*update please visit Victus Media for information, the ad tool is no longer supported. The current web app is live here imagebrowser.heroku.com*
I bumped into a great php coder yesterday on Google wave, Tyler Gillies. We’re now looking forward to starting a business with Tyler’s prototype. He was able to quickly evolve my example, by connecting user’s social media with relevant ads from Amazon. This is the early form of the code available for insert into any web page or blog. Big thanks to Bostjan (and Andraz) from Zemanta for their early support and great work on their semantic tool. They’ll be getting a portion of the revenue generated based on access to their API, we still need to finalize a fee that fits well with their teams business plan. Special thanks to cofounder Vladimir Vukicevic, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see this concept advance past the abstract phase, to the testing phase.
Insert the following snippet into a text widget on the side of your wordpress blog, or in any site that allows iframes (mycoolidnumber is your Amazon affiliate ID):
Updated Ruby on Rails version: (*update please visit Victus Media for updates*)
<iframe width=”100%” height=”600″ src=”http://imagebrowser.heroku.com?type=caro&associate=mycoolidnumber” frameborder=0></iframe>
or if you don’t have an Amazon affiliate account:
<iframe width=”100%” height=”600″ src=”http://imm.victusmedia.com?type=caro” frameborder=0></iframe>
The code is live on this site and Tyler’s, feel free to test it out. (see Contextual Advertising 0.1 in my sidebar to the right).
By default the split is 10% to our business, and 90% to host (if no amazon affiliate link is entered 100% will go to our business). Right now that’s the personal Amazon IDs of mine and Tyler’s.
This is done by randomizing the ID used in the link, and should be publicly trackable (we’re both at 5% at this point).
All readers are encouraged and welcome to try this out, it should be a blast. If the Zemanta API calls top out, hold off for a bit and I’ll work with them on getting us a temporary expansion of the calls to verify we actually have a working business model.
1) Short term goals include incorporation, and improvements on the efficacy of the algorithm (pattern matching techniques, subgroups, clustering).
2) Longer term plans include powerful intelligent search assistant tools, to enable richer and more fluid user browsing experiences as well as personally relevant ads (dumb ads are history).
We setup a business web site at victusmedia.com
To see the history of this project check Monetization Web 2010.
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- Fact: Real-time Search Satisfies 40% of User Queries! (thoughtpick.com)
- Making The Web Smarter (myventurepad.com) Nice work by Fred Wilson
Hey Mark – awesome progress!
Tyler kicked it into overdrive and pushed the concept past where I was stuck (he's much more familiar with php for building the early functioning version of the code).
It's an interesting angle to attempt…I *think* it's going to be hard to get people to 'log into twitter' just so they can be targeted for ads…you might need to come up with some other benefit/reason to get them to log in (and make the targeting of ads a nice side benefit to that action)…the key here is also going to be intelligent semantic processing of their feeds/data in real-time (that's a great space with a ton of action right now, but also a VERY hard nut to crack, it will be interesting to see how leveraging Zemanta works for you on this)…
Overall I think you've got a good start and gives people something to see/play with for sure…will be watching to see where you take it from here
Agreed, there needs to be more of a game or user bonus for opting in. That's my primary concern at the moment, thanks for the rapid review and feedback sir!
Hey Mark – awesome progress!
Tyler kicked it into overdrive and pushed the concept past where I was stuck (he's much more familiar with php for building the early functioning version of the code).
It's an interesting angle to attempt…I *think* it's going to be hard to get people to 'log into twitter' just so they can be targeted for ads…you might need to come up with some other benefit/reason to get them to log in (and make the targeting of ads a nice side benefit to that action)…the key here is also going to be intelligent semantic processing of their feeds/data in real-time (that's a great space with a ton of action right now, but also a VERY hard nut to crack, it will be interesting to see how leveraging Zemanta works for you on this)…
Overall I think you've got a good start and gives people something to see/play with for sure…will be watching to see where you take it from here
Agreed, there needs to be more of a game or user bonus for opting in. That's my primary concern at the moment, thanks for the rapid review and feedback sir!
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