Something better than Operation Fabulous?

[Daily Anarchist]

I think OF is awesome, but it's such a DRAG how few people use it. It's also a bummer that the owner of OF doesn't keep making improvements. There are so many awesome things that could be done to improve it.

I'm shocked that there isn't a ton of competitors out there chomping at the bits. The ad industry is a big moneymaker. Is there anything out there that competes with OF, and I don't mean pyramid schemes?

[bbit]

I think OF is awesome, but it's such a DRAG how few people use it. It's also a bummer that the owner of OF doesn't keep making improvements. There are so many awesome things that could be done to improve it.

I'm shocked that there isn't a ton of competitors out there chomping at the bits. The ad industry is a big moneymaker. Is there anything out there can competes with OF, and I don't mean pyramid schemes?

I couldn't agree more I was looking at it yesterday it has such potential.

[adamstgBit]

i think http://anonymousads.com/ is more popular

if you have used anonymousads.com please write them a review http://www.thebitcoinreview.com/site.php?site_id=834

[Raoul Duke]

i think http://anonymousads.com/ is more popular

if you have used anonymousads.com please write them a review http://www.thebitcoinreview.com/site.php?site_id=834

More popular? I don't think so. Especially when people with 40k impressions seem to earn something like 0.07 BTC...
AA and OF are not the same thing.
And yes, I also think that OF should get a lot more attention.
To OF owner: Are you willing to sell it?

[matthewh3]

I added my site to the OF list of affiliates but none were every approved and I've never heard anything from them (Google AdSense were interested tho?).  While "Anonymous Ads" doesn't pay very well at least it pays.

[Raoul Duke]

I added my site to the OF list of affiliates but none were every approved and I've never heard anything from them (Google AdSense were interested tho?).  While "Anonymous Ads" doesn't pay very well at least it pays.

I got paid several times from OF.

[Daily Anarchist]

OF pays me all the time. I'm one of OF's biggest publishers.

[Raoul Duke]

OF pays me all the time. I'm one of OF's biggest publishers.

I'm not getting paid anymore because I sold the website almost 5 months ago and I'm still trying to find time to finish the replacement for it. (maybe if I didn't spend so much time goofing around at bitcointalk.org...)

[TheBitMan]

I need some advertisers for my site.. what's "OF" what's the url

[edd]

I need some advertisers for my site.. what's "OF" what's the url

http://www.operationfabulous.com/

[TheBitMan]

I need some advertisers for my site.. what's "OF" what's the url

http://www.operationfabulous.com/

oh I know about that, I thought you were saying this new service called "OF" was better than operation fabulous..this is embarrassing

[Stephen Gornick]

I think OF is awesome, but it's such a DRAG how few people use it.

One area where Operation Fabulous has room for improvement is in the process a new publisher goes through.

Right now the process requires the publisher to get approval by adding the OF adbox (script) to the site where the ads will be published and to wait for OF staff to review it and mark the site as active.  Then once that happens there are no paying ads being published until an advertiser bids a sufficient amount to get ads shown.

Until that happen the "inventory" is wasted.  By the time that paid ads might start showing, the publisher might already have moved on to some other online advertising platform.

This is particularly a problem where the publisher is selective and chooses the "explicit approval" option in which only ads that get the publisher's approval are allowed to be shown.  In review of the advertisers many are for sites that would be considered spammy, scammy or just not a good fit for the publisher's visitors.  So the publisher generally should choose this explicit inclusion mode.  But even then spending a few minutes looking at the list of ads from advertisers to include, the publisher sees these:
 
  BiddingPond (has been "coming soon" for months)
  Cash Cow Casino (closed, was a scam anyway apparently)
  FXNet - Bitcoin Ponzi (really, it was a ponzi site -- taken down after MyBitcoin)
  BitLotto - Win Big With 1 BTC  (has been 0.25 BTC since August)
  Ubitex  (long gone)
  BitMunchies (closed)
  SquareWear (for the most part closed)
  MetaCo.in (closed)
  TradeHill (closed)
  BTCOnTilt (closed)
 and on and on.

So one improvement would be do so housecleaning and weed out the inactive advertisers.

