Wow, it’s been quite a while since Part 3 eh? I’m finally back with the final installment of the series.
In this series…
Here’s what I’m covering in this article ……
- Community
- Company Conduct
- Progress
Comparison #9 : Community
Generally both are good event organizers. The gatherings are usually for movie screenings, they do have other form of gathering like say Blogger meet-up session for a particular location (eg Penang, Kuching….) or just an outing to a Football match (eg Chelsea vs Malaysia friendly match).
While both Nuffnang and Advertlets are constantly organizing events for bloggers to gather and get to know each other.
Many have noticed that Nuffnang seem to be practicing what is called Blogger Elitism, what exactly is Blogger Elitism?
I like how my friend vkeong from vkeong.com explained it as……
Means only certain celebrity status bloggers, and their blogging friends are invited to certain events. So you will see the same bloggers again and again in their events.
Not exactly an explanation that would be used in a dictionary but the message is there. 🙂 A friend of mine, saimatkong expresses his agreement towards this matter as he was the not selected as a participant despite being the first one to post as their announcement of the event – Nuffnang Sharing Session 24/8/08.
While both Advertlets and Nuffnang are claimed to have practiced Blogger Elitism, the bulk of the complaints so far goes to Nuffnang. I have no idea why.
Summary for Comparison #9 : Community
I can’t say either of them are wrong as I have not the details on who attended and who were neglected but all in all – there has to be a balance. 🙂 This is a gentle reminder from my side to both companies, some transparency would be great, eg – who list the people that are invited. This way, at least we know you guys aren’t playing favoritism.
Of course, being organizers of events, surely popular bloggers would be able to give them better publicity. 😀
Another thing, Nuffnang has an upper hand when it comes to having a Community, thanks to their Innit. However in my opinion the Innit is seriously flawed, a person could just post saucy topic and as long as anyone clicked on it, they have an added point. So basically you have a system where as long as you drew interest and people click, you get recommendation points even though your content could be damn lousy.
Very flawed I must say, it’s unlike DIGG where you could visit the site and decide whether you would like to DIGG it further. Nevertheless, at least there’s a system for users to advertise their post.
Comparison #10 : Company Conduct and Transparency
How well do they treat their users?
Nuffnang
So far, other than the blogger elitism part, I’ve yet to hear much complaints from them.
However, on my side I was sorely disappointed that I E-mail Nuffnang for the Chelsea Training Session Admission Passes but I not only did not get the pass, I wasn’t updated in any way whether I was rejected or whatever else.
I was disappointed. It was a small matter but I do hope they improve.
Nevertheless, what I liked about Nuffnang so far is their transparency when it comes to letting me know where I stand. If there’s an ad campaign, I’ll be informed. For some campaigns, it’s stated clearly on the reports.
Advertlets
Remember my complaint about Timely Payment? It’s not just me facing this huge problem but many others face it too.
And as if payment is not a problem enough (yes, users would like to be paid ON TIME), Advertlets was complained over many things, things that I decline to elaborate. So much so that people actually setup a site called Anti Advertlets.
And I’m sure many of you remember the expired-domain matter for Advertlets. Just click here (Don’t worry, it’s a link to Google) and you’ll see how many entries on the Internet on that issue alone. To sum it up, Advertlets’ domain expired and this caused a lot of trouble as people who were using their script ended up having their site forwarded to some domain place-holder. Many actually thought that their site was hacked, others lost in visitors and revenue. 🙁 It caused a massive upset and led to more people switching sides.
Advertlets also have this lack of transparency. Till now, I would have no idea whether I’m part of their exclusive club, there’s no informaton stated any where on the interface. There’s also no accountability on what ads were served and how much income did those ads get for me.
Summary for Comparison #10 : Company Conduct
Company Conduct is extremely important. The company’s image is tied to their conduct, serious problems that plagued Advertlets really hurt them real bad and gave the competitor a huge boost. 🙁 Sad but true.
Comparison #11 : Progress
As users, we expect to see progress or improvements of these company. While we’re not expecting huge revolutionary changes, at least give some hint that we’re heading some where.
