(This IS NOT a sponsored post)
The war for the best Malaysian blog advertising company has begun!
In the blue corner, we have Nuffnang who claims to be “Asia’s First Blog Advertising Community“. While in the green corner, we have Advertlets who claims to be “Asia’s Better Blog Advertising Network“. Which one of these two titans will emerge victorious? We will have to wait and see. In the meantime, it is review time!
Nuffnang
I come to know about Nuffnang a few weeks back. My first impression on it? “Why didn’t I think of that?” Anyway, it was a nice concept and all, but I wasn’t so sure if their idea would work. I found nothing much that interests me apart from “their story” (lengmou.blogspot.com), their wacky stickman logo / mascot and of course, the two lady models.
I gave no thoughts about this program until I read this post. Having a paid post in kennysia.com will definitely be a boost for Nuffnang. However, there were some mistakes and improvements that I have suggested here for Nuffnang and kenny. I noticed the title of Nuffnang’s website says, “Nuffnang - Malaysia’s First Blog Advertising Community“. However, in all their banners they used, “Asia’s First Blog Advertising Community“. Hours after my comment, I noticed Nuffnang changed their title to “Asia’s…“. I wonder if they changed it after reading my comment. If so, at least say thank you lah! Oh, maybe they didn’t because I sounded a little rude in the comment…haha.
Thank God I took a screenshot of it as a proof (and souvenir).
Now, more complaint suggestion for Nuffnang.
I know you have bought both nuffnang.com and nuffnang.com.my. However, you should official stick to one of them. Throughout your website, you used both the domains. It’s confusing and is not uniformed. Since both domains leads to nuffnang.com.my, I suggest you stick to that domain throughout your website.
I also recommend you remove that flash navigation bar. Reason? Firstly, I’m allergic to flash. No seriously, using flash is a No-No in SEO. Whatever you put in a flash WILL NOT be accessible by search engine bots. You can use flash if you want, but use it wisely. However, creating navigation links throughout your sites using flash is suicide. Search engine bots can only crawl whatever links that is outside of the flash. In this case, the links that are not accessible to the bots are:
1. our_story.php
2. advertiser_faq.php
3. blogger_faq.php
4. blogger_faq.php
Not much, but you decide.
Advertlets
I only got to know of Advertlets a few days ago. My first impression of it? Pretty impressive. I like the way they used AJAX throughout the website. Their AJAX-ed banner is a knockout compared with Nuffnang’s. It allows the banner to remain small, while being able to contain a hell lot more information in it.
So, everything is good with Advertlets? No way!
Advertlets has way too many ‘taglines’:
advertisers + bloggers = money + happy
Asia’s Better Blog Advertising Network.
Advertlets.com - Putting the bling in blogging.
Malaysia Boleh!
Majulah Bloggers Untuk Negara!
Need so many for what? Just choose one or two (max) and stick to it. May I suggest you stop using “Malaysia Boleh!” and “Majulah Bloggers Untuk Negara!“. It’s not because I’m not patriotic or I hate Malaysia or I’m inviting ISA officers to my house. Here’s my explainations:
Firstly, your website consists of 99.99% English words. The 0.01% is the two slogan above. And that is WEIRD!
Secondly, “Majulah Bloggers Untuk Negara!” is a plain rip off from the slogan “Majulah Sukan Untuk Negara!“. You simply replaced ‘Sukan‘ with ‘Bloggers‘. OK OK. It’s not wrong or illegal (I think), but it’s grammatically wrong. Notice that the slogan uses, “Majulah Sukan…” not “Majulah Ahli Sukan…“. It urges athletes to improve sports for the country. Therefore, your slogan should have been “Majulah Blog Untuk Negara“, not “Majulah Bloggers Untuk Negara!“.
Lastly, you simply have to remove the tagline “Malaysia Boleh!” because it is not suitable. It is like begging for sympathy of Malaysians to join your program for the sake of patriotism.
Then, there is the case of inconsistency again. Your title shows “… Putting the ‘bling’ in ‘blogging’“, while the one at the bottom of the page reads “Putting the bling in blogging“, without the ( ‘ ) symbols. I know this is a minor mistake but it shows amateurishness.
