You may have noticed a new widget in my sidebar. I put it there because it’s one of the coolest things ever.

You see, there’s this new company called YouData. They believe that advertising can be done better. After all, these companies are paying webmasters to show their ads, even though the demographic may not be right. And we, the people, are being shown ads that are totally irrelevant to our needs. And what do we get out of the deal? Nothing.

So YouData got to work and figured out a system that works for everybody.

1.) The Consumer: You sign up for YouData/MeFile, input things like your age, marital status, gender, children, etc. YouData has a widget on their site (you can also download it straight to your desktop) that you can load up with ads (assuming there are some available to you). These ads will have a specific amount that companies are willing to pay you to look at their ads. Right now, I’m getting about $0.05 just for seeing the ad on the widget, and about $0.15 for clicking through. I’ve earned over $6 in less than a week (it shows less because of part 2) just by viewing ads.

It’s not much money, but how often do you earn $1 in less than 5 minutes? I do it when I realize that I’m procrastinating. I figure, if I’m just faffing about, I might as well get paid for it! Plus, I discovered a really cool product this way (soap nuts- dried fruit that actually cleans your laundry. Totally weird, but cool, and natural).

2.) The Webmaster: You know how with AdSense you can’t tell people to click your ads? Well, with YouData, you’re SUPPOSED to. See, the ad viewer is only being served ads that suit their demographics. It’s the same ads that they’d get from their own widget on the website or desktop. The difference is, you’re asking them to view the ads on your site… and split the profits.

You know how you go through and click your friends’ ads just because you like them, or because they offered useful information, but you feel a bit guilty because you know someone, somewhere, is paying for that click? Not with YouData. That’s simply how the ads work. And, you can choose to donate all, or none of the cost of viewing the ad (and everywhere in between) to the person who runs the website.

They’re still testing the blog widgets, so if you want one on your own site, you’ll have to email their support- but using the widgets is fine with just your basic YouData account.

3.) The Advertiser: Advertisers of products are just trying to get their products in front of the eyeballs of their demographic. With the MeFile, they can pick and choose who to offer advertising to. Instead of paying $0.25 a click to just anyone, they can pick and choose, getting the most bang for their buck. Marketing to parents of an infant? No longer do they pay to have a 13 year old boy who hasn’t even had his first girlfriend go clicking through their ads. Targeted marketing. What’s not to love?

YouData doesn’t have an affiliate program. In fact, they’re anti-cookie and anti-tracking, so they probably won’t accept affiliate marketing ads either. But because of the option to share profits with a site owner, you can still get something out of telling people about their service. Tres cool, non?

Oh, and did I mention that they pay every Friday by PayPal? Hardly any wait for getting paid- it’s awesome.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 10:29 pm and is filed under links, promotion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.