ScratchBackThe Fun Way To Do Online Advertising

Over the next month or so you may see some graphical and link changes to our widgets. The beauty of being in perpetual beta is that we can continue to play around and test things.

So stay tuned, keep an eye out, and if you have any questions just let us know and we’ll be glad to answer them. We’ll update you on the testing when we can.

It’s Summer. July 2008 to be exact and we’re still in full swing of our beta launch. Yep, it’s still going. We figured we should give you a heads up on what we’re doing over here, so here goes.

We’re mostly working on the new changes out of beta. Well, we’re working on planning those changes and getting ready for development that is. We want to get it all done right the first time before go back into the programming stage.

When will it be done? Not sure, but it will get done eventually. Again, we have to do it slow and right. We’re not a million-dollar empire that can waste money away. We’re a start up!

So other than that, we can tell you that every month we are growing in terms of more tips and more users. It’s been a might growth that’s for sure. The other day we reached over 4,000 publishers in our system. Ok, sure, not a ton, but a great amount for a beta product tha did no advertising eh?

Feel free to leave your comments below and have a great summer, and don’t forget to set your tips high!

We’ve just released four brand-spanking-new widget designs. These are from our “let’s have some fun and be silly” line of widget designs. You can see them in action below, or switch up a current widget you are already running by logging in to your account and going to your widget manager and updating your widget settings.

Note: You DO NOT have to update your code to use a new widget design. Just keep clicking next until you see the code again and your new design will be live!

Click image to see them in full size!

So, what do you think? Should we get even more crazy with these? What kind of widgets would you like to see?

(Yes, we know you want smaller sizes and those will be coming soon enough).

Right now the minimum you can setup a SB widget at is a $1.00 tip. We set it up this way to lower the barrier of entry for people with lower traffic blogs. The idea was that their readers would be able to participate for a low cost.

What we have found during the beta is that less than 50% of the people using the widget have their tips set at less than $5.00. So when we look at that data, we wonder if it wouldn’t be best to simply make the minimum tip to $5.00 for everyone. What do you think? Sound off.

Note: Our studies have shown that the people who price at $5.00 and above receive the most tips out of anyone. Why? Well, we believe it’s the psychology of the matter. If a tip “costs” more, it must be worth more?

Consider that when pricing your widgets, and let us know about your thoughts on the minimum?

Last thing. The PayPal cut on $1.00 really stinks. On $5.00 it is much more reasonable. So actually, having a higher tip amount means you pay less to PayPal.

Congratulations to widget design #7. The user is DayDreamOz from Sitepoint. They got the most votes from all the entries.

Hundreds and hundreds of votes were cast, and #7 took in a whopping 62% of them. A close second was #26. This widget will be live and ready to use in the ScratchBack system in a few days.

Note: We’re also upgrading all the widget designs (no, not in size yet) with some updated looks coming soon too! Thank you to everyone who put in a design and who voted, great contest!

The contest ends tonight. Get your votes in now. Hundreds have weighed in already.

http://www.scratchback.com/design_contest.php

Over at JimKukral.com, my main blog, I’ve just released my new web show called the Daily Flip. It’s a show about marketing and being an online entrepreneur and stuff like that.

I’m using ScratchBack to help monetize it, check it out here on this video. See the arrow pointing to the ScratchBack widget on the right of the video?

We believe that using ScratchBack in this manner is a viable way to make money with your video or audio podcast content. The widget on JimKukral.com is only set to $10 for a week, as a starting point. A podcaster could adjust that to anything they wanted, based upon the “value” they put on their show.

For example, if you’re getting 2,000 video views a day on your blog, you may set your widget to be a month link, and make each link be $100 or more. That’s money that you didn’t have before, and more importantly, you don’t have to embed an ad in your video.

Give it a try? Visit ScratchBack.com today to get your own widget, for free!

We’ve move the widget design content here. If you’d like to enter, please do so at Sitepoint. Thanks!

Widget Design Contest Now At Sitepoint, Click Here!

Well, can you? If you think you can, then you should enter the ScratchBack TopSpot widget design contest. All you have to do is design a new ScratchBack widget using the requirements below, then submit it to us, and we’ll let our users vote on the winner.

And here’s the best part. The winner gets $200 in cash straight outta our PayPal account.

Ready to submit your design? Read below.

Official Contest Rules

Widget Design Contest Now At Sitepoint, Click Here!

1. Have fun and be creative!
2. Grab the psd file from this page
3. Size must be same as existing widget (200px wide), guides on the .psd file
4. Middle content area must remain white background
5. Widget must contain 3 parts (top piece and two bottoms graphics)
6. All graphics you use (if you use them) must be royalty-free
7. Color doesn’t matter, get creative!
8. Text on widget can be modified, but should keep similar theme
9. Design must be generic enough that all ScratchBack users can use (no personal information)

That’s about it. Just modify the file here and send it back to us. We’ll take all the entries and post them up for our users to vote on. Entries will be posted as we get them, and voting will begin at the end of January 2008.

Note: The deadline to send in your submission is January 30, 2008.

Winner will be notified via email and will be chosen by readers of this blog by a web voting mechanism.

C’mon, send in those entries! Need some inspiration? There are a few custom designs on this page at the bottom.

I would also encourage any of our current custom users who have made a custom design to leave a comment here with your URL so people can see your designs. There’s over a few hundred of them out there, so let’s share.

Shawn Collins, a ScratchBack user over at the Affiliate Tip Blog, wrote to me to tell me that a few days ago he installed the WP Stats Wordpress plugin and realized that it was tracking outbound links from his ScratchBack TopSpot widget.

I installed the WordPress stats plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/ ) a couple days ago and I just noticed that it tracks outbound links from SB. It was baffling me that I saw a bunch of URLs I didn’t recognize or remember including in posts that were showing in the top ten links clicked in my blog.

Great that I can see that info. People are getting a good bang for their buck. http://momscashblog.com/ had 5 clicks yesterday and 3 so far today from me – and they’re in the #8 slot on my widget. Not bad for $1.

Indeed. Thanks Shawn. If you use Wordpress, it might be a good time to install the WP Stats widget, and keep track of how many people are clicking on your widget links.

You should know as well, that one of ScratchBack’s future enhancements is built-in tracking.