Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Musings

Something Awful & Express.com

Dan Knight - Oct. 11, 2000 - Tip Jar

Imagine you've managed to create a pretty cool site. It's become popular enough that you think maybe you can make some money. So you contract with a company to sell the ads for your site - and they deliver all the ads you can display.

Been there; doing that. I'm with my third ad network over the past three years. One collapsed under overdue payments. Two were excellent. I only left the second network because I had a more lucrative offer from the third one.

They've all treated me right, although I am out several thousand after the demise of the MacTimes Network. With the other two networks we had written contracts. It's worked out very nicely. I'm not able to run Low End Mac on a full time basis, but I get a decent return for the 30-40 hours a week I invest.

But imagine if I'd been dealing with someone less honest. Each of the networks I've dealt with promised a fixed percentage of ad income. If they didn't sell paying ads, neither of us made money. But what if you contracted for a fixed level of income - and the network found a way to weasel out of paying you?

Something Awful

It's happened many times in the history of the Web, most recently with Something Awful. Now I can't say I really understand the Something Awful site, but I do understand the story the tell.

Something Awful had a contract with Gamefan to handle all ads for the site at $2.50 CPM ($2.50 per thousand ads displayed). Simple enough to understand.

Not really. Apparently Gamefan, which is now owned by Express.com, had a clause in the contract stating that "network ads" (that is, ads for sites in the network) didn't count. In simple terms, it means that they could display all the ads they wanted to for Gamefan and Express.com without ever paying other sites a cent.

Nice, huh?

Well, maybe for Express.com. It was a no-lose situation. If their staff was unable to sell ads, they could promote their own sites and services for free. They had little to gain by selling ads and could also profit by not selling ads.

Their position is morally bankrupt but legally defensible. Always read the fine print.

Strike Back

There are a few things we the netizens can do to help Something Awful and other sites taken advantage of by Gamefan/Express.com.

  1. Visit Something Awful, which is now with a reputable network and read their story. Not only do they get a hit, but you can click on the link and send email to Jonas Gray, the Vice President of Express.com, letting him know how you feel about this mess.
  2. Boycott Express.com and Gamefan.
  3. Tell others that you're boycotting these sites. Explain why.
  4. If you're a webmaster and an affiliate, hit them in the pocketbook. Let Express.com know you have reason to believe they may try to find a way to avoid paying the affiliate fees they owe you - and that you can just as easily steer customers to Buy.com, Amazon.com, and a host of other sites that have good reputations.

That's what I've done. I'm telling you the story, I've written Jonas Gray, I've told several other Mac webmasters what I'm doing, and I'm prepared to remove links to Express.com from my site if they don't do the right thing for Something Awful and other sites they took advantage of. LEM

Further Reading

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.