Scheduled Maintenance (Aug 29th to Sept 1, 2008).
We will be performing upgrades, revenue partner additions and maintenance to the EVO Manager/ Admin.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Have a great weekend.
–EVO Team–
From our Engineering Department:
At 3:45 in the morning is when our sites are getting indexed by search engines and so is some of the heaviest and most ruthless traffic we get. We are working on the physical architecture for our upcoming release on August 14th, but the kind of traffic we’re getting means that we’re getting pretty heavily referenced by search engines.
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If you are a client, feel free to call regarding any strategy, concerns, future plans…etc. As you can imagine we get flooded with hundreds of “one line emails,” and many of the questions are answered in our Questions and Answers section of this blog.
However, in an effort to keep all clients in the loop regarding platform performance, I (Mark A. Michael) will update this blog more frequently as our latest release on August 14th nears.
The current traffic stats and revenue reporting are merged together, except for the current day’s traffic. So the traffic stats are reported for past days when the revenue stats are available for that day.
We are in the process of revamping our reporting to allow for traffic stats viewing even if there is no revenue reports for that day. You will see that in the coming weeks.
We are currently transitioning our caching, analytics, and web servers to a new data-center to take advantage of our new module based version 4 framework. This process should be completed by early next week and you will see a considerable change in site speed and uptime.
Great post by Elliot and great follow-up from Owen on this subject here (http://www.elliotsblog.com/index.php/2008/03/21/domain-industry-tsunami/#comment-3774)
The paradigm shift is finally happening, and we are now forced to re-think the true potential of a domain name. What we have come to realize is that providing legitimate value is really the only key to sustainability.
This is what has broken the parking industry. Domain investors and parking companies were provided with monetary value, but two very key parts of the equation felt they were left out: 1) those that provided means to monetization (advertisers) and 2) the users that landed on parked pages.
1) result: GOOG and YHOO tightening up on parking practices
2) result: Snowe Bill tightening up on domain name use
A little over a year ago, we saw the tide receding (using Elliot’s analogy). Rather than head to higher ground, we put in a lot of time and effort building out a platform that can maneuver the coming ‘tsunami’ - EVO Landing (www.evolanding.com).
The EVO platform was built with an understanding of the need to provide legitimate value to all parts of the equation - monetary value to domain investors, qualified leads to monetization partners, and quality content and features for users who happen upon one of the sites in our network (as seen by our average return rate of 10%).
If you have a great domain name for jobs, it should be a place where people can lookup local jobs, compare salaries, and apply. If you have a great domain name for travel, it should be a place for people to read about a destination and book travel/accommodations. etc.
To develop them out one by one would be ideal - but to acquire relevant content and figure out a means to monetization one by one across a portfolio of varied domains is not always feasible - cost and time prohibits.
If you are in such a situation and have great domains, feel free to take a look at what EVO has to offer. We are here to help build sustainability.
(we will be speaking on this subject at the next Domain Round Table coming soon!)
I have been wanting to post; here is what I/ the team have been up to…
The key to EVO’s growth and sustainability is our ability to provide legitimate value - to the domain investors on our platform, to the partners that provide content and a means to monetization, and to the actual users who navigate to and use the sites in our network. Bringing these three fronts to a point remains the core focus of the EVO platform buildout.
Our tiger team of developers has been furiously working throughout February and March to meet the massive task list outlined in Project Spitfire (on our blog). Hopefully you’ve noticed the changes, but just in case you haven’t, here are a few of the more prominent features already spun out of Spitfire:
- Podcast module launch (partnership with Podcast.com)
http://www.mercedesmonthly.com/podcasts
- Downloads module launch (partnership with Software.com)
http://www.stocktrades.com/downloads
- Video module upgrade (partnership with ClipSyndicate)
http://www.hollywooddaze.com/videos
- Jobs module upgrade (partnerships with CareerBuilder and Payscale)
http://www.motorcycling.com/careers
- Deals module upgrade with subcategories and wishlist (partnerships with Shopping.com & Wishpot)
http://www.bluetoothshopper.com/
As we extend our platform reach and provide more value to site visitors, we have realized an increase in user return rates (network average increase from under 5% to 12%) and search engines have rewarded us with higher rankings and additional search traffic. With the launch of our internal ad distribution network and geo-targeting capabilities, EVO is able to capitalize on the value provided to visitors and translate this into increased revenues for our clients and partners.
We value any feedback, feel free to contact me at 206-441-4399 to discuss our strategy.
Project Spitfire: The EVO development team is undergoing a module development blitz over the following weeks. What will emerge by April 9 is a mutlipurpose media network, which you as our clients are a part of. Together we can compete with the likes of M and DM… call for more details…
The last 3 days have be going amazingly fast and we have been in the ZONE! We launched v3.1 which enhances the flexibility for additional custom modules as well as pulling additional content and media to bring in more relevant Ads.
On the Revenue side:
All the earnings you have earned as a client since being on our platform has been logged and we are putting together the interface for your management system.
Reporting has been lagged ( 1 to 2 days) as we are updating the back end to bring the revenue streams directly to your management console. Your patience is greatly appreciated.
Currently we are updating the back-end for additional earning(s) channels. For those clients who have been with EVO for the past 30+ days we have back logged revenue from partners and affiliates for you coming to your management reporting soon.
In the next couple hours we will be launching the first of our (many to come) rapid development modules. The EVO team worked throughout the weekend (still here). For our clients’ please feel free to write in to know how the new modules could better perform on your domain(s). The new module will be deployed across a series of domains in the EVO network over the next couple of hours. Enjoy!
Version 3 (v3) has now been launched and is propagating throughout the network as you read this. One of the most apparent updates on v3 is our modular-based structure. Each module is now optimized and styled relative to its content (check out a ‘video’ page versus a ‘deals’ page). More color templates and styles to come shortly thanks to our awesome design team. Less apparent updates on the backend include vastly improved semantic analysis and content distribution system – this means more relevant content for your websites.
To populate this content distribution system, we’ve brought on new content/monetization partners onboard, namely: Shopping.com, Epinions, and Shareapic. We’re also in the final stages of talks with Software.com and Podcast.com, so stay tuned for that. Today the EVO system is monetizing on a cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-action (CPA), and cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Next up is closing partners on cost-per-lead (CPL), which will initially target areas of our network such as autos, education, finance, healthcare, and real estate.
Thank you again for your support and continued confidence in EVO Landing. As always, suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated (especially regarding our v3 release!).
On a secondary note the main EVO Landing site went down for 12 hours but not the network sites. Sorry if anyone was worried about EVO going down…we will be here for long haul!
*Sites are being updated please be patient as ads, content, products, videos…etc resolve.
