We all watched with interest how the world’s first ad flip would turn out on John Chow’s blog. Ryan Stewart bought a 300 by 250 ad block and tried to sell it for $1,500. After two days he eventually sold it for $1,400 to Rich4Life, although Rich4Life said that they bought it for $1,250. Those guys then went a bit crazy and decided to sell it on to 20 other people for $200 to have 20 ads rotating for the last 10 days of the ad, which I think should begin at the end of this week.

Phew!

Now while nobody could say that all this tomfoolery hasn’t been exciting, it seems that everybody is trying to cash in on the fun and games. The eight ad blocks that John Chow now has to the right of his top post are selling for $500 a month. Two of the eight slots are filled with ad flip-type campaigns.

The first is over at emonetized where the Tim Schroeder is holding a contest where you can win one of four rotating spots where his purchased ad block is. All you have to do is mention the contest in a blog post or reply to the post itself. Is it worth it for Tim to spend $500 on an ad block? In this case, it surely is.

After just three days, his post has 125 comments and ping backs. For the sort of traffic that ad is generating for him, Tim has come up with a contest that will appeal to people because it gets them involved. It’s a game and it’s fun, and while more people are discovering Tim’s blog, his RSS subscribership will be increasing and he’s got himself some top publicity.

On the flip side (pun intended) is the other ad spot running a similar campaign. This one has been taken out by Stock Trading To Go – not the most inspiringly-named blog, but we’ll give it a chance. Blain Reinkensmeyer looks like a nice chap, but he’s going about his ad flip the wrong way. Instead of offering a contest to his 555 RSS subscribers, he’s asking them to bid on the ad block, starting at $500. What’s more, he’s asking people to send him $5 by Paypal to place a bid. There have only been five replies so far, and one of those was me bidding 5,000 cows for the ad spot; no response so far. Pictures paint a thousand words, as they say.

The ad flip for profit thing isn’t guaranteed. It actually feels a bit played out already, particularly when anyone with common sense will realize that he or she can just buy Blain’s ad spot for $500 flat next month and get a full 30 days.

I’ve had enough of ad flipping for now. I noticed that nobody is ad flipping anywhere else in the blogosphere, which suggests that this whole thing is just a fad that will die down. The only reason it’s working out for people is because everybody is going so nuts for the whole concept. It’s a bubble that will eventually burst. Fun while it lasts though.

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Tags: Around the web //