Service updates

New stuff this week:

June 27, 2008 | Filed Under Beta, Features, Fixes

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Major new features and version uploaded

Today, one month to the day after we launched our private Beta, we’re happy to announce the release of a significantly improved version for our private Beta users. We received great feedback (keep it coming) about bugs and feature requests and think this new version is a big step forward.

Most of the new features are for website display sellers. Some highlights:

We’ve got a lot of new things on deck for the next few weeks. We’ll let you know what we’re working on so you can give feedback and help prioritize. Cheers!

June 20, 2008 | Filed Under Beta, Features, Fixes

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An Advertising Experiment

Sometimes people tell us the problems we’re solving are too big – that it’s OK to focus on small incremental improvements of the status quo.

We see a lot of room for improvement in this industry… room to improve the experience for everyone involved, increase the effectiveness of every ad dollar and increase revenue for sellers. We know there will be features we build that won’t work the way we hoped and that some goals we set won’t be reached. That’s OK with us – we are here, building isocket, to conduct an experiment in advertising.

The only way to find out what will work is to find out what won’t. To try, to fail, and to try again. Our Big Hairy Ass Goal is to “Continually improve the ease, efficiency and effectiveness of advertising”. It’s big and hairy for a reason – it won’t be accomplished in one day, or one year, or one product build cycle.

Our drive comes from the excitement of experimenting, and we’re thrilled to have you along for the ride. If this experiment results in a better experience for you and sparks discussions about what we believe in, then we’ve succeeded.

Update: I’ve gotten some good questions about how we “innovate solutions”, so I’ll write a follow up post outlining our take on the creative process.

June 18, 2008 | Filed Under Company

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Co-Founder presenting at Blog Indiana conference

I’ll be speaking at the 2008 Blog Indiana conference in Indianapolis on Aug 16th. I’m leading a session called “Want to make (more) money from your blog?“. Here’s the session description:

There are more ways than one to monetize your website – including new options you might not have heard of. John Ramey, CEO of commission-free ad platform isocket.com, will cover the basics of blog monetization, how to capture value, and what new options exist for bloggers.

The conference organizers are giving 15% off the price of registration to our readers/users. If you want to attend, here’s the discount link.

The “about” info from the conference page:

Local bloggers from across Indiana will gather at the IUPUI Campus Center on August 16-17th, 2008, for Blog Indiana 2008, a 2-day blogging and social media conference that aims to promote education, innovation and collaboration among Indiana’s fast-growing blogging community. The conference is sponsored by the IU School of Informatics.

Blog Indiana 2008 is a 2-day conference for both experienced and new bloggers alike. Sessions will include topics such as blogging for beginners, using blogs in your business, monetizing your blog, political blogging and more advanced topics. In the past, most blogging and technology-related conferences have either been too expensive or too far out-of-state. Blog Indiana 2008 seeks to bring a low-cost, high-value conference to Hoosier bloggers.

Who Should Attend?
Students, hobbyists and professionals are encouraged to attend to network and learn. Experience with blogging or social media are not requirements to participate; anyone with an interest in technology and new media is welcome to attend.

June 18, 2008 | Filed Under Community, Events

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Cat’s Out of the Bag

This week we released details about isocket to the public for the first time. We had previously only discussed features, such as commission-free transactions, with potential customers and business friends. We felt it was time to tell the world “Hi, we’re isocket. This is what we’re doing and this is why we rock”.

You’ve probably seen the new public homepage with product details and screen shots. While we are very excited to start sharing, one question we faced internally was how much do we share? The isocket team believes in transparency through and through, so in a tie-breaker we’ll always choose transparency. We hope to continue sharing with you and the rest of the public about our goals, what we think can make your advertising experience better, and what we’re doing about it.

June 18, 2008 | Filed Under Beta, Company, Features

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