Nuffnang
Nuffnang has travelled a long way for the past 12 months. We now have a fancy looking interface for reporting, we have rather detailed reporting, and we have the Innit site for bloggers to use in attempt to promote their blog.
Another flaw? Sorting error when it comes to earning. 🙂 Apparently RM 2.68 is thought (by the system) to be greater than RM 16 and 13.
Small matter, Nuffnang did a good job so far and they do deserve what they’re enjoying now.
Advertlets
I personally find that Advertlets has not improved for a long while. Besides the Titans widget, that’s practically it.
Their Resources page for Articles and Tips are still empty despite being under that same condition for more than a year.
It’s so disappointing. Any decent webmaster would know that a COMING SOON link isn’t good. It’s not wrong to put a “coming soon” notice but after a year of not coming, the word SOON holds no more value. I mean, how difficult is it to have an article to guide people?
Heck, I even spoke to Josh (owner / founder) and offered my articles to be published there. So yeah, that’s like articles delivered to them at their door-step and a year now – NOTHING.
The site doesn’t even have a FAVICON. The funny thing was that I’ve created one for them more than a year ago, I even gave Josh the link. Seriously, I don’t know what they’re up to. I could actually give a full-detailed consultation on what they’re lacking but I would have to bill them if I do. 😀
Summary for Comparison #11 : Progress
If a system isn’t good enough, surely some improvement is expected. Nuffnang has improved a lot within the past year, I’ve no complaints about them, other than their stupid Innit system. As for Advertlets, I must say that they’re really in a lack. 🙁 Some of these improvements are not difficult yet left unattended.
Competition is good but there’s no competition when the competitor is far behind.
End of The Series
We’ve come to the end of the Nuffnang vs Advertlets series. I hope all of you enjoyed the comparision.
I hope the series gives a more in-depth view of how these companies are. I personally think that Nuffnang is the better one among the 2, Adverlets are far from being called a worthy competitor at this point of time.
I still use Advertlets here and there, I do hope that they improve as well. After all, improvement is the only way to keep users happy.
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Had to agree that nuffnang didn’t practice much transparency but most of the time they chose Gliterrati member.
To me, Innit is certainly a good visits generator. 25% of my visitors came from Innit clicks.
i’m a bit agitated as i personally handle all the community events and many more tasks under Nuffnang. Nevertheless, I’ll keep my expression professionally profound in this comment. I’ll shed more facts into things that you might have misinterpreted in your post.
“Blogger Elitism” and Favorism
Never have it been practiced in our events when it comes to selecting bloggers to come for our events. The top bloggers who you see in events are personally requested by our clients to be there as a crowd puller and is by all means not under our favor.
If you see familiar faces of non top bloggers in our events, it is because they write in very early right after the announcement of events in our blog and they truly deserve to attend the event. I have never practiced favorism as if I would, you won’t see that many straight guys attending Nuffnang events, trust me. Lol.
‘Not getting selected for events’
If you noticed, Saimat Kong’s comment was the first in the blog post, but little did anyone else know, many have already sent in the email to us without commenting on the blog post. My point, early commentators who said they sent in the email do not equal to the pioneers who sent in their emails.
As it is clearly stated in all of our blog posts, if you’re selected to attend an event, you’ll be sent a confirmation email by a certain date to notify you regarding it. It is in basic logic that if you don’t receive any email by that date, you’re not selected to attend the event. The main reason why we cannot send out emails to everyone who write in is because of the amount of people who write in for each of our events. This is a standard practice whenever it comes to contests, competition and etc. Example, if you send in a postcard to some company participating in their contest, do they reply all the participants that did not win? It’s the same approach applied here.
We do not want to publish any list of names for any of our events as we do not wish for anyone to impersonate another on the day which might cause more inconvenience. As we have over 25,000 bloggers in Malaysia, we simply cannot remember how each one of our blogger look like. If a blogger comes early for our event and claims to be another person, it will not be a very nice scene to behold. Sure, IC check works, but do you wish to be bothered this much in events where I have to check every single blogger’s IC? I really don’t wish to do so.
Phew, that feels good in letting you know what’s behind the scene. It’s really not easy to do what I do.
