The $1 Advertising Experiment: A buck for 250,000 views of your ad on MissedConnections.com

Is $1 for 250,000 views of a *huge* advert for your brand something that might interest you? MissedConnections.com will soon be starting an experiment in advertising that you might like.

For those of you coming to MissedConnections.com for the first time, welcome, my name is Eliot Sykes and I’m the site developer/founder.

Although MissedConnections.com has been established as one of the top missed connections destinations on the web for a while now, I only started working full time on the site late 2009 and since then to the end of March 2010 the site traffic has tripled and continues to grow while the site keeps working at its goal of reconnecting the thousands of people who post here every month.

To continue this trend I’m going to carry on working on the site full time, however, MissedConnections.com is self-funded and to keep up the good work funding will eventually have to come from a different source.

The source is likely to be a combination of donations and advertising.

For advertising, I’m looking to work directly with advertisers. I prefer a personal approach over going through a faceless ad exchange – I think it is going to be simpler to manage and a better deal for us and for advertisers.

To begin with, to dip our toes lightly in the advertising waters, we will shortly kick off an experiment that you can be a part of.

The experiment will involve an (almost) original and MASSIVE ad unit (more details to come in a follow-up blog post) which could be yours for $1 for 250,000 views (that’s the same as 0.4 cents CPM).

Without giving away all the details of the experiment yet, the price will be decided in auction with the starting price being $1. So if only one advertiser wants to be part of the experiment (a distinct possibility), they’ll get the 250,000 impressions for $1. I’m expecting a bit of interest, so with some luck the price will get up to the $5 to $15 range. I’m not intending to bring in huge amounts of cash with this clearly, I’m just hoping to start good open relationships with potential advertisers.

You cannot find this type of ad unit on many sites due to the technical restraints of advertising providers, thankfully we don’t have that problem. Due to the size and display of this ad unit, I have high hopes for the levels of clickthroughs it will generate. I’ll demo the ad unit in the next blog post about the experiment.

So, I’m working on getting the experiment ready to go. If you want to be involved or just watch from the sidelines, email eliot@missedconnections.com with “$1 Ad Experiment” as the subject and I’ll keep you updated. More info coming soon on this blog…

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on April 12th, 2010 | Categorized as Advertising, Site news

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Omegle Missed Connections now on MissedConnections.com!

I’ve just been looking through our logs and noticed we’ve been getting enough Omegle missed connections that it deserves its own mini site just like Chatroulette Missed Connections has.

So if you have a missed connection on Omegle, be sure to add it on Omegle Missed Connections at http://omegle.missedconnections.com.

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on April 11th, 2010 | Categorized as Advice, News, Site news

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New Search Feature on Chatroulette Missed Connections

New Search Options feature link circled in top right corner

You asked for it so here it is: searchable missed connections for Chatroulette (its about time right).

Click the Search Options link in the upper right hand corner of the Chatroulette Missed Connections home page to access the new feature. This will take you to the Advanced Search page:

Have you got any other ideas or feedback? Submit your comments using the form below.

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on March 16th, 2010 | Categorized as Site news

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Missed Connections Success Stories on Chatroulette

For all of the Chatroulette community members that have been asking, yep, we’ve had quite a few reconnections on Chatroulette missed connections. There are a few everyday. So if you’re wondering if it works, yes it does, for some but not everyone.

So if you’re interested in reconnecting the three things to best improve your chances are:

Post your missed connection at Chatroulette Missed Connections right away with enough detail that your chat partner knows it is for them.
Next, read through Chatroulette Missed Connections to see if someone has posted for you. If you want to be able to search by date, for now used the Advanced Search link on http://www.missedconnections.com/search/all (BTW, improving search on chatroulette.missedconnections.com is on the todo list, I’m the only person working on this so your continued patience on this is appreciated – thank you!). Of course reply to the ad if you see an ad for you.
Help us with word of mouth! Let your Chatroulette chat partners know that chatroulette.missedconnections.com exists – word has spread well but like everyone we need all the help we can get!

Lets reconnect more missed connections and bring a bit more love and friendship into the world!

Read the latest missed connections from around the world here and the latest chatroulette missed connections here.

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on March 11th, 2010 | Categorized as Advice, Site news

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The Big Problem with Chatroulette missed connections on Craigslist

We talked, got cut off, then you posted to the Gainesville Craigslist Missed Connections, but it got flagged. I posted to CL MC for LA, but there were multiple areas so who knows if you would’ve seen it. I think you were wearing plaid, you made me guess what band you were playing (it was Big Black) and you were awesome. I’d love to chat again, I hope you see this!

Original chatroulette missed connection post: You: LA, Me: FL – BIG BLACK!

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on February 27th, 2010 | Categorized as Advice, Craigslist, Site news

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Chatroulette gets its own Missed Connections site

Chatroulette

Chatroulette, the “video stranger chat” site now has a dedicated missed connections web site.

This was needed as chatroulette missed connection ads have been appearing all over the web, without there being a single place to bring them all together and so the likelihood of reconnections happening is greatly reduced.

The aim of the chatroulette missed connections site is to have all these missed connections under one roof, whether they are posted on Missed Connections or on Craigslist, and so people who lost each other on Chatroulette have a better chance of finding each other again.

Chatroulette Missed Connections

Photo credit thanks to Renee Silverman

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on February 19th, 2010 | Categorized as News, Site news

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Help find the web’s best missed connections!

There’s a new feature on Missed Connections to help find the web’s favorite missed connections.

Underneath each missed connection ad you can vote for what you think of it, as shown in this screen grab:

To vote, click on the icons that are meant to be pictures of a hand giving the thumbs (you’ll be asked to login or create a new account – if you’re on facebook you can safely use your facebook account). The hand will turn green as shown in the picture above once your vote has been counted.

For now there are three categories you can vote in; Romantic, Funny, and Interesting. This is just a first stab at the categories and they will evolve as needed.

Once there are a good number of votes on the site then we’ll publish charts of the most funny missed connections, most romantic, and most interesting. You can vote a missed connection for more than one category if you can’t make up your mind.

Feel free to contact us with any category or voting ideas you may have.

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on February 1st, 2010 | Categorized as Fun, Site news

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Funny missed connections

Funny Missed Connection

Send me any funny missed connections you find on your Internet travels so they can be published on the missed connections blog for the enjoyment of everyone here.

If you find a good missed connection please go ahead and e-mail the link in to eliot@missedconnections.com or use our contact form. You’ll be credited on the blog if we publish your link (unless you don’t want to be).

Thanks!

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on January 30th, 2010 | Categorized as Fun, Site news

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Reddit plug and proof

I plugged Missed Connections on Reddit yesterday on Something I made and was kindly and fairly asked to provide proof that I run the site:

eliotsykes on Reddit is me, honest

If you’ve not checked out Reddit yet, consider taking a look and start spreading karma, there’s a great community there.

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on January 13th, 2010 | Categorized as Site news

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Your Bizarro taglines wanted for Missed Connections

bizarro

I’ve been unable to settle on a single tagline for Missed Connections so instead the site is going to have multiple taglines contributed from the missed connections community.

A different one is displayed under the logo each time the home page is viewed with a link to the profile of whoever tweeted it (try it out yourself – hit your browser’s refresh button a few times to see different taglines). Some of the taglines so far, admittedly all contributed by me (I’d rather be showing your’s):