Emerging internet marketing methodologies
I ran across an interesting post on SEOBook today. It contained a link to a new site called 1000tags. This site is a new take on the famous Million Dollar Homepage idea that has been in the media a lot lately. This got me thinking about another conversation I have been having with Richard of Apogee Web Consulting. He maintains that while pixel ads are good, that tag based advertising like 1000 tags will not take off. Here is what he had to say:
I don’t think 1000tags is going to work. The first tag is 00000. That’s garbage, junk, spam. Tagvertising might work under a pre-defined taxonomy. Even one that can evolve but not one that’s completely free-form. Look at the tags on their site. It’s just garbage. The difference with pixel advertising is that people have been curious to click on the little pictures they see. Are you curious to click on 00000? I doubt it – you know it’s crap.
I don’t disagree with the fact that 00000 is a complete garbage tag, but there are some consequences to that, in my opinion. First off it only serves to emphasize a smaller pool of relevant tags. Also, I think a tag based folksonomy allows better targeting than a pixel ad. Targeted traffic is better than untargeted traffic, unless of course you are running a bunch of scraper sites. And since these tags will grow along with the amount of sites that invest in them, I think that over time the tag cloud will start to take the shape of the internet.
It will be interesting to see how these copycats of the Million Dollar Home Page fare over time.
Side note: Everyone knows that the original million dollar home page is sort of a hoax right?
pixel ads, million dollar homepage, apogee :), 1000tags
Comments
Comment from mymo
Time January 19, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Yeah, there is a fatal flaw in 1000tags in that one visitor can get an entire tag. This tends to skew the system. All in all, I think this is an attempt to get some “other PPC” advertising dollars.
BTW, the Flickr TagMan is the best yet.
Comment from Rich
Time January 17, 2006 at 9:41 pm
In the context of advertising, what do tags give you that doesn’t already exist through keyword advertising? After all, tags are simply keywords. So, a site that’s simply a collection of keywords isn’t particularly compelling. You can already, in essence, tagvertise. Simply buy keywords through Yahoo! Search Marketing for the popular tags and your ads will run on Technorati.
What makes pixel advertising more interesting is that it’s so different and colorful. However, just as the site you mention is all about tags, a new site now that’s simply about pixels isn’t going to work. Also, now that Tew has sold all his pixels, the pixel ad fad might be over. Too early too tell. It’s possible that pixel advertisers will want new sites from which to buy pixel ads.
Now, on to a more important topic, I did create a Flickr version of TagMan, as you suggested. Enjoy!