Blogertize World: What’s in for Bloggers?

After my last review of Blogertize, many things have changed. After some reader requests, I decided to review the website for second time.

This time, Blogertize.in redirected to Blogertizeworld.com, their new portal. Last time, no clear information about their business plan was available. This time, they have made their plans public.

Here's a quick look at what they have to offer and of course after that, the review:

1. Pixel Ad Space: Pixel ad space, the concept with which Blogertize started, is still there. However, this time the pricing has changed a bit. Before, there was 50% discount for people registering before January 31 but now it has been changed to "First 2500 Bloggers".

2. Profit Sharing: They plan to share a part of profits with buyers. The profit sharing ratio will be 3:8:16:30. Profit sharing will start from second year of operations.

3. Newsletter Exposure: Blogertizers (people who buy ad space) can submit the best 2 posts of their blog for inclusion in newsletter. If included, link to the original article will be given for exposure.

4. Community: Discussion boards will be open to everyone. You can join and discuss whatever you want.

5. Podcasting Publishing: "Automatic podcast generation, quality text-to-speech, Listen Button feature deployed in next to no time for WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and other platforms, detailed download statistics, earnings from embedded ads" -Blogertize World.

6. Shopping Portal: Blogertizers can participate in this affiliate revenue sharing program and can get up to 75% of the sales.

7. Promotional Quizzes and Contests: To attract traffic, Blogertize will conduct quizzes and contests without any membership fee.

8. Marketplace: In marketplace, bloggers can open their shop to sell "anything and everything"! A small yearly fee will be charged instead of any revenue share. Blogertizers can open shop for free for first year.

9. Blog Inventory Exchange: You can exchange banners/links with other niche bloggers.In blog ad network, bloggers can sell ad space to advertisers. Revenue split will be 70:30 for regular bloggers and 80:20 for Blogertizers.

10. ROI Analytics: "Blogertize ROI analytics is a free service offered to all the Blogertizers which is aimed to assist the latter in determining the return on their investment in Blogertize. It’ll give a brief idea about the revenue they’ve earned via various income streams like shopping portal, profit sharing, podcasting, ad exchange network, market place etc." -Blogertize World.

My Analysis:

Pros:

The service has a positive side too. Here is that:

Community Factor: If they succeed in building a community around the service, bloggers will get what they want, and more.

Profit Sharing: Blogertize plans to share revenue with buyers. If service takes off well, bloggers who buy space can get more than they invested.

Low Investment: There is a risk of failure but then the investment is so small, just $15 to start off with.

You can change banners: Last time, I was worried that they were not allowing to change banners. What if all the banners around are designed well and grab attention. This time, you can change banners.

Inventory Exchange: Blogertize plans to connect advertisers and bloggers to let sell ad space. The revenue sharing is pretty good and 80:20 for buyers and 70:30 for others is better than most ad networks.

Be Inactive, You Still Earn: Blogertizers are not required to do anything(apart from link exchange! -read cons below) and will get returns through traffic and profite sharing they plan to have.

Cons:

Discount and Pixels: Giving discount to first 2500 bloggers(first discount was available for bloggers registering before Jan 31) indicates that sales are not as high as they expected. I took a look at all the categories and found the number of sold/unsold pixels. Here is the information as on March 13, 2009, 11:30 AM (Indian Standard Time):

Out of 11 paid categories, 7 have more than 50% space empty!

The service will miss the launch date as it was first scheduled to launch on April 1 but now, they have postponed to May 31.

Discount, Stats and delay in launch date say only one thing: Pixels are not being sold as they had expected.

Visibility and Traffic: In my previous review, I had one simple question, "How would bloggers get exposure with so many ads on smae page?"

In FAQ, I found the answer: "We’d be coming with a new layout for the website when we launch the same on May 31st, 2009. The pixel page for all the categories would be strategically placed so as to divert maximum traffic coming onto our website. All the bloggers for a particular category would be asked to place a link to the pixel ad page for the respective segment. So by default, we’d be having 2,860 backlinks for all pixel ad pages combined."

Whatever they do, but so many ads can not be placed on a single page so as to give each one "exposure"!

When they launched, the statement was that you have to pay only one time and after that, you will not need to do anything. But now, they will be "asking" the bloggers to place a link! So, this turns into another link exchange.

Most bloggers are buying the space for traffic. My question is, "Will Bloggers send Blogertize traffic or Blogertize will send the traffic?" As far as I know, majority of bloggers paid to get traffic, not for a link exchange. Also, most of the space has been sold in the form of small blocks. This means that small blogs have purchased it and incoming traffic will not be a big deal.

I do not think search engines will send much traffic. Why? Because the ad pages have outgoing links to blogs and blogs (will)have links back to page. First thing that comes to mind is, "Reciprocal Linking". And search engines do not pay much attention to Reciprocal Links!

Blogertize claim that they can send 500 visitors in first 6 months to blogs buying $15 button as in FAQ section. Here is their answer to "Wouldn’t purchasing ad space on a high traffic blog be a better investment?" : As of today, a 125x125 banner ad on a PR3 blog costs somewhere around $25-30 per month which at most can get approximately 500 visitors. On the other hand, Blogertize offers a 3 year adspace for as low as $15. It probably may take around 5-6 months for a blog to receive 500 visitors via Blogertize (for a $15 button)

They will organize contests to attract visitors. But all of these will not click ads. Visibility issues come in between if these visitors come to ad pages! What about the visitors that will only come for prizes and not explore much?

A newsletter to give member's articles exposure will also be launched. I am not sure about people subscribing to a newsletter that contains articles from unknown(as most of the buyers are not that big!) bloggers when there are authority blogs around?

Shopping portal plan does not sound good to me. First, "What will they sell?". Second,Whatever they sell, the main question is, "Will they be able to sell with likes of Amazon and EBay around?"

Bloggers can open their shops with Blogertize for a small yearly fee. The concept is not so innovative and has been around with CafePress and recently relaunched EntreCard market. This may work considering bloggers offer something useful.

The forum will not be about a particular topic and people can discuss pretty much everything. From FAQ:"More the visitors to Blogertize, more the chances of traffic diversion to the advertiser’s blog. In addition, a proportion of our earnings via this avenue will be distributed among the Blogertizers starting from the second year of operations." Right now, the forum doesn't seem to get much traffic. If they manage to populate the forum, how will the traffic be sent to Blogertize ad pages?

What others Say?

I contacted several other bloggers to let me know their views.

Ramkarthik from Blogging Tune:

"They seem to have many good options but don't know if the 3 year ad could do any good without knowing the traffic it receives etc."

When I asked about them having too many services to start with, he replied:

"They have to come up with something extraordinary to make a mark in this area"

I have asked several other friends and will update when I get response.

Conclusion:

$15 for 3 years is not much. But I am still not sure about Blogertize's success. First of all,52% of space is still empty. Secondly, without working to sell more space, they are planning lot of services each with lot of competition without first focusing on the core service, pixel ad space selling. By looking at forum, it can be said that they are also not paying attention to many key factors, for example, design, forum has been designed horribly with light blue on black background! A step by step implementation would have been much beneficial for them. They could first populate the forum, then go to start market and so on.

It all boils down to their excution. If they succeed, you can get lot of benefits but if they do not, you will lose your money.

I will still not recommend investing.

What do you think about their plans? Will you invest or not?

Image Credit: ScienceBlogs.com.