121 | 5 | 500,000,000 | 2 | 14 | 600 | 30| 6,000 | ∞
When asked what we accomplished in 2007 we could think of nothing more fitting than to: “let the numbers speak for themselves.” We chose these numbers as descriptions that we feel best summarizes our accomplishments in 2007.
What do the numbers mean?
Ranked 121: Internet Traffic
Thanks to our 18,000+ publishers we are now ranked as the 121st highly used online service.
Launched 5 new products and services.
Our in-text ad unit Chitika | Linx quickly became our MVP (most valuable product) with it’s new stylish redesign which gave our 18,000 publishers a new PPC revenue earning ad unit to choose from. Chitika also ventured into the mobile world with our new Price Alerts service, released a new email reporting system, gave our users yet another PPC ad unit Owna designed for Myspace or website pages and opened a community driven social shopping service; Shlogging.com.
Released a study estimating revenue in the blogosphere: $500 Million.
We were able to report and analyze different types of blogosphere revenue statistics in 2007. The first was our Blog Dollars Study in which we teamed up with two professors from The University of Texas to estimate the revenue earned in the blogosphere as 500 million.
Then using yearly traffic growth statistics we examined Chitika’s performance on the renowned high traffic online shopping day, Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving). We were pleased to report a record 100% increase Cyber Monday network traffic between 2006 and 2007. In more detail, this growth statistic reflects a 25% increase in traffic between Cyber Monday, November 26th, 2007, and the preceding Monday, November 19th, 2007. Compared to 2006 in which Chitika reported a 13% increase between Cyber Monday November 27th, 2006 and the preceding Monday November 20th, 2006.
Rocketed into 2 of the largest online social networks: Myspace & Facebook.
Chitika was one of the first to offer ad units on MySpace and FaceBook. The release of our API for FaceBook made it possible for users to earn CPC revenue by inserting eMiniMalls ad units into the pages of their Facebook applications. The Chitika | Owna which was first designed for Myspace pages, uses flashy skins to display products which earn publishers revenue when placed on their Myspace page, blog or website.
Attended and sponsored 14 events
Chitika aimed to invest and promote the blogging industry as a whole; we took great pride in helping to sponsor various events. We bought drinks for 100 people at the Problogger Readers Meet-up in New York, awarded the winner of the Problogger Group Writing Project a $1001 prize, supported Joel Comm’s online reality show “The Next Internet Millionaire”, and gave away the top prize in the Sexy Technology News “how to” writing contest.
We attended twice the number of conferences as years past, including; 2nd Annual BIMA Career Fair, eComXpo’s Virtual Tradeshow, SOBCon-07, Red Herring East, Affiliate Summit Florida, TiE-Boston, OMMA New York, AdTech Chicago and New York, and finally wrapped up the year at BlogWorld in Las Vegas.
Interacted and engaged personally with 600 Chitika and non-Chitika publishers.
Not only did Chitika grow as a company—expanding our networks, increasing our ad unit line-up, adding members to our team, and moving to a new office space—2007 was all about engaging our publishers. Through opening a new community forum, called Chitika SPHERE, we are now able to work directly with our publishers and offer free expert optimization strategies to Chitika members and non members, which ended 2007 with 600 members. This forum was in fact so successful that we took it to Second Life, giving us the ability to offer placement tips in virtual person.
To further tribute our publishers’ hard work we introduced the Premium Publishers Club. Members enjoy exclusive features such as higher revenue earnings and access to personal account management.
Chitika continues to strive in supporting the creativity and ingenuity of our publishers; we therefore launched a series of guest blog posts on The Chitika Blog called ‘A Publisher Speaks’ where our bloggers share their individual experiences with Chitika.
publishers.
Hosted an ultimate blogging event featuring 30 top bloggers converting to 6,000 downloads.
The month of April was marked by a month long blogging event. Entitled Blog Bash, 30 expert blogging guru’s published a post for each day in April. The event culminated in the publication of the eBook, “Deep Secrets of Successful Blogging”, which is available for download (6,000 downloads in 2007) on the Chitika site and includes all thirty posts (and is free of cost)!
The Chitika Blog then went on to host a mini series featuring five publisher expert tips for “Using Chitika with Google”, Chitika’s 2nd free eBook.
Publicized by ∞ representative publications.
Chitika success in 2007 was righteously met by ample buzz and press publicity. Our CEO Venkat Kolluri was featured as the TiE-Boston success story on NBC News, and Chitika was featured in various publications; including, WashingtonPost.com, WebProNews.com, MetroWest Daily News, Chief Marketer, MediaPost and was listed on Inc.com’s list of Best Services.
2007 was a triumphant year for Chitika. As we doubled our successes and initiative last year, this leaves us confident with big goals and unwavering momentum for 2008. We aim to triple Chitika’s success !
Embarking on 2008- Standing up for publishers!
A famous mantra we stand by at Chitika is to, “let numbers speak for themself”. As mentioned, this past year our engineers worked diligently to upgrade the reporting system. Our marketing team used this accessible data to launch ChitikaPulse, a weekly publication that analyzes and highlights emerging trends in online advertising and merchandising in the blogosphere that you can expect to see grow and expand throughout 2008.
What can you expect in 2008? Graphics, social, mobile … stay tuned!