The next might be to make it so that publisher can choose from the list of active advertisers in advance rather than not starting that process until after having already begin publishing the Operation Fabulous adbox.

[Coinabul]

I no longer push ads to Operation Fabulous. I spent too many hours of my time dealing with each individual website. Why can't I just make a universal bid!

[bbit]

uh... SexyBitcoinAds ?

[arsenische]

i think http://anonymousads.com/ is more popular

if you have used anonymousads.com please write them a review http://www.thebitcoinreview.com/site.php?site_id=834

More popular? I don't think so. Especially when people with 40k impressions seem to earn something like 0.07 BTC...

AA does not usually pay for impressions, because impressions can be faked easily.

Yes, there is a problem with monetization, and I am permanently working to solve it.

Affiliates that add their highly ranked sites earn more in latest days (you can access their stats if you navigate from http://anonymousads.com/sites page).

Advertisers can see the list of sites that showed their ads (and they can create a weighted "paylist" at btcrelay to pay all those sites at once thus getting much more new impressions from them for less money). For example, here is the list of sites that showed ad #1.

[phelix]

OF pays me all the time. I'm one of OF's biggest publishers.

this

[BioMike]

I started Operation Fabulous more than a year ago because there were no advertising possibilities and people were asking for it. It was a solution for the community at that time (I had no serious plans to make a profit out of it). While I'm still busy developing it from time to time (and maintaining it, of course), I don't have so much spare time due to my work.

I've had offers of people in the past to purchase it from me, but rejected them. Seeing this type of discussion coming back from time to time and knowing that I do not have the time to bring the site up to the level it should be for the current market (and still lacking good alternatives) I think it is time to reconsider to hand over the site to some more dedicated person.

I do however need confidence that the person who I will be selling the site to is respected within the bitcoin community, the last thing I want is to have the site and all the work I put into it to fall in the hands of some scammer that wants to get a quick buck out of it. I want some confidence that the site will be in good hands.

Psy, was your point about buying Operation Fabulous serious? I see you have quite some posts already, so I guess you've gained some respect in the community.

[Daily Anarchist]

I started Operation Fabulous more than a year ago because there were no advertising possibilities and people were asking for it. It was a solution for the community at that time (I had no serious plans to make a profit out of it). While I'm still busy developing it from time to time (and maintaining it, of course), I don't have so much spare time due to my work.

I've had offers of people in the past to purchase it from me, but rejected them. Seeing this type of discussion coming back from time to time and knowing that I do not have the time to bring the site up to the level it should be for the current market (and still lacking good alternatives) I think it is time to reconsider to hand over the site to some more dedicated person.

I do however need confidence that the person who I will be selling the site to is respected within the bitcoin community, the last thing I want is to have the site and all the work I put into it to fall in the hands of some scammer that wants to get a quick buck out of it. I want some confidence that the site will be in good hands.

Psy, was your point about buying Operation Fabulous serious? I see you have quite some posts already, so I guess you've gained some respect in the community.

Glad to hear from you! I understand how other obligations can prevent you from further engrossing yourself in this endeavor. But I hope for the sake of publishers, advertisers, and Bitcoin users everywhere that you do find somebody to sell OF to. If I could code I'd buy it from you. But there has got to be enough coders and entrepreneurs in the Bitcoin community to make OF what it can and very well should be, the GOOGLE ADSENSE OF BITCOIN.

Best of luck! And keep us posted please! 

[ribuck]

Hi BioMike,

What's the technology behind the site (e.g. Apache/PHP/MySQL)? And what's the approximate turnover in BTC per day?

[Raoul Duke]

Psy, was your point about buying Operation Fabulous serious? I see you have quite some posts already, so I guess you've gained some respect in the community.

My point was more in the way of giving you a hint to sell it.
Altho I could buy it, manage it and improve it, even if I had to hire someone to do that, because I'm not a programmer, and I don't even imagine what powers OF in the backend(RoR, PHP?), you can probably find someone more skilled to sell it to.

You can always PM me a proposal. I'll promise I'll read it carefully and see what needs to be improved on the site and who I'll need to hire to achieve those results and give you an honest answer.