In my never ending quest to get my web to pay for itself, I attempted to get on board the DoubleClick.net bandwagon last month (May) when it was in beta.
They were offering free enrollment in their program if you submitted info before the end of the month. Thereafter it would cost $995 to avail yourself of their ad placement services.
They promised to place banner ads on your web pages and help to pay the bills. They were gonna be the big Ad Agency in the sky that all us Internet addicts had been hoping for. Finally, I might be able to see a positive cash flow for this project, or at least an even cash flow. Maybe my web could finally pay for itself. I was jazzed! I was excited! The cavalry had arrived!

I read all the info on minimum hits and found that I qualified some months and not in others but, I figured, " Hey my site is cool...let's write and see what's possible."

I wrote a real nice introductory email and explained that I met their posted criteria most of the time and wondered if they would accept me. I did my best to make it look professional and read nice and clicked the send button.
Then, their email didn't work. All my mail bounced back to me....it was late...I went to bed.

The next day I tried again, I submitted a form on their site and wasn't entirely sure if it worked. I had to go to my day job so, I put off any more attempts.

Later that night I tried again....didn't seem to work again. Tried email again and requested verification on my submission and it seemed to go through so I went to bed.

The next morning I woke up and checked my email...and noticed that the email had bounced again..."No such address" so, I called them, discovered that they were in New York...and spoke with some woman who said she wasn't sure what was going on but that I was registered ok and I would be hearing from them soon. So as to be a nice guy I let her know that their email address wasn't working and she said she'd tell the webmaster. I hung up and figured I'd hear something in a few days.

To make a long story short, I never did.

I wrote it off as a bad experience.

Today (6/19/96) I was poking around the web and discovered Mark J. Welch's page called Web Site Advertising on the Internet: at http://www.ca-probate.com/comm_net.htm and read several articles on Web advertising and possible advertising scams plus a review of the "Commonwealth Broadcasting Network" which I had recently read about in an Inter@ctive Week article by Tim Clark. Tim's article again seemed to hold promise for my future so I tried to get in to that network. I got in and registered last night. It was easy...their system works well and is complete with instructions. I listed some pages and waited for the mandatory email reply.

This morning I received the email verification and info on placing their html code on my pages so that their banners would run. Off I went to the day job....

While at work, (things are real slow) I poked around the web, discovered Mark's page and read a listing about DoubleClick.net. That motivated me to go visit there again. I checked to see if I was one of those "chosen sites," since I remembered being told I was indeed a registered site....

I kinda hoped to see my logo or something up there. I was hoping that it was just that all this is new and no one had wanted to buy ads from my site yet but, that they would surely come...and then I saw....

Nothing. Nada. Squat. Zippo....no H4 listing.

Someone misrepresented something eh? I never did hear from DoubleClick.net.

So what's my beef? Why this page?
Well, I was so impressed by Mark's efforts, I wanted to relate this story for others to see.

Making our webs pay is gonna be no easy task folks. Believe me, I have been up over a year and a half and do all I can to attract advertisers in my "other" spare time. I have even had other folks try to represent me with zero luck. No one but myself has ever landed or placed an advertiser here. I do a lot of leading edge stuff up here and have taken on sub-projects like Internet Radio Hawai`i that are still cryin' for support. I know that I am doing good things for my community...hundreds of appreciative emails have told me so, yet it seems that very few in my actual community seem to care a byte.

I keep at it, night after night, day after day....brutal long hours when I might be down at the beach or riding my bike or playin' with my daughter....I've spent upwards of 35 grand on this deal and still I have great ambitions, great feelings for Hawai`i and the feeling that it's all gonna work but the doubts are beginning to creep in now too.

Maybe I'm just tired. My mind is numb. My fingers keep clicking on the keyboard.

I'm now successfully running ad banners for the Commonwealth Network and crossing my fingers...
....and I'm sayin' a little prayer to whomever might be listening.

I look forward to working with Commonwealth Broadcasting Network. Mark and others report good things. I'll update you here from time to time on my web's progress.

Some other time I may relate to you the Worldata.com fiasco and all I went through with their "link placement program"....that's a whole other lunacy.

Oh and then there was www.i-traffic.com, where lots of us registered our sites and spent hours providing detailed info on our rates and traffic and just a little while ago I discovered they were back but, none of us who registered are to be seen, searched for, or found now.....email to the principles goes unanswered...hmm...not cool.

Be careful out there folks.

I know that an awful lot of you are just like me....pursuing a dream, trying to do good things, pioneering in Cyberspace. For me it's like cooking spaghetti. You just keep throwing stuff up on the wall until something sticks.
And you keep on hoping and praying and working night after night, day after day.

All I can say, is: hang in there! ( by your nails....)

Guys like me appreciate what you're goin' through. Guys like me appreciate your efforts and enjoy your pages and sense that inside your chests lie super hearts that beat with such passion and intensity that you don't ever get enough sleep, that you skip meals and forego all sorts of other nice things in an effort to make a difference.

Just keep one eye open when you type ok?

Aloha,