Bloggers tap $12 billion online advertising market with Qumana’s blog publishing software

NEW YORK, NY – October 27, 2005 – Vancouver-based Qumana Software Inc. launches an innovative upgrade to its program, Qumana, which combines Qumana’s powerful blog publishing tool with a keyword advertising program, today at Oxford & York’s conference, “Media, Communications & Technology - In the Age of the Blogger.” Qumana now gives bloggers direct access to the multi-billion dollar keyword ad revenue market, and a more powerful way to tap it.

“Online advertising grew 26 percent in the first half of this year to reach $5.8 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). By the end of 2008, this market is expected to reach over $20 billion,” said Qumana CEO Fred Fabro. “Pair this with 20 million blogs, and 70 million readers of RSS feeds, and the market becomes attractive,” he added.

“With Qumana, a blogger can choose which keywords best represent the editorial message of the blog post, or the target audience. With one click they can embed an ad from our network that best relates to that content – these ads flow from blog post to RSS to email. With tight relevancy of advertisement to content and audience, and expanded audience, the result is higher click-throughs and happier advertisers,” said Fabro.

“We call this "post-centric" advertising, where ads focus on each blog post content and audience, and we believe this is a major improvement over the machine-based algorithm contextual ad programs that are out there,” said Fabro. “Blogging is about people, not machines, and we think Qumana stays true to this principle,” added Fabro.

Qumana offers a unique, open advertising policy that not only gives a 50/50 split on each ad, but also gives bloggers the freedom to use other advertising programs.

Today’s release adds one-click ad insertion to Qumana’s existing powerful blog publishing tool. Qumana targets experienced bloggers with an easy way to create and publish content to one or more blogs, removing the common restrictions associated with blogging, such as the need to be online, to know HTML, or to be tied to one blog platform or Web browser.

“Qumana is an excellent tool to use if you don't want to monkey around with HTML. It provides a 'drop pad' that lets you drag content and from the web or your email even other text editors and then build your posts. Couldn't get much easier,” says Scott Kingery of Tech.Life.Blogged (http://techlifeblogged.blogspot.com).

For a complete list of Qumana’s features, visit
http://www.qumana.com/overview.htm.

About Qumana
Qumana’s mission is to make blogging easier and more profitable for bloggers globally. Qumana is run by Internet industry veterans, hardcore bloggers, software purists, and world-class designers committed to keeping things simple.

Qumana Software is complemented by Qumana Services, a consulting company specializing in helping companies communicate better using blogs and other social networking tools. Qumana Software is based in Vancouver, BC. For more information visit www.qumana.com.

A group of bloggers including mainstream journalists from outlets such as CNBC, The Nation and The New York Times are banding together to strike a blow at established media and pick up some ad dollars in the process.

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/

"It's always nice to see the big players finally waking up to the power of blog networks. Obviously everyone's keen to see what the incredibly creative people who are involved with PJ Media come up with but, until we see what they actually have up their sleeves it's a little hard to get too nervous.

Even in just the 1 short month b5media has been around, we've already seen 3 networks promise big launches, only to tone back their expectations (one launched with 50 and now only has 35, for example).

We look forward to the competition and new ideas PJ Media will bring. It's always nice to be challenged, after all."

Where does Qumana fit into all of this?  Qumana, we think, is the tool that can help empower bloggers to be able to write for multiple networks.  With the multi-blog capabilities you can write post, select another blog, post, and so on.  That is exactly what I'm going to do with this post.  This post is going to appear on BBC and Qumana.  The BBC version will be shorter and point to the post on Qumana.  The Qumana post will also have an ad in it, which is the second part of what Qumana adds to this equation, the ability for bloggers to monetize their content easily.  Imagine how the networks would operate if each blogger got a portion of the overall site's revenue plus the revenue from an ad placed in their own post.  Write a super popular post, reap the rewards.

A big thanks is due for our fabulous web designers and programmers who helped us pull together two really amazing websites for yesterday's launch.

If you are a previous Qumana user, you may have been through one - or even two - websites before this one. I think we've hit it right this time. It provides the information where you need it and when you need it. From our survey, we found out that 20% of our users couldn't find the information they needed - so, we rewrote everything. Cut out the technical language. Reorganized. Took all the suggestions we received and tried to improve. Then applied a design to make it all easier.

The new website is visually amazing - I really really love it. And it's just so smooth. We're going to be adding in some more content early next week - some visual how-to information, and a little tweak here and there to our tour. Thanks to Simon for the great work.

