Those who read my article "Advertising-Supported Software Model Needs Clean and Safe Solution" may wonder why I wrote about a company in advertising industry. That is because I worked in advertising industry before I came to Ames. A couple of weeks ago, I heard about Younexus through one of my friends. Younexus is a start-up company providing online advertising platform. Since I was in advertising industry before, this company inspires my interests to know more about it. I was curious about how Younexus targeted ad audience and how they could improve the click-through-rate. So I did some research and try some software doing advertising, which is powered by Younexus. After my homework done, I realized that Younexus is so different from my previous company.

Two things impressed me deeply on Younexus advertising style. The first is the unobtrusive advert window. The second is that it does not collect any information or change IE browser setting at all. Younexus is kind of doing open, honest and legitimate advertising. They target ad audience based on software category to improve click-through-rate. According to Younexus web site, they say that this kind of advertising is "Clean and Safe Advertising". This is important for building a good image of advertising-support software, and this is important for users to accept and use advertising-supported software without security concerns. I believe that Younexus can achieve big success in this industry.

The company I was with before is Gator.com. It already ceased operation last year. Although I already left Gator.com more than 8 years ago, re-thinking about the reason behind a failed company is still useful. When Gator.com was on its peak time, it appeared to be very promising. The click-through-rate can reach double digits. Click-through-rate is the percentage number which measures how often an ad is clicked. Researchers in this industry indicate that this rate is usually as low as 0.3% if banner ads appear randomly.

The click-through-rate affects advertising company profit significantly. Every advertising company pursues to increase this number. For instance, Google uses the keyword search and/or web contents to target ad audience to increase click-through-rate. What Gator.com did was through data mining technology. Gator.com provided a tool that helped Internet users remember user names and passwords and fill in online forms. In return, Gator.com asked for permission to tracks user online activities, e.g. the web sites browsed. As a result, Gator.com built up a huge datawerehouse. One of my coworkers told me that it was the biggest datawarehouse SQL Server in the world. Gator.com applied data mining technology using this huge datawarehouse to target ad audience. In my observance this is sort of aggressive. Eventually Gator.com smashed down its own reputation and damaged the image of advertising industry.

It is not fortuitous for a company to succeed or fail. Its fate has been determined when start-up has its vision to the future.

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