AdSense-like customisation to allow the ads to blend in with your site.
However, this is a big change in how ads are displayed, and I suspect it'd take a lot of work on the part of PW's creators. One day, perhaps.
3. Flash ads.
Obviously there'd have to be an option to disable Flash ads on your website, but I can see this coming within the year - perhaps with the option for site owners to accept Flash ads only if they exceed the minimum bid by an amount dictated by the site owner.
4. System-wide advertising and mass bidding.
This is a tricky one. It'd entice big advertisers (with big budgets) into the system by allowing them to place bids on the entire network of Project Wonderful sites with only a few clicks. Right now, the effort involved in doing this manually would require a supplementary budget to pay the guy to place all the ads - which raises questions about whether such an action would be cost-effective. But if you can choose to, say, place bids on every site with more than 500 pageviews and costs of $0.01 or below, I'd bet that there'd be a lot of interest.
An added benefit: if an advertiser can choose to place $0.01 bids on the entire system, then there would be no more "Your Ad Here" graphics.
However, implementing such a system would also have the potential to upset the democracy of Project Wonderful as it stands, handing control over to the big boys.
Perhaps system-wide advertising could be introduced, but with the ability for site owners to deny system-wide ads on their sites - or to accept them under a range of conditions (for example, the bid for the ad, the cost of other ads on the same box, etc).
Maybe there could even be a function that would allow system-wide bidding, but at a premium for convenience - say, an extra 10% of each bid.
5. Automatic actions.
It'd be nice if we could script an event on each ad box that ran (x) days after the bid was placed (and possibly every (x) days thereafter), and notified us (or cancelled the ad) automatically if there were less than (y) clicks, or if the pageviews dropped below (z), or if the money in our account dropped below $(n). Or even, perhaps, if the money coming into our accounts each day dropped below $(n). It'd certainly make life easier, and even things up for those who don't have as much time to invest.
6. Minimum bids.
As a few people pointed out in the last article, some sort of "reserve" or minimum bidding system would probably go down well, even if it would provoke further comparisons with eBay.
7. An official blog.
This website exists because there's no "Official" blog for Project Wonderful. A few words from the creators every now and then, letting us know what's in the works, would be wonderful.
Of course, should an "Official" blog ever surface, we'll still keep on going to provide critique, tips and commentary.
8. Cheap labour.
It's only a matter of time before someone realises that they could make some money by placing ads on behalf of advertisers who have neither the time nor inclination to do it themselves. "I'll place your $0.01 bid on 1,000 sites for fifty bucks" kind of thing.
9. Tax complications.
I'm not sure about how Canadian law works in this regard, but I have a suspicion that there will come a day when Project Wonderful will have to ask you for your tax information before letting you sign up. I hope that it's a long way off.
10. Lots of advertisers from outside of the USA, particularly from England.
According to the currency convertor at Yahoo Finance, the American dollar is at its lowest point for quite some time; right now it's just barely over 50p to the dollar. Once British advertisers take note of how cheap advertising is through Project Wonderful, they'll come in swarms.
What do you think the future holds for Project Wonderful? Comments are enabled.
What do you think will happen to Project Wonderful in the coming months? Hit "Read More" for some of my ideas, and don't be hesitant to comment with your own.
1. Better reporting.
As pointed out in the "Competing with Google" blog and forum posts, serious advertisers want serious stats. The data is already present within the Project Wonderful system - creating a few pages offering different views of that data shouldn't be too difficult, and I expect we'll see this within the next month or two.
2. Text ads.
The more ad types I see being added to Project Wonderful, the more I suspect there might be a textual option in the works, perhaps with AdSense-like customisation to allow the ads to blend in with your site.
However, this is a big change in how ads are displayed, and I suspect it'd take a lot of work on the part of PW's creators. One day, perhaps.
3. Flash ads.
Obviously there'd have to be an option to disable Flash ads on your website, but I can see this coming within the year - perhaps with the option for site owners to accept Flash ads only if they exceed the minimum bid by an amount dictated by the site owner.
4. System-wide advertising and mass bidding.
This is a tricky one. It'd entice big advertisers (with big budgets) into the system by allowing them to place bids on the entire network of Project Wonderful sites with only a few clicks. Right now, the effort involved in doing this manually would require a supplementary budget to pay the guy to place all the ads - which raises questions about whether such an action would be cost-effective. But if you can choose to, say, place bids on every site with more than 500 pageviews and costs of $0.01 or below, I'd bet that there'd be a lot of interest.
An added benefit: if an advertiser can choose to place $0.01 bids on the entire system, then there would be no more "Your Ad Here" graphics.
However, implementing such a system would also have the potential to upset the democracy of Project Wonderful as it stands, handing control over to the big boys.
Perhaps system-wide advertising could be introduced, but with the ability for site owners to deny system-wide ads on their sites - or to accept them under a range of conditions (for example, the bid for the ad, the cost of other ads on the same box, etc).
Maybe there could even be a function that would allow system-wide bidding, but at a premium for convenience - say, an extra 10% of each bid.
5. Automatic actions.
It'd be nice if we could script an event on each ad box that ran (x) days after the bid was placed (and possibly every (x) days thereafter), and notified us (or cancelled the ad) automatically if there were less than (y) clicks, or if the pageviews dropped below (z), or if the money in our account dropped below $(n). Or even, perhaps, if the money coming into our accounts each day dropped below $(n). It'd certainly make life easier, and even things up for those who don't have as much time to invest.
6. Minimum bids.
As a few people pointed out in the last article, some sort of "reserve" or minimum bidding system would probably go down well, even if it would provoke further comparisons with eBay.
7. An official blog.
This website exists because there's no "Official" blog for Project Wonderful. A few words from the creators every now and then, letting us know what's in the works, would be wonderful.
Of course, should an "Official" blog ever surface, we'll still keep on going to provide critique, tips and commentary.
8. Cheap labour.
It's only a matter of time before someone realises that they could make some money by placing ads on behalf of advertisers who have neither the time nor inclination to do it themselves. "I'll place your $0.01 bid on 1,000 sites for fifty bucks" kind of thing.
9. Tax complications.
I'm not sure about how Canadian law works in this regard, but I have a suspicion that there will come a day when Project Wonderful will have to ask you for your tax information before letting you sign up. I hope that it's a long way off.
10. Lots of advertisers from outside of the USA, particularly from England.
According to the currency convertor at Yahoo Finance, the American dollar is at its lowest point for quite some time; right now it's just barely over 50p to the dollar. Once British advertisers take note of how cheap advertising is through Project Wonderful, they'll come in swarms.
What do you think the future holds for Project Wonderful? Comments are enabled.
Wild Speculation
Wild Speculation
