Leadpile’s Blog

It’s a sad day in one of America’s great cities, and for one of the that city’s oldest businesses.  What can be said when a business that is almost 150 years old has closed its doors?  The last edition of the Rocky Mountain News was published this morning.  Yesterday, the owners announced there would be only one more edition of the paper.  It was not a total surprise, as the paper was recently for sale, but shock and sadness was felt in the newsroom, and throughout greater Denver.

There is little blame to be passed around, as the business model of daily newspapers has abruptly changed for the worse.  The poor economy has drastically affected display advertising, and classified advertising has either moved online or been drastically reduced.  The newspaper industry could perhaps overcome the loss of one revenue stream, but they cannot handle the loss or reduction of two revenue streams.  Heck, their third revenue stream (subscriptions) is also down.

Sadly, there are only about ten cities that still have two daily general interest newspapers.  A community is always served better by two voices rather than one.  More newspapers will surely close and some are looking again at charging for online content. (An experiment that hasn’t work for most papers)  If it’s not too late, perhaps some papers can figure out a way to monetize their websites.  (Please contact our V.P. of Marketing, Eugen Ilie, if assistance is needed.)

Tomorrow morning will be sad, and very different for many in Colorado.  Change is usually good, but when it is quickly forced on you, it can be unsettling.  Enjoy that cup of the coffee, and for many, the “Rocky” will be missed, but not forgotten.

Surveys & polls are often times a way to determine the public’s opinion on issues relating to politics, entertainment, business, and sometimes off the wall topics.  There is a website you can go to that allows you to see people’s opinion on literally ANYTHING you could imagine.   Buzzdash.com allows anyone to create a new survey (buzzbites) on whatever topic they want. Some of these buzzbites are about some really off the wall topics, but still very interesting to read about! Buzzbites can even be put on your own website to capture the opinion on any desired topic.

View real-time popular opinion on a range of timely issues.
Express opinions by voting or commenting on individual issues.
Post individual buzzbites to personal web pages, blogs or emails.
Create buzzbites for personal use, for submission to BuzzDash, or both.

Leadpile Lead Exchange should maybe come up with a buzzbite for our website, about various subject matters we are sometimes trying to determine amongst our marketplace.  So, is there anything you want to know the public’s opinion on?  This is the place to go to gather that information! Go take a look…. you might learn something!

     Leadpile has released today he first of ten new television/ web commercials called “Guess Who”. Andy Jacob, the CEO of Leadpile, says: “We appreciate the collaboration of our partners to help make the ten new “Guess Who” television/web commercials a reality. They are a lot of fun, and have an important message for any Publisher seeking to monetize their traffic, or Advertisers desiring Leads That Close.. “. 

You can see the first ones at the following links. We look forward to your comments as well. 

Watch Video 1

Watch Video 2

Press release: 

Phoenix, Arizona January 25th, 2009 – LeadPile announced today the release of the first of ten new television/web commercials called the “Guess Who” Commercials. The ten new television/web commercials feature “Guess Who” sound-a-likes, and feature the benefits and solutions of the LeadPile Online Exclusive. 

LeadPile’s new “Guess Who” Commercials have truly been a world wide collaboration. The ten “Guess Who Commercials” have been produced, edited, mixed and delivered, on three continents. At LeadPile, Lead Buyers receive exclusive “real-time” delivered leads from the Nation’s Best Lead Producers in the format and price they want, and the filters they desire. And LeadPile Lead Sellers sell their exclusive leads instantly, simply and effortlessly to the highest bidder, and keep control of their website visitor. Leadpile offers the most buyers, the highest payouts, and residual income from every lead.

Andy Jacob, Founder of LeadPile says, “We appreciate the collaboration of our partners to help make the ten new “Guess Who” television/web commercials a reality. They are a lot of fun, and have an important message for any Publisher seeking to monetize their traffic, or Advertisers desiring Leads That Close.. While the LeadPile technologies are what drive the lead Exchaneg, it is our customers  that always comes first. I would like to thank our customers for assisting in this remarkable collaberation, and we are looking forward to the release of the “Guess Who Commercials.”

