I just got an email about ublam.com and after checking it out, I think it's a pretty cool new idea! Instead of trying to explain it, here is the email I received: "I am a university student from Imperial College University London. I have come up with an entrepreneurial idea and I'm looking for some cool and entertaining websites to join. My website is www.uBlam.com. As you can see on the 'News' page, quite a few companies are already on board, however I want a lot more variation to make the Blam Button fun to click! The whole idea is to give bored internet users something cool and entertaining to look at with the push of a button (Imagine having the Blam button on your desktop, while you're working, you decide to take a 2 minute break - you just hit the Blam button to see something interesting). It is an original way of advertising which I hope will make it appealing to journalists. I have already submitted press releases on a few PR websites including PRweb http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/11/prweb363687.htm , others can be found by searching "UBlam" on google. The few press releases I have submitted so far have been free but I have still managed to get some attention. I am aiming to submit a re-written paid world-wide press release (with a journalist's advice) at the beginning of April which will hopefully hit newspapers and news reports arond the world and so will increase the number of visitors rapidly. Thus all the companies on my website, especially on the day of the release, will greatly benefit. I need some fun websites like yours to join, obviously to help fund the press release but also to get some good content on our database. I will be including some of the best comments from companies in the press release itself, which i hope would be great publicity for those involved. I recently made a 'Blam' 'Internet Explorer toolbar icon' to make sure UBlam customers get alot of hits and keep the users coming back (it really is kinda useful!). I have also made various Desktop 'Widgets' of the Blam button which can be seen at http://www.ublam.com/downloads.php One of my widgets has had 800 downloads (as of today) after only being available on 'konfabulator.com ' (search for 'The Blam') for only 2 days! I feel however that this is only the beginning and I need more websites to join to give the users a bigger variety of interesting websites (I cannot enter links for free as it would be unfair on all the others who have already joined)...." I added my websites, so we'll see what happens. With the webmaster so active in promoting it, who knows, it might just take off ! One thing I would change is that I think the webmaster should add sites of interest for free so it doesn't end up as some boring spammed out site of advertisment. What do you guys think?
I've given it a go, it's a small amount of money and if it takes off could be worth it and if not I've only lost 5 bucks.
The concept is not that new I have seen at least 4 other sites in these forums with almost the exact same concept.
I do not recall. I really did not take that much interest in them. They were not as developed as this as they did not have a toolbar or desktop apps. But basically the same principal: Go to the site, hit a big button and go to a random site that advertisers paid to get on their.
i don't know if it's just me, but i couldn't stop myself from clicking the BLAM over and over. cool idea.
haha...I know . I think to make it better they just need to add some interesting non-paid websites. If they did I think the Blam Button could do really well!
Yes this is not a new concept and do not trust it: it will not get you any targeted visitors, just worthless visitors.
That really depends. My target market is college age kids, which are who would most likely be using the Blam buttom. Any who, I like trying new things and I like that the student that put uBlam.com together is putting an effort into making it successful. I also liked checking out the originial notes ( http://www.ublam.com/about.php ) that were taken while the idea was being developed. I'm not holding my breathe for any major traffic, but I like to encourage thinking outside of the box, so I consider it $15 well spent (and a write-off...haha)
Everything is a gamble in the early stage - which is why I am still kicking myself over the $1M homepage. What the heck - I kicked in some money to see what happens. Thanks for the pointer!
Cheap advertising! Who knows, it may bring me some business. Will add a few more (just 3 sites right now)
That's so true . I didn't expect anything when I bought a teeny tiny pixel block on MillionDollarHomePage.com and it brings a surprisingly decent amount of traffic.
Well, as authoritative as that linked post tries to sound, one thing gives away the authors inability to "get" the concept. The line: Author just doesn't get it. Loads of people love random site discovery, and if you understand the psychology of those people, you should be able to figure out if that kind of promotion will work well for your site(s) or not. People looking for silly time wasters are the ideal target for one of my sites. I wouldn't have gone with it otherwise. Summer seems to have a handle on why she believes it will work for her, as well. You should've really thought about that before you posted!
Untargeted/bored traffic like that works great in general for entertainment sites. Hell, I spend more money on getting untargeted traffic these days than targeted traffic. What can I do? Plenty of bored people looking for some entertainment! ublam sounds very promising indeed and the admin seems to have a vision and committment to the project. More than I gauge from some of the other similar sites I posted. What really matters now, is whether ublam will achieve the momentum and critical mass required to make this a success.