You know what