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December 14, 2009
 

@Dabr: The thing about ads...

One of the key reasons David and I started @Dabr - aside from the lack of mobile twitter features - was our mutual dislike of poor ads being served up to us on other 3rd party mobile twitter websites.

This - in part - is one of the keys to Dabr's success.

Recently we were asked if Dabr was up for sale. We hadn't thought of selling before and the offer took us by surprise, however through time and lengthy discussion we agreed that the amount offered was not enough and also, the terms were not to our satisfaction.

So today, just as an experiment, we're rolling out trial ads on a very specific part and version of the site, namely: the login page of the desktop version of Dabr.

We're going to check back next month to let you know how we're getting on and hopefully the ads shouldn't be too intrusive.

Please, do let us know if you have any feedback.

We're listening.

Posted by James Whatley 

Comments (4)

Dec 14, 2009
james coops said...
I dont see this as a good test. The real opportunity for you is serving ads on the mobile site (that's where all the traffic is). Having google ads on desktop doesnt really show you (or a potential acquirer) what the value/ potential earnings of this might be.

dabr is not just about having no ads - it is also very functional but I do see how slandr etc has been ruined with intrusive admob units etc. On the other hand with your page views you are leaving a lot of money on the table even if you assume a very low <$1 CPM>

Maybe premium accounts or more of a sponsorship/ direct ad sales route is something worth exploring.

Dec 14, 2009
theaardvark said...
As a regular (almost constant) user of Dabr, I'm more than aware that to survive long term it is likely to need to become revenue generating in some fashion. Otherwise, it depends soley on the enthuisiasm of those running it and, eventually, that's likely to wane.

I would, therefore, encourage you to experiment with advertising / premium accounts. Placing is likely to be the key. One of the main reasons I prefer Dabr to other similar sites is that the advertising on those other sites is overly intrusive. I would not object to advertising on all pages on Dabr, provided they didn't intrude on the ease of use / readability of the Twitter stream I was viewing.

Dec 14, 2009
Phil Wain liked this post.
Dec 15, 2009
Bèr Kessels said...
As maintainer of dabr.nl (~3k hits/day) I see a couple of additional business-plans:
- sell textlinks: a CPV or CPM simple and mobile-friendly advertisement. e.g. "Experience Real Freedom: _buy the new_ Nokia N900"
- hosted DABRs: you host dabr on you server., client provides the url. Per/month fees. See status.net for example.
- Product affiliate URLs: detect keywords in tweets and present a small link below the tweet to buy that. e.g. I tweet about "Norah Jones" and my tweet gets a link to itunes or amazon to buy the latest Norah Jones album.

Just sharing some thoughts I had about this lately.
Bèr.

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