Alternatives to Chitika
Whether or not you agree with what Chitika's revenue auditing, no one disagrees that they could have handled the situation better and they have a bit of a PR nightmare on their hands. (And no, in this case “PR” does not refer to PageRank!) I don't hold any ill-will against Chitika and I think their business model is still viable, but it was overhyped. I mean, let's face it, there are AdSense publishers raking in thousands of dollars a month from Google, but you don't see AdSense being hyped nearly as much. Perhaps the initial lack of an AdSense referral program was actually a good thing, in that sense.
What's most amusing to me are the creative alternatives to “Chitika” (the name) that the disgruntled publishers are coming up with. The best I've seen so far are:
- Cheatika (from Jack of All Blogs)
- Shitika (from Shitika - Where's my money?)
These are all very amusing. Any others?
Mind you, this is not the kind of viral marketing that you want to occur. Did Chitika truly not realize how quickly this negative publicity would spread? Damage control, anyone?
Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real (printed!) introductory AdSense book for non-technical people, available at all fine bookstores. Be sure to download the free sample chapter for more information about the book. Or add it directly to your Amazon shopping cart!
 |
Enjoyed this post? Get free updates by mail or by RSS! |