After seeing Paul Kedrosky’s readership survey, I’ve been expecting some high-end advertising on his site and in his feed (like the Maserati ads that show up in the PAW). After all, 29% of Paul’s readership earns more than $250,000 a year and 30% of his readers are CEOs/Presidents/Chairpersons/Owners of their respective organizations. As Guy, Rick, or Oskar Schell might say, Holy Shitake!
Welcome to the world of uber-niche media consumption. And so it was with baited breath that I clicked on an ad in Paul’s feed today. Despite my not fitting the above demo, it was perfectly targeted - venture information services! [On further reflection, I know Paul is a member of the Feedburner Advertising Network (FAN) and wonder whether the feed ad is Federated Media or Feedburner brokered. Anyone?]
The company advertising is named VentureDeal:
VentureDeal is an easily searchable online database updated daily with the latest detailed information on venture financings, M&A transactions and company contact information for venture capital firms, technology companies and service firms in the United States and Israel.
Sounds like VentureSource, but it’s much less expensive - $240/year vs $12,000. I’d love to hear from anyone who has used it or knows of the company. What are the highlights and shortfalls? I’m guessing it’s missing the kind of historical info that VentureSource has, and see it’s missing data on Europe, but I bet there’s room for a low(er) cost provider in this market. If they turn out to be any good, it should scare the wits out of VentureSource.
Hey Matt, that’s a FeedBurner brokered ad. Agree completely about uber-niche media consumption….it’s definitely upon us.
Source code says ads are served by Google AdSense if I’m reading that correctly… Feedburner used to have an option for adding AdSense to your feeds, but I think AdSense no longer has the option for new signups for their in-feed program so Feedburner removed the option. Convenient for them considering the launch of their own ad network.
Dick:
Thanks for stopping by. I laughed out loud when I caught Fred’s, Brad’s, and Matt’s posts re your Halloween Day board of directors meeting - you must have an amazing “presence” about you. Hope we’ll meet sometime at a Chicago-based tech event.
Chris:
Feedburner’s lead man says Feedburner, so I’m guessing it’s Feedburner. That’s interesting, though, that the source code would include AdSense…hmmm. I tried to replicate but couldn’t get ads to reappear (they seem not to show when a feed result isn’t new/unread).
Best,
Matt
Here’s the code:
<p><map name="google_ad_map_KpKLWhOys1ulSuBg7ltzwBwIc-E_"><area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/KpKLWhOys1ulSuBg7ltzwBwIc-E_?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/><area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"/></map><img usemap="#google_ad_map_KpKLWhOys1ulSuBg7ltzwBwIc-E_" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_img&client=ca-ca-pub-4855495728103246&channel=paul.kedrosky.com/index.rdf&output=png&cuid=KpKLWhOys1ulSuBg7ltzwBwIc-E_&url=http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2006/11/04/hedge_funds_for.html"/></p>
<p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/InfectiousGreed?a=5CvJE2"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/InfectiousGreed?i=5CvJE2" border="0"></img></a></p>
I don’t know what to make of it.
If you’re interested in VentureDeal you might also be interested in Silicontap.com (and its sister sites), the back end of which is an extensive venture capital database which has also been tracking venture deals in Silicon Valley–at the same price point. It’s an offshoot of socalTECH.com, which has been providing the same kind of information in Southern California for many years–plus much more (interviews, news coverage, jobs, events, and more). (yes, this is a shameless self-plug
Thanks, Ben. Shameless, but useful nonetheless!