Not to overlook it, we've also built up the AdGenta site. From scratch. Since AdGenta technically didn't exist before now, it had to be fully conceptualized - coding the server (hats off to our developer, Graham), making agreements, and trying to get our heads around all the information that someone may want, or the questions they may have.

So, what do you think? Do the new websites meet your needs?

It's been a not-so-secret secret for a couple of months now - the new-and-improved Qumana. It's finally here.

This version of Qumana is not just about easy blogging anymore - it's about making money. For you. This new Qumana lets you insert post-centric, keyword-driven ads into your post with one click.

We're extremely excited about this. We've been testing the process for months, you've seen the ads in our posts for sure. We've got it down.

Qumana 2.0 brings together advertising and blogs in a new way:

• The ads are images, so they flow from blog to RSS to e-mail seamlessly.
• The ads are keyword-driven, so they don't conflict with contextual ad programs.
• You choose the keywords, so you can decide which ads are best for your readers - not some computer algorithm.
• You can track the clicks by ad - that's right, you can watch to see which keywords are working out for you simply by tagging your ads with a title you can then see in your stats.
• You can change the look of your ad: the colours, the text, the size. Each time - or save your preferences.
• You can preview your ad before you insert it - and we tell you if your keyword does not match any ads.
• You don't have to insert ads in every post. You decide. You can even put in more than one, if you wanted.
• You can move the ad, just like an image, anywhere inside your post.

Inserting an ad with Qumana is as simple as one click.

This is one ad, for "mp3" and one on "dogs" - see how I've changed the look of the ad? You can go from simple to detailed, depending on how your blog looks. The control is in your court - each and every time.

New Features in Qumana v 2.0

Qumana has stayed simple, elegant, and easy to use - it's just more powerful now.

We've also listened to what you want, and offer:

• post-centric keyword-based ad insertion
• ability to insert HTML
• better functionality with WordPress and Blogger platforms
• improved old post editing
• a new-and-improved website with more information, and easier to find Help
• a new DropPad design
• better drag & drop from Firefox
• post to email (ads & images too!) with our integrated SMTP server

Check out our new website - it's full of all the info you need, a great tour, and easy-to-use help information to get you started with Qumana - and to start earning money!

So, here's your chance to start using Qumana - to set yourself free from blog platfrom restrictions, from web browsers, and from restrictive ad programs.

Download and install Qumana. Sign up for an account at AdGenta.com, Qumana's own ad network. Approval is automatic, so you can be putting ads into your posts in minutes. We want to see you make money - you can blog about it. Say what you want. No restrictions.

Thanks to everyone for continued support and encouragement! We listened - try it yourself and see the difference!

We've written a lot about the Qumana Survey. Yes, a lot. But it was great information, valuable to us and to others, and we wanted to share every last bit of it - plus add what insight we could, of course.

So, to tie it all back up, here is the full survey, and all related posts:

On Bloggers - what do Qumana bloggers look like? How long have they been blogging, for how many blogs, and for what time per week?

The Use of RSS - which RSS reader is most popular and how many feeds do our users follow.

• Tris' take on RSS readers
• Tris' take on how many feeds we should read

Use of Advertising by Bloggers - do bloggers use advertising programs, which ones, and if not, why?

• Tris' take on blog-vertising

Blog Advertising Earnings - how much do bloggers earn, are they happy, and what are their earnings goals?

• Tris' take on making more money

Opinions on Blog Advertising - do bloggers care if blogs have ads and does it affect their reading habits?

Advertising Types - do bloggers want contextual or keyword-based ads for their blogs, and what issues are at hand in blog-vertising?

On Qumana - what do our users have to say about Qumana... what they like, don't like, and where we're going.

Customer Testimonials - some feedback from our users. More to come!

Our look at advertising and opinions therein from the Qumana Survey concludes with a comparison of advertising types. In general, there are two main ways to generate blog advertisements: contextual and keyword-based.

Contextual advertisements are computer-driven. A computer will scan your post and/or your entire blog page to determine what the post is about and which ads would best suit it. In a contextual world, you are completely dependent on how well the computer can determine what you are saying and in providing ads based on that content only.

Keyword-based advertisements are people-driven. Bloggers write their posts then determine which keywords best describe what they have written OR which keywords would be most attractive to their readers. And there you spot the difference: the power of the human brain. Our knowledge and insight are, at least for now, far superior at determining the best ads to place. We can choose to insert ads about blogs when we write about blogging - or we could insert ads about podcasting, as something we think our readers would like.

