InsideGoogle

AdSense API Is For Community Sites?

Looks like the AdSense API is out of the bag. RateItAll.com sent out a press release explaining how they will be using the API, which seems to explain exactly what it does. In a nutshell, the API would allow community sites, like message boards or multi-member blogs, to share ad revenue among multiple content creators. In RateItAll’s case, they’d be sharing 50% of ad revenue on qualifying pages, presumably those with user-generated content. Members would be able create AdSense accounts, earn money and track their earnings.

The full press release:

Online Social Network RateItAll.com Integrates Google Adsense via an API to Deliver Revenue Sharing to its Members

RateItAll.com, a leading social network and review community, announces that it has leveraged the just released Google Adsense API to enable revenue sharing for its contributing members.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) May 18, 2006 — Pioneering online community and social network RateItAll.com today announced that it had integrated Google Adsense into its service via an API in order to share advertising inventory with RateItAll members.

By leveraging the Google Adsense API, RateItAll has enabled its members to create Google Adsense accounts, earn cash for their content contributions, and track their earnings without ever leaving the RateItAll.com Web site.

“Several months ago I approached Google about our vision of transforming RateItAll into a marketplace for content in which ad inventory was shared by all contributors,” said RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn. “Not only did Google thoroughly grasp what we were trying to, they had already begun development on the API that would help make this vision a reality.”

The program, called The RateItAll Economy, allows RateItAll members to earn cash for a variety of activities including using RateItAll’s Weblister tool to create and manage their own ratings list, adding a new listing to an existing ratings list, creating a profile with a photo, and referring new, contributing members to the community. Soon, the program will be expanded to allow participants to earn cash for writing reviews.

“I firmly believe that if you are going to build a business based on community contributions, you need to be prepared to share revenue with your contributors,” said Coburn. “The introduction of the RateItAll Economy continues our tradition of leadership by innovation in the peer production space.”

About RateItAll:
RateItAll is a vast ratings community and social network built upon one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of consumer-driven opinions, ratings, and reviews. Visitors to RateItAll can earn cash for their contributions, and using free RateItAll Widgets, can choose from more than 20,000 interactive ratings lists to embed on their personal Web sites. Founded in 1999, RateItAll’s mission is to enable the structured exchange of the world’s opinions.

The press release was held for twelve days, according to the date, so the timing may not be coincidental. I’m hoping we’ll finally see a post on the AdSense API blog, soon.
(via MEMwG > Google OS)

May 30th, 2006 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | AdSense, Advertising, General | 9 comments