OIOpub Blog
The other day I happened to be browsing the search analytics for OIOpublisher (something I don’t pay nearly enough attention to) and noticed that one of the top ranked “questions” being searched was what do OIO advertiser stats looked like.
As you’d expect, it was quite difficult to find any examples (you have to go into the demo and find an active ad), so I’ve added a new tab to the demo that will show users what an advertiser sees when they are sent their weekly statistics email. Enjoy!
>> Ad stats demo link
After a couple of months of being unable to work on the new version of OIO, I’m glad to say I’m now able to get back to it.
I’m currently in the process of building a library of re-usable components that will deal with most of the laborious tasks automatically (the backbone of the opensource framework upon which OIO will be built). I did at one point consider using an existing library (Zend Framework, Kohana etc), but as many have found before me it’s not quite the same as doing it yourself.
As a quick example, I’ve most recently been working on an email component, in order to handle different protocols (SMTP, POP3, IMAP) and send / receive mail in any language automatically. Each component can be used independently of others, so as to make them usable in any development situation, but is kept as lightweight as possible.
Once I’ve constructed the final few generic components, I’ll be able to use them to develop the first prototype of OIO v3. As I mentioned previously, I won’t give any timeframes until I can tell you something accurate; otherwise it’s just a guess on my part.
Every so often I get requests for little additions for OIO. I’ve therefore just released a small plugin that tackles a few such requests in one go. They are not meant to be full blown features, but helpers for certain issues – such as integrating OIO with WPMU.
The main features are:
1.) Integrate a standalone installation of OIO with any Wordpress / WPMU blog (if you’ve got OIO installed as a Wordpress plugin, you can ignore this feature).
2.) Type a placeholder such as [% oiopub-banner-1-left %] into any of your Wordpress posts and it will automatically be converted into an OIO ad zone. The example would output banner zone 1 on the left of your post.
3.) Put an ad zone into your RSS feed.
For more information and to download the “addons” plugin, click here.
For the first time since I started this project I find myself bogged down in “other” work (ie. things I’d rather not be doing), which has meant reduced time for active development of OIO. What it has meant is that I’ve had more time to think about the direction OIO should be taking in the future; from 3rd party addons to the subject of this article, the marketplace.
I recently read an article by Lee Ka Hoong that looked at the benefits of BuySellAds. Lee ended by saying:
I have my own direct advertisers, but why I still want to pay commission to BuySellAds by selling banner ads [is] because I don’t have to do anything and I get advertisers.
It’s a common view-point and one that OIO is unable to fully address at the moment. Yes, this website does contain a marketplace, but it’s not able to channel advertisers through properly yet.
Why aren’t advertisers being channelled effectively through the marketplace?
1.) The link-up between the OIO script and the marketplace isn’t great. The data from individual sites needs to be better accessible from the marketplace to make it useful (ie. searchable ad zone data, pricings, availablility). There is too high a proportion of dead sites or sites that no longer use OIO (resulting in less meaningful searches).
2.) No promotion. Money needs to be spent on the marketplace – I’m sure that a setup such as BuySellAds spends a lot on promotion – rather than just focusing on selling the script. Essentially, a move away from product to product + added value services.
What can be done about it?
Reason #1 is something I can / will deal with during the development of v3 of OIO. Integration of fully fledged web services will mean more available data exchange, as well as more current data.
Reason #2, as mentioned, is about money. Just as other services use the commission they take from each ad sale to promote themselves, OIO would need a way of doing a similar type of thing. Product sales won’t cut it (and ultimately I’m in favour of making the product free), so it falls back to producing a recurring revenue stream.
If publishers like Lee are willing to pay 25% commission to ensure a stream of advertisers, then it stands to reason that they would be willing to pay a flat monthly fee to help advertise the OIO marketplace (providing it was of sufficient quality, of course). One step closer to the ultimate goal of direct sales and guarenteed advertisers.
This “communal advertising fund” could then be used to push a stream of advertisers through to sites they are interested in, via the marketplace.
I think I’ll keep it in mind….
This morning I got an email saying a purchase (on this site) hadn’t been confirmed via the paypal IPN, and was forever “waiting to receive confirmation from the payment processor”. Initially I thought it must have been a one-off, but have since received several more reports of the same issue.
After a bit of searching, I found the following comment by a paypal developer:
Apologies for any inconvenience this issue with IPN may have caused you. We are aware of the issue and working it as high priority, to get it resolved as soon as possible.
As a workaround, if you use port 443, rather than port 80, IPN will work.
Once resolved, we will update any threads created for this issue, so that everyone is aware. Thanks for your continued patience!
I therefore did as suggested and added the option to use port 443 (if the server supports it) instead of port 80, which did indeed fix the problem. I’ve also added the same code to the OIO paypal module, since port 443 seems to be the recommended default now.
There’s no urgent need to upgrade, unless this problem persists for a while.
So, if you’re experiencing any problems with paypal IPNs today, now you know why!