LeadPile is the world’s largest exclusive online lead marketplace with Lead Exchange. LeadPile offers the lead-gen space the first ever, secure, online centralized location for buyers and sellers of exclusive leads to engage in an efficient, exclusive, lead marketplace.

The LeadPile Marketplace allows the actual originators of leads, and the lead buyers themselves, to decide what price they are each willing to sell, and buy, their leads at, and the way in which the lead delivery will take place. Learn more at www.LeadPile.com. To see one of LeadPile’s “Guess Who Commercials”, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpEf5bLdD0Q

Do you ever wonder how the online experience will change over the years?  Well, to look forward, perhaps we should look backward.  Do you remember how you spent your time online just over a decade ago?  You probably started by firing up your modem, and going to your AOL account.  If you ventured away from AOL, you would use Internet Explorer (maybe Netscape) to explore a few sites. Remember, you were paying by the hour, so you didn’t stay online very long, and you were tying up a phone line.  Also, it took forever for pages to load, so it wasn’t very easy to move around.

Americans with internet access were spending less than 30 minutes a month online just 13 years ago.  Today, it is estimated that people spend over 27 hours a month online.  There was no Google, and YouTube was still years away.  The Web was completely different back then, and to predict what the future will look like is difficult.  The safe guess is that we will be spending more time online, but how will the experience change?

For those of you in the online lead generation business, there is a great conference coming up March 4-5th, 2009 called LeadsCon. This conference is being held in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada at the Mirage Hotel. Companies from all over will be coming together to try and increase the effectiveness and success of the industry.  Leadpile will be a sponsor for this great event.  Also, we will be attending this conference and we are looking forward to meeting some new faces, and once again seeing the familiar faces. If you will be attending and would like to meet up, please let us know!

The obvious answer to this mostly rhetorical question would seem to be “yes”.  However, numbers just released from The Nielsen Company indicate that Americans are still watching a lot of television.  The older the person, the more television, on average, they are watching.  The way people are watching television is changing, and the report is even called the “Three Screen Report”.  People are now watching television on their computers and mobile devices in addition to the standard way.  These additional methods of viewing have added to the time spent watching television programs.  The average American is now watching more than 151 hours of television each month, or about five hours each day.  Last year people were averaging around 145 hours of viewing each month.  So, yes, technology is changing the way we watch television, but is it for the better?

In recent news, Ohio’s new payday lending law might not be going as smoothly as they had planned. According to dispatchpolitics.com, the public thought the commerce department (who regulates the payday lending industry) would be able to control the payday lenders from charging high interest rates on the short term loans.  It seems Ohians are getting around these new payday lending laws by offering short term loans under the Ohio Short Term Loan Act.  It seems they are trying to do anything possible to get around this newly implemented law.  Leadpile Lead Exchange will be keeping an eye on this to see if it affects the future lending laws of other states.

With today’s struggling economy, many consumers are facing the reality of being forced to look for new employment.  The unfortunate thing is that many consumers were in the same job for many years, and possibly feeling a little overwhelmed with how technologically advanced jobs are requiring people to now be. In an effort to help consumers learn all aspects of the Microsoft Office products, and other technical skills to be successful in today’s workforce, Microsoft has launched their Elevate America website.

This website is a great idea and something that I truly believe can be a great tool for anyone looking for a new job, or someone currently working and wanting to learn more.  There are various certification courses, Microsoft Office tutorials, E-learning courses and information about classes available in their area.

According to the website, these are the things they are looking to accomplish:

*  Expanded access to basic technological literacy and skills training.

*  Intermediate technology skills training courses, instructor-led and online, plus selected certification exams.

* Access to a new web portal that will help guide individuals to training that positions them for success in the economy today, and tomorrow.