On a lighter note, it’s not my field, but I ought to point out that the earnings in Buffered Earnings are not sorted by the amount of earnings, but rather the date the campaign was built. It is just coincidence that the other 3 fields below Levi’s is some how Earnings sorted as well which led to your false impression of it being sorted that way. 😉
Oh, by the way, do notice that Glitterati’s priority is no doubt a very strong deciding factor when it comes to attending our community events as it is stated in our blog post for the event and our Glitterati policy page.
This one, is very very transparent in the open.
Thanks Robb, the points are gathered from mingling around with people who shared their thoughts. 🙂 I’m more than happy that you came over to share your side of the story, at least we have better understanding. 😀
As for the column sorting part – I’m sure I’m not wrong because I tested it many times before I even dare to claim it here.
See, the Current Earning and Amount column are sortable columns, just like all the columns. You can check it for all Buffered Campaigns, Metered Campaigns and Campaigns. As I clicked on the column header, it would be telling me that I’m sorting it based on ascending / descending order – wouldn’t it?
If you look at Nuffnang all the table columns headers when you first log in. You’ll see it’s a combination of 2 arrows. 1 pointing up, another pointing down.
Click on the column header and it’ll either become an upward or downward arrow. In this case as in the picture, it’s a downward arrow, meaning I had clicked it to sort descending order before I took that screen shot. 🙂 So yeah, it’s not a false impression. It’s a bug that I spotted. 😀
About the Gillerati part – I sent E-mail requesting for ticket also didn’t get reply or anything although Gillerati. 😛
Anyway, I hope that you guys don’t get me wrong. The article is a summary of gathered information from personal and 3rd party observation / experience.
One thing’s for sure – having Nuffnang staff taking note of this and responded in such respectable manner – I’d say it’s great! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the heads up on the bug. I will get our technical team to look on it.
As for the Glitterati priority, it is priority based, but as I’ve reverted in my previous comment, only those who are chosen will be notified. Priority simply means your chances to be chosen is definitely higher compared to Ordinary members. It does not mean you’re automatically selected as we do have a lot of Glitterati members writing in for our events each day.
Hmm… Advertlets really need to catch up with the payment. My friend still did not receive it after cash out on April 2008. 🙁
advertlets need to do something about that. Too many people not get paid yet. Nuffnag are more better in many ways. They payout is easy to understand and they paying us on time.
If advertlets want blogger to support them again, they need to change and offer better service and support.
@jayce – BUG THEM! I posted on their site to get their attention. 😛 I can’t believe I had to resort to that.
@titan – unfortunately after around 9 months, the improvements are appalling….. if there be any in the first place. I only see events / activities.
Very true, sometimes nuffnang always balik balik their own people, anyways, I am its fan ^^.. I saw lots of Money man hahaha, anyway I am still new la climbing slowly =)
yes good article. another point is I attended the eagle eye premier but Nuffnang was the last to setup the ticketing booth and late until around near to 9.00pm which supposed to be 8.30pm and cause a lot of inconvenience for me that i can’t take my proper dinner. be professional and make sure be punctual too. =)
All the best nuffnang at least it’s doing what it supposed to be done.
I wonder who will come respond to SMK’s comment. 😀 Robb!!!!?!??
he responded in my blog.
Well, Josh will not use your article and Favicon. Because he is a web designer with 8 years experiences. So, he won’t let you put some shit on his face. Save it for yourself, or make one for Nuffnang? 😛
That’s not the point, isn’t it? My point is till now (more than a year since I told Josh) and there’s still no favicon on their site. I don’t think this is something a Web Designer with 8 years experience would overloook.
😀 And Nuffnang? They have it a long time ago so I couldn’t be bothered.
You see growth in Nuffnang, when now Philippine also have Nuffnang. I think Nuffnang Thailand will be next.
Yeah they’re growing well it seems. 🙂 They deserve it.
ooops..i missed this episode like what..more than a year? lol
owh i didnt know that the earnings sorted in that way..i thought it’s according to date or the time the campaign/ads has finished..hmm..
Viewed… 🙂
Now only viewed ah? 😛