Bye-Bye Adbrite

From their memo:

>Dear adBrite Publisher,
>
>Over the last few weeks, adBrite and its management have been
>evaluating the go-forward plan for the business. Given market
>conditions and certain financial liabilities, in working with
>our lenders, we have decided to
>cease operations on Feb 1, 2013.

Okay, I’ve been with that company, off and on, since I can’t recall.

The company introduced two items, one was a “interstitial” ad, a page between pages, and the other was a really cool piece of java scripting that ran an ad on top of an image. Sort of like copy-protection but not.

This was ’07? What I saw, at the moment the new stuff was introduced, was a way to take a pure photo-blog and possibly realize enough money to see it float, or pay its own way, or, at least, justify its own existence.

I started it with the name from Register4less, and the simple site, just an image, like the sister site, Humble Oils.

As I toyed with it, I realized I had back catalog of interesting images, nothing seriously outstanding, but not bad, and a daily image from San Antonio would be fun.

San Antonio: bigger than Dallas and more laid back that Austin.

With the idea burning bright on a cold spring evening in San Antonio, I went for it.

For $99 for a year, I popped it up on a FatCow site, running the usual stuff. I ran into all kinds of problems as I got dumped from several portal sites as the images were too commercial. In other words, I’m too slick.

What’s been fun, the rules are the same, even better now, but it was just cheap digital cameras, nothing ever over $100 in hardware, and a single image, each day, minimal tweaking, typically exported at 500 pixels wide, and loaded on the site.

adBrite paid for the first year or two of hosting, but then, in the financial meltdown, I had to move BexarCountyLine.com in with its parents, astrofish.net, and the half-bother, kramerwetzel.com.

It’s a low volume site, but I have had advertisers ask for listings on it. Low volume, but cool name.

Eventually, the astrofish.net volume and resource-demands grew to the point I needed a dedicated virtual sever. astrofish.net and BexarCountyLine.com moves to HostGator.

After one last roulette wheel of misfortune with tech support, I moved it over to where we’re all happily hosted on (mt).

The advertising gimmick, I quickly toned it all back, but it was that advertising script — originally from adBrite– that promised to be both lucrative and easily implemented, that’s what got me started on the entire concept of the photo-blog. That, and a couple of city daily images portals, which would’ve guaranteed traffic. Set it up and let it run.

It’s never made any serious money, but on some days, it’s a high point in my day. Last week I grabbed three or four images while I was out walking and none of them will make it on the site.

Why is that good? I was engaged. If it’s not fun — for me — does it really count?

The site has proven to be enormously satisfying at times, and forced me to grow in new areas. I’ll never be a professional photographer — that was never a goal. But I have learned new ways to look at the world, and in my own way, I can share a tiny part of what I see. Each day.

There’s been a new image up, some time between midnight and midnight, each day. Partially automated, but practically all hand-made.

I’ll miss some revenue, but making a go of online advertising is almost too much for me to manage.

Too funny, as it was the advertising that got me to start that one.

www.bexarcountyline.com