Updates: dGM, MSN & dogpile
As most dGM affiliates would know, the company released its dGMPro 1.2 version last week. Initial feedback on the updates done to the system are positive. The focus has been on improving usability (the company had quite some technical and usability issues last year– they engaged a well-known third party firm to improve the usability). Many of these changes are long overdue, but now that they are in, we hope to see better results follow as well — in the end, that’s what it’s all about!
One thing I must complement dGM is on is that they are trying to gather feedback from the key stakeholders (ie. us affiliates) and making an attempt to incorporate that into their development. We are not an easy bunch to please and there will still be tons of items that are not implemented, but as long as they’ve made an honest attempt to listen to us and choose the best options that meet business priorities, it is a big positive for all concerned.
Another recent product roll out was that from Microsoft — the MSN AdCenter was officially launched in the UK recently. It’s been eagerly awaited; as most advertisers want to find something comparable to Google AdWords- it is unlikely that MSN will be able to provide the volume of traffic that Google gives any time soon, but we can certainly hope for lower cost and ease of campaign management.
While on MSN, many would recall Bill Gates’ statement that the company could consider rewarding (read “paying”) users for searching. There was a lot of hue and cry over the correctness of that approach to draw people to search; now, dogpile, the meta search engine has actually gone ahead with a similar plan. NetImperative reports that dogpile has tied up with iPoints to offer loyalty points to dogpile users for searching; like any other loyalty program, these points can be redeemed with various products, including books and airline tickets. Personally, I think this is a good concept and nothing wrong with it; it’d been more interesting to see the change in the search traffic landscape if Yahoo and MSN had launched something similar.
