This should bring back some memories for the real veterans out there. Most of today's gurus were only 4 or 5 when this went down.
I have been playing around with technology since the early 90s when I obtained an actual map of something called the Internet. At that time the Internet was mostly made up of computer networks between government and educational entities. I studied it and dreamed of the possibilities for learning, communications, marketing, and having global influence from my own computer room inside my little house.
I began to explore libraries, databases, public records, personal websites of every shape and size, noted how early innovators were already tapping into banner ads, affiliate programs, traffic driving and then, the big idea hit me, The Funnel. My "funnel" is a set of high exposure traffic signs, fish net utilities, subliminal nudging, hyperlinks, emails, new stories and anything else that directs people to go to a certain place and the allow them to do certain things that make you money. I learned if you could funnel enough people to one spot (your controlled environment), you create unlimited opportunity.
Since I had no one to mimic in my exploration of Internet monitization (at that time). I came up with an idea of my own. AOL just announced a new application called Virtual Places which was a very ahead-of-it's-time application where one could have an icon or picture of themselves and surf the Internet at will just as you do today but your pic or avatar would go with you and show up on every page you went to. You could also see others who were on the same pages as you and you had the ability to chat with bubble text and emotions like a comic book theme. there was a main menu for the Virtual Places application that listed the top 25 or so sites that VPers were on or visiting and this list was the starting point of your VP experience, much like the chat room lists. I also found out I could get a vehicle, like a bus and actually load it up with other users and drag them all around the Internet where ever I browsed. The websites listed in the VP Main Menu were high traffic due to the listing being the jump-in point for users and was posted front and center of most advanced social media application of its time. I thought If I could get my website on that list that I could create a funnel of traffic by utilizing this social media experiment being offered all for free by AOL at the time.
Here is what I did to become the number one visited site in the Virtual Places Application. Created my Avatar, a really good one, interesting yet slightly mysterious. Got to know the top players and users and studied the sites they wood hang out in. Most sites were bar themes or coffee shops, selling what little there was available back then mostly amazon products.
I then created a website which I had no content or ideas for. I grasped on to an idea of something that intrigued me on the net at the time which was Live Web Cams. Not the pornographic type, but the type that showed sunsets, famous eateries, beaches, schools, landmarks, peoples offices, just any type of web cam I could find, I made list of these cams, categorized them and hyperlinked them all with nice descriptions. So that was my site, a compilation of already created content put into a one stop shop for spying on just about everything, I think I had 300 or so live webcam links.
Next I created a single banner ad that met the requirement of a free banner exchange program (I think it was called BannerExchange). This banner was the key. I needed to create uncontrollable curiosity, a viral compulsion to click. It needed a name and a simple image that would absolutely grab you away from you current online task. I created a photo of an old wrinkly man's head with one eye shut and the other eye peeking through a hole in the wooden sign that made up the banner. Then added the text "The Peephole - You will be Amazed". The banner was put into circulation through the banner program and I began my new job as the driver of that virtual bus we mentioned earlier and I started dumping loads of users on the Peephole website. I did this for 2-3 days and on day 3 I cam home and looked at my counter and had reached 21,000 visits that day alone, an absolutely unheard of traffic drive for a non-porn website at that time.
My site stayed on the VP Top sites list in the VP gateway for months. I now had created my first successful traffic funnel and had no idea what to do with it! The story goes down hill from here with a $2,300.00 bill from AOL for hourly charges. I had to keep my avatar on my site 24/7 so I would never log off. AOL retracted these big bills after class action suit but was enough for me to pull the plug on my operation at that time. I needed a more cost effective means of access to the internet and with more bandwidth etc. Still a good story that helped me to understand how quickly something can take of if you have just a few nibblets of unique methodologies and can get right in the game to try 'em out. AOLs Virtual Places was eventually bought out or shelved, standard chat became the standard replacement for VP for the next two decades. MySpace and FaceBook then came about in their due time and you see what happens to those who focus and take action.
No comments:
Post a Comment