August 26, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team
Traditional online advertising networks have been popular for many years, as they give publishers a way to monetize their web traffic by displaying relevant banners and pop under ads to users. However there is another emerging solution for publishers to monetize their websites, with the use of image advertising networks. Online companies like Pixazza, GumGum, and Image Space Media have been popular choices thus far for publishers looking to monetize the images on their site, but a new company called Stipple is looking to make an impact in the newly popular advertising niche. Stipple is launching their product with there major partners which include, Jive Records, Six Apart, and E.W. Scripps. There are slight variations to how all these companies function, but they all meet the same end goal of providing a better way to monetize by being able to connect products in images with related products online. When you use the technology from Stipple, all you need to do is add the line of javascript to your relevant pages and give each of your pictures a few tags. Then, when a user mouses over products in an image, they will see a box that appears with info as to what the product is (or something close to it) and a link to click through to purchase it.
The need to monetize pictures is a must, as publishers look for ways to diversity their revenue streams while the economy is still rocky. Luckily Stipple is ready to go for any publisher, so there is no special invite needed or beta program you have to join. However Stipple has serious competition, as Google has already invested in Pixazza which seems to be the leader in the space at this time. It will be interesting to see how this advertising niche progresses, and if there will soon be acquisitions in the space.
Nick was born and raised in California, but has been working the dot com scene in Seattle for many years. He co-founded ZippyCart back in 2009, and now works here full-time. Nick wears many hats at ZippyCart, including producing content for our Ecommerce News blog. Nick loves photography and the outdoors, so when not working on ZippyCart you can find him out and about in Seattle.