Leadpile Lead Exchange believes that knowing all this information is very important in any career.  Having a company like Microsoft offer these services is a sign that everyone is trying to contribute their part in helping our nation get back on their feet. Knowledge is power!

CSOs also known as Credit Service Organizations are unregulated companies that are now doing payday loans and other short term loans like auto title loans. It seems that with some recent payday loan regulations, there have been some that have been able to avoid the regulations because they are a CSO.  Credit service organizations offer payday loans and other short term type of loans without any limitations on fees they are charging the consumers.  However, they were initially created to help register our credit repair companies, not necessarily be a payday lender.  According to the dallasnews.com, “CSOs in Texas were originally established to control credit repair businesses; however, in the past few years, small-dollar lenders are operating as CSOs under a statutory loophole that allows them to obtain “an extension of consumer credit” for borrowers.”
Leadpile Lead Exchange works with all sorts of payday loan leads. These are all consumers that are looking for a short term fix to a temporary problem. Based on this article, CSOs are the ones that are doing some of the lending, not necessarily payday loan lenders per say.  Bottom line:  as a consumer understand any loan you ever take out and the fees associated with it.

An updated report has been rolled out protecting the privacy of consumers online.  Behavioral targeting is something a lot of website owners, search engines and other online advertisers do to determine certain information about consumers online activities.  This report was originally rolled out in November 2007, however there was a need to make some updates to the report.

One of the changes made allows websites owners to utilize consumers information for their own website marketing, however they can not share the consumer’s personal information for other gain.  According to DMNews, the report also discusses the potential benefits of behavioral advertising to consumers, such as the free online content that advertising tends to support, as well as the benefits of personalization.” So there is maybe some benefits to behavioral advertising?
The bottom line with this revised report is that the FTC is trying to make sure that consumers are protected while searching online. However, at this point the “leash” is very loose, and it appears the FTC is trying to let the online advertising industry handle this on their own. Furthermore, I am sure there will be some sort of intervention if consumer’s personal information continues to be violated.
Leadpile Lead Exchange believes in protecting consumers information in a way that those that are not supposed to have the consumers personal information do not. We generate thousands of leads per day, and are adamant on making sure we protect each and every one of those consumer’s private information.

Being that this is a blog and we have an interest in other bloggers, I thought I would point out Time.com’s 2nd annual top 25 blogs for 2009.  Unfortunately, Leadpile missed the list this year, however this list is a very interesting list I thought I would share.

Many Leadpile Lead Exchange publishers are looking at monetizing a blog/website, or are looking for some new content for their sites.  These blogs might be a great place to take a look at for some ideas.

1.  Talkingpointsmemo.com- great source for news
2. The Huffington Post- political blog
3. Lifehacker.com- place to look for tips on making life easier
4. Metafilter.com- blog about anything readers deem important to share with others
5. The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan- very opinionated political blog
6. Freakonomics.com- economic theory and how it really relates to real life
7. Boingboing.com- geeks writing about wonderful things and presenting can’t believe it photos
8. Got2begreen.com- everything green blog
9. Zenhabits.net- blog about ways you can become more productive
10. The Conscious of a Liberal-economist with a lot of great views to share

and more………

Blogs, like all of these, are a great source for information and keeping up to date on current events.  Take a look, you might learn something new!

In a previous blog post, I discussed about a “car czar” being appointed to help with getting the struggling auto industry in the right direction.  However, the president has chosen to go another route.  

In recent news, Reuters.com is stating that the president has instead decided to create a government task force. It appears Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be the one to head up this committee. This committee will be overseeing auto bailout loans and other actions related to these struggling auto makers. Details are not out yet, but I am sure we will all be keeping an eye on this.
Leadpile Lead Exchange is anxious for the struggling auto industry to get back on track. However, if by chance there are still dealers or lenders looking for interested car shoppers, we might be a good match to look into getting these leads. Believe it or not there are still some wanting a new car, but I never would have guessed that when driving by the many “ghost like” dealerships. The light is at the end of the tunnel, and hopefully soon the president can be the one to ignite this.