To the left is an image of a certain Mr Usain Bolt, the fastest man on the planet. It was taken earlier today by a Professional Photographer in Germany working for Zumapress - a major photo agency. What is unique about this image is that it didn't cost me a penny, and it's totally legit.

The model is straightforward but revolutionary. I signed up today for an account with Fotoglif, browsed up to the minute photos from the likes of Getty Images, Splash and Reuters, grabbed an embed code and embedded it on my blog. It comes with a small Google ad underneath, and the proceeds are split 50/30/20 between the rights holder, Fotoglif and the publisher (that's me).

For any web publisher just starting out - this levels the playing field. Traditional photo licensing of newsworthy images can cost hundreds of dollars per photo. Kind of hard to start a celebrity news blog unless you have deep pockets.

Not any more...

Fotoglif is not the only startup in this space. GumGum has been licensing photos on an ad-supported and CPM basis for about a year, and an Israeli startup PicApp offers a similar thing. But at the moment very few bloggers and publishers are aware of this concept, and it is certain to get bigger with time.

What I find interesting is that Google are clearly doing a special arrangement as it is possible to have any number of Google Adsense supported images on a single page. Just look at the Fotoglif blog for an example. Normally Google restricts ads to a maximum of 3 per page.

What I also find interesting is the wider context of ad-supported content gaining traction. Technology trends typically follow a text-image-audio-video cycle and it is thus inevitable that branded audio and video content, perhaps the latest Amy Winehouse single, an episode of 24, or one day a Hollywood movie, will become readily available to web publishers to carry on their sites for free, while getting a slice of the ad revenue.

Around the same time a new concept of Viewer Controlled Advertising is likely to take hold, where the consumer can choose the level of advertising they wish to tolerate. Lots of ads? Get paid to watch the content. No ads - you pay.

Some fascinating opportunities for entrepreneurs are around the corner...

UPDATED 09/09/09: Since writing this post a number of problems with the Fotoglif service have seemed to appear. People reading this post in Google Reader were getting a grey rectangle in place of the image, same in Outlook, and more seriously the Fotoglif server seemed to be slowing down my blog's home page significantly. This is unacceptable and for that reason I have replaced the code with a screenshot marked 'screenshot' for now. If I hear from Fotoglif with a reasonable explanation then I may change this.

Posted by Alx Klive at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Following on from an article on Techcrunch about encouraging first signs from Microsoft's new 'Adsense' style advertising platform, I've been asked to write a guest article for TCUK about the experience of non US based web publishers in their attempts to monetize their sites through contextual advertising.

The questions I'll be asking are...

• What experiences have non US based web publishers had with Google Adsense?
• What other platforms are out there and how do they compare?
• What are your feelings about Microsoft getting into this space?
• Has anyone outside the US had experience with Yahoo! Publisher Network?
• What would you like to see in the 'perfect' contextual advertising product?
• What would you like Google to change about theirs?

I'm interested in speaking, in confidence as appropriate, to any non US web publishers with an interest in this subject.

Please contact me in the first instance at alx [at] smashing [dot] com or phone me direct at 0845 686 2000 (UK office hours)

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sun Microsystems has bought the world's most popular open source database software MySQL for $1 billion.

This is big news. We use MySQL here at WorldTV, as do many other websites, and the deal means open source software finally means big business.

Exciting.

Posted by Alx Klive at 2:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In most businesses it is fairly simple to establish an approximate valuation for a particular company.

There are known rules of thumb such as multiple x annual sales (typically 3-5 as the multiple) or multiple x annual profit (typically 12-15 as the multiple).

For web 2.0 businesses with little in the way of either profit or sales, but a loyal and fast growing audience, another method is needed. Using either of the approaches above, such a site would appear worthless.

The good news is that 'eyeballs' are back. Big companies are finally realizing that they can't come up with all the new ideas, and that younger, smaller and more nimble web companies can deliver them a large audience or community on a plate, thanks to a great idea - well implemented, and the larger company can do what they do best which is figuring out how to monetize it. This explains why there have been so many acquisitions of websites and web development teams in the last couple of years.

So how do you value a website?

Continue reading "How to value a website using unique visitors" »

Posted by Alx Klive at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)