Four Click Freedom

bit.ly/7I8gQG

This graph shows the amount CPM’s cost per industry, some a little over $12 and some only $3.  I will have to go back and reference this factoid but only 2% of all ads on the Internet are clicked on only once.  So if we take the first ten industries giving us ten industry CPMs and say ten advertisers per industry that would give us 100 ads and 100,000 views.  Now only 2 of those ads would be clicked on.  The total for the ten industries is $76.13 and the total for the 100 ads comes to $761.30 for the 100,000 views meaning each click is then worth $380.65.  I could fly to Singapore for that.

Basically the cost per click method is way more valuable than CPM.  I don’t know why more people don’t use it!

Is there anything other than Word or SMS or RSS？Yea Apple has Pages but still my point is that nothing on the Internet is anything more than a puffed out Word document with pictures and tables, still just a word document.  All that is on the phone is instant messages. All that is on the Internet are feeds and RSS.   And who wants to get between this? Everybody!  So can you actually tell me that when an advertiser makes an ad on the Internet that it will actually fit in with the conversation?  Is the ad on the right hand side of the page going to add to the graduate students thesis paper, are the ads sent in between text messages going to add to the party and the pizza they are ordering?  Probably not.  If ads want to go anywhere, they need to step back and find out the basis of computing for normal people.  Right now the hot trend is to get people to incorporate themselves into the ads by sending them on to friends.  Did you know that only 2% of all ads on the Internet are clicked on only and at least once?  So all this hype about people interacting with the ads on social media is only about, well I can’t even do the numbers, but a very small amount.  And they say this is where the future is going.

If you want to find the future, you have to get back to the basics.  Think of it in terms of Word and SMS.  Would I literally write my grandmother a letter saying I used something?  Or would I literally write my friend that I love to rent movies from a certain place just because, and not because it is the closest?  The big big dollars are being mounted on less and less supports.  And yes there is strangely absurd correct placement of advertisements on the web these days with re-targeting technology and

Clickboards are a new type of Internet advertising that I developed. I have chosen to use them in conjunction with print and mobile couponing.

Clickboards.net is currently under construction. Coupons will be able to be collected from the site and around the Internet using the Clickboards and sent to users coupon feed on Clickboards.net.

Coupons in users feed can be redeemed and verified at the point of sale for the records of the vendor and then be expired from the users feed.

Print and other media can use mobile device to collect coupons and send them to users feed to later be redeemed again using their mobile device.

Right now the mobile number and service is going to cost me RMB5000 a month.  The set up for the application to be used with the website will cost me RMB10000 a month for development.  The initial cost for development is water under the bridge and probably won’t be recouped for maybe a year.  I do believe I can sustain the site with no losses making RMB5000 a month.  Charging advertisers RMB1 a click or maybe RMB3 per acquisition of the coupons, that would mean I need 1500 coupons collected each month.  So if most people collect at least three coupons I would need 500 unique visitors to my site.  I believe that that number is attainable if I promote myself well and people see the relevance of the coupons.  Either it will become sustainable or die a quick death.

Actually it was a pretty productive meeting.  Starting out he liked the Clickboard.  He thinks its a great new media and has more applications than just coupons.  I see his point and we both agreed that it could be copied by anyone.  That was not a qualm.

We also talked about the difference between SMS and MMS.  It seemed common that this idea worked better through MMS and that most phones are capable of receiving MMS.  We did argue about the potential plagiarism rights an SMS creates.  He was saying that people can simply send themselves coupons, thereby creating cause for theft.  He was saying that waiters can simply send themselves a bunch of messages, or even in the first place not tell that the SMS was used and pocket the money.  This led me to the validation step.  Currently his process does not have a validation system.  I suggested that once the coupons have been sent to the user, that they would be required to validate the coupon in front of the waitstaff thereby expiring the coupon from use by that user.  The total validated coupons received for that client could then by submitted at the end of the week or month for their records, eliminating theft from waitstaff.  But he saw that people would not pay the extra money to send one more message to validate their coupons.  This led me back to the fact that I wanted to change his model to be free to the user.

Regardless each message is locked in to costing RMB1 under his model so this would not work or change.  However he said I could have my own number to use for RMB3000 a month.  So the Clickboards on his site or others around the Internet could be accessed through my number.

He kept explaining that the mobile coupon market is still very young and has not taken off.  He has seen little success with this type of business model.  Something that can not support itself.  And charging the client for giving away the coupons is very difficult.  Alvin sees the light that the Clickboard has but not necessarily through coupons and believes charging clients RMB12 per acquisition of coupon will be difficult.  Getting any money out of them would be hard.  So he sees value in the Clickboard but not for this.  This is a conundrum.

He followed up his argument with a colleague he helped try to take print coupons to the mobile media for use.  He said there was little success.  However I am going to follow up with this person Andrew Collins of MailMan.com to see if he sees the light in what I’m doing.

We concluded by saying that I need to do my own stand alone website that would act as the hub for Clickboards and that I could on a trial basis use his website as an extended portal.  And again use my free number in which these discounts would be accesses through MMS.   This he said he would do on the basis of a friend.  However to build this standalone website with full Java applications could take three months with ten people working solely on the project for a grand total of RMB300,000.  This is currently what his mGuanxi.com website is worth.

I then asked what he is doing with mGuanxi.com and he said it was simple the social tool of his service.  I began to understand that not too many people are that involved with this site as their choice for a social media.  We then went into behavioral advertising and that kind of tailspinned as he did not see people interacting heavily enough with the site to truly allow it to work for the clients.  I see that and asked why there was no advertising on the site now and he said he did not want it to be overbearing to the user at this point but that is in the plans.

Currently Alvin is working more in Search Mobile Advertising which I agree is where most people see the potential for the mobile devices in the future.  He is working with some big names and I think that is where his aim is.  Maybe he will apply the Clickboard to this service in the future.  He liked the idea and I’m sure he is thinking of ways to utilize it.  One day I hope I still get credit.

He left me feeling encouraged that the idea has potential but told me the more you do the more pitfalls you will discover.  He is reluctant to change, that is one of the number one pitfalls that occurred during this meeting.  However if I was to start he would go with the flow and help me out.  So as he said keep talking to investors and get their advice.  So keep talking about it!