Advertlets provide a comparison chart that compares themselves with their “nearest competitor”. They didn’t mention who, but of course is our “NN” lah! I wasn’t too fond with a few things that they did and did not compare with.
1. Web 2.0 style logo.
So what if you have and they don’t? It doesn’t add any value to your advertisers or bloggers. Furthermore, according to this article, “There is no official standard for what makes something “Web 2.0”…“. Therefore it’s useless to claim that yours is, and theirs is not. Using bigger and / or brighter fonts is considered Web 2.0. Using ‘Beta’ to replace ‘under construction’ is Web 2.0. Logo of websites like Technorati, Weblogs, Inc., Wikipedia, and even MySpace looks ‘older’ than their logo but is still considered a Web 2.0 style logo. So in my humble opinion, their logo IS Web 2.0 styled.
2. Friendliness of logo.
So, yours are “Happy and laughing”, while theirs “Appears to be boxing and screaming”? I have to admit this is true. Their stickman’s hands are so short it cannot even reach their mouth, thus looking like they are asking for a fight. But then again, what’s your point here? It doesn’t add any value.
3. Meaning of name
Your name sounds like “applets” and theirs “Doesn’t appear to mean anything”. Dear Advertlets, kindly get your facts right. If their name is meaningless, that is a proof they are MORE WEB 2.0 THAN YOU! More and more Web 2.0 start ups come out with names that have no meanings! There’s Skype, Meebo, Zimbra, Wayfaring, Kajeet, Zopa, Pando, and more.
Again, all these three comparisons are VERY LAME. It shows that you guys are desperate and cheap because you’ll do anything to knock out your competitors (including punching them below the belt). This comparison is baseless, useless and meaningless. May I add, your minimum payout is RM200, while theirs is only RM100. Why didn’t mention this?
To be fair to you guys, here are some improvements you can have on your website:
1. Currently, the top bar that contains “Login, Register, Help” cannot be closed. One of the right way to do it is, click once it opens and click the second time it closes.
2. Remove “Malaysia Boleh!” and “Majulah Bloggers Untuk Negara!” slogans. It’s an English website. If you are serious in putting Malay slogans, create a Malay version of your website. That would be another punch to your competitors.
3. Remove the 3 comparisons I mentioned above. It is useless. Your facts are wrong. It degrades your image. Period.
4. Insert the minimum payout in your comparison chart, if you have the balls guts. People know the amount. If they don’t, they will find out. Not putting it in the chart only shows that you are somewhat intimidated by your competitor. Or better yet…
5. Decrease your minimum payout to RM100. If you don’t convert the currencies and just compare a dollar to a dollar, most advertising companies set a minimum payout of at most 100 dollars. AdSense is USD100. Text-Link-Ads is USD25 (no minimum for paypal payment). Adbrite is USD5. Setting a high minimum payout shows that you want your bloggers to work like mad, for a longer period of time before they can get their paychecks.
You may argue it is the same (that they will still receive their paychecks once they reach RM200) but it is not. Imagine you work for a company that pays you RM2,000 a month. However, your boss tells you that you can only receive your salary after it has been collected up to RM10,000. That means you only get paid once in 5 months. You still get paid the same amount right, but is it the same?
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Wow. This is a long post. Looking back, I commented more on Advertlets than Nuffnang. That’s because Nuffnang really has nothing much to talk about, really. Everything is short, sweet and nice. Straight to the point. And yes, lovely models. Design of the website is a little plain though, but it is the advertising campaigns that matters. And of course, the two lovely models.
As for Advertlets, the design of the website is really nice. I like the fact that you chose Yvonne Foong to become one of your Featured Bloggers. That will help her with her fund-raising campaign. I wish her well. Anyway, I especially like your banners. As Randy Jackson puts it, “It’s the bomb“. However you should modify your comparison charts a little. Those “3 things” I mentioned above really makes you look a little too desperate.
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Up to this point, I still have no idea who will rise up as the winner. What do you think?
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