SPOTTT resurrects the good old link exchange

USA-Spottt is quite straightforward. It lets sites exchange ads, to boost each other’s traffic. Publishers provide an ad for another site, in return for accepting an ad from the other site. Spottt does this for free, but later we’re sure will take a cut.

Analysts agree that Spottt is promising because most sites tend to have ad space that can go empty for periods of time, after an advertising campaign ends, for example. The idea of a link exchange first arose in 1996, when Tony Hsieh launched a company called Link Exchange. By its first year, 30,000 Web sites were using it. A million were using it in 1998, when Microsoft bought it for $250 million. However, Microsoft shut it down this year, Hsieh tells us. This is consternating, given the tens of millions of blogs that could use this service. The ads are of 125×125 pixel size, and must run “above the fold.” Sites apply for admission to Spottt, and choose a category. Then one shoe retail site can exhange ads with a shoe repair site, for example. Spottt is easy to use. You submit your URL, and Spottt provides you a dashboard which shoes ad impressions being run on your partner sites.

source:venturebeat,techcrunch