Partnering With a Peer to Peer Advertising System, Would It Work for Steemit?
I've ranted and raved about my desire for such an advertising system in a prior post and several comments over the past several months. Please bear with me as I take another run at presenting it in a bit more depth. I'd love to hear thoughts and comments from more technical minded people, and if this post lands in the lap of someone of authority who loves the idea and can do something about it... all the better!
Huge Potential in Anonymous Ads (https://a-ads.com)
A potential Steemit (and Busy, dLive, dTube, etc...) partner that I think often about is Anonymous Ads. I've played around with them a bit on my personal sites and overall like what I see. They're a crypto (bitcoin) based advertising service that pride themselves on privacy.
Users can create traditional banner ad slots, or bid to host their ads in other slots. Going along with the privacy theme, theses activities don't even necessarily require any form of registration or account creation, although doing so gives better reporting and tools.
It reminds me very much of another ad service I used in the past when publishing webcomics, known as Project Wonderful. Unfortunately, just a few days ago that service announced it was shutting down. Anonymous Ads was most likely always a better fit for the Steem ecosystem due to its roots in crypto already.
If you try to place an A-ad on Steemit currently, it looks like this...
This is the lightweight embed code they supply
As far as I can tell, it's not much different from embedding a YouTube video. I could be wrong on this, so some of you techies please jump in... but I've always assumed it's just a security measure and a simple "whitelisting" of their domain/code could potentially make their ads work on Steemit (or other Steem based sites) relatively easily.
If it was working, we'd be seeing this...
A simple banner ad. Not too obtrusive, no popups... maybe someone goes too crazy with a flashing gif...
But see that in the top right of that empty banner slot? Imagine if instead of going to a bid bot to gain visibility, you could click on the banner ad slot that a fellow Steemian places in the header or footer of their posts. You're trying to build a following and you can go to the most followed and popular author in the niche you're active in, and put a banner to your blog or recent article right in their post.
The amazing side effect is it creates a whole secondary revenue stream, one without a 7 day day time limit. Steemians buy and sell ad inventory with other Steemians. And while inter blogger promotion would be one big use... it would also draw ad revenue from advertisers outside of Steem as well.
A look at the dashboard of an ad
Here's a dashboard for an ad that I created and played around with. This kind of information is visible when you're shopping for ad space to buy or selling your own. Posts that choose to use advertising slots could potentially earn a secondary long term income based on their actual readership, not relying on a big upvote to stumble across them in the first 7 days.
Suggesting it at both ends
I went ahead and submitted a brief idea to the suggestion box on the Anonymous Ads site. The hope is that either side, Steemit Inc. or Anonymous Ads could get inspired and reach out to the other to get the ball rolling.
Let Me Try To Summarize & Pro/Con This...
- Whitelist Anonymous Ads code to work on Steemit... could it be just that simple?
- Anonymous Ads moves to transact in Steem as well as Bitcoin, making it simpler for everyone. Plus it's faster and cheaper of course! They're incentivized because Steemians could almost double their ad network in a day... not to mention future growth opportunity.
- People place ad slots in their personal blog posts if they choose, and bid to advertise their blog/site/service on the posts of other Steemians.
Pros
- I think this beats the heck out of the current inbuilt promotion system and gives a very attractive and potentially more ethical alternative to the bid bot market.
- Incorporating ad slots creates a secondary income stream that does not have a 7 day time limit. These funds are also much more aligned with actual readership than voting power concentration.
- Easily brings outside advertising money into the Steem ecosystem, with a service that is already fairly entrenched in the crypto space and aligns pretty well with its core values of privacy and decentralization.
Cons
- Yeah, it's ads. But I think it would largely be self policing. Users who go overboard with advertising spaces will risk alienating their readers and receive less viewership or outright flags. I envision fairly minimal and tasteful uses to be the norm.
- ??? Can't think of many... probably because it's my idea! Add your own in the comments!
Thoughts? Ideas? Debate pros and cons? Think this has been considered before?
Like with any kind of creative endeavor, I'm just trying to make what I would want to see/use. In this case, I have zero ability to create this on a technical or business level... so all I can do is scream into the ether and hope maybe wishes will come true... because I would use the heck out of this system on Steemit.
-Bryan "the Imp" Imhoff
no idea how to tag this for good visibility, please feel free to suggest tags for me to edit in... and resteem at will if you think it's something you'd love to see happen!