Without this description or influence, we asked our users which way would be easiest to manage ads. 44% wanted to be a part of a program to insert contextual ads on the blog, and 8% wanted the same for the RSS feed. If we jump from contextual ads to keyword-based ads, 33% showed interest in the ability to manually insert ads of their choice.

According to our survey, 70% of our users (n=71) believe that contextual advertisements are more effective. The vast majority of advertising programs are based on contextual algorithms, but people are not as satisfied as they would like to be. In fact, we know that more than half of you are really not satisfied with current ad programs. So, maybe contextual advertising programs are not as effective as we believe them to be, and don't fit all blogs or all use cases.

n=66

If we look at the patterns of this entire survey, we know that people don't make much money from their blogs... but want to. Some don't use blog advertisements programs... but want to. People find advertising programs complicated, and need help. And bloggers have yet to see the return from RSS advertisements.

Here's what I think. Contextual ads are just not cutting it. If you write a niche topic, you have a better chance of getting some good ads on your blog. Even with that, you're not likely to see great ads in your feed. RSS advertising is stagnant - there is not enough content per post to determine the best ads, and they are too obtrusive and restrictive to earn any return from them.

The best of both worlds would be to use both keyword and contextual ad programs. While 39% of our users would like contextual ads only, a clear 47% would like both contextual and keyword-based ads. Right now, that's possible with some ad programs. It depends on how restrictive the terms of service are - which means more work for bloggers to figure this out.

n=74

Bloggers are cut in by many restrictions with advertising programs. They need to know where their blog templates are, and how to modify them. They need to know HTML. They have to spend hours, if not days, going back to modify the ad blocks. They need to be approved for RSS ads. And they cannot control which ads get displayed from major contextual ad programs.

The ads from major blog advertising programs are either connected with every post (or page) or are turned off - there is no happy medium to decide when and where the ads go. The on/off switch is a concept that just doesn't cut it anymore.

Blog advertising needs a change. And that change is coming.

69% of our users would be interested in using Qumana to insert advertisements. That day is coming. And that day is tomorrow...

Related Survey posts:

On Bloggers
The Use of RSS
Use of Advertising by Bloggers
Blog Advertising Earnings
Opinions on Blog Advertising

Technorati Tags: qumana, advertising, blogs, blogging, money, onlineadvertising, adgenta

The Qumana Survey asked a lot of questions about what people think about Qumana. We'll be talking soon on those very specific questions, in the same way we've been analyzing the generic blogging statistics we've been sharing with you. This information has been far more valuable to us, overall, than any other part of the survey.

Right now, I just want to share with you some of the testimonials our customers have given us. We have pages of these comments that we hope to continue sharing - whether positive or not, it's quality feedback that we live from.

It's a great reminder to us that we are on the right track, and we are listening, and that to keep improving we need you, our customers, to keep telling us what you like, what you don't like, and what you want.

So, thanks from everyone at Qumana for sharing your thoughts...

Shane's World: Qumana puts the 'ing' in blogging. If you have more than one blog, Qumana is the product you should be using.

Zaine Ridling Building Great Software: If you want to make blogging both simple and easy with a sleek interface, you'll love Qumana. A tool like Qumana is great if you make frequent or daily posts to your blog.

Conversation blog: Qumana changed the way I blog, because it is 'on the fly' I post more than before and am seeing results.

Light Within: I think Qumana could bring HUGE numbers of people into blogging. So many people are used to word processing [me being an exception] that using Qumana will seem pretty familiar to them. Where Qumana can really explode is by providing CONCISE - look at the pages in Harry Beckwith's Selling The Invisible - tutorials with simple enough vocabulary to attract newbie bloggers. When you are their first teacher, they are likely to stick with you.

Changemaker: Since I have found Qumana I have added 10 new blogs as it is so easy to transfer information from my main blog. Qumana has been invaluable for the hundreds of sites I've been collecting for 10 years. I am developing another blog, www.weblogsampler.com just to handle all my favorite places to visit and use.

DWS@Large - Qumana is great. It's convenient, has a familiar interface, and is easy to use, even for a newbie. I'll look forward to growing with it as I learn more about blogging. There are features I haven't even tried yet, and there's promise of more to come. The one time I did have a small issue, I posted a test note on it to one of my blogs and forgot about it. I was going to get back to it later. Tris was on it and got back to me in less than 24 hours to let me know a fix was in the works. I didn't even have time to ask for support at the Qumana website. That's service! Keep up the good work Qumana.

Snippets - The Qumana product works great with my Expresion Engine web site! It makes blogging fun! And you dont need to know complicated Xhtml! This app is a dream!
Qumana is Quool!

Look for more later! Thanks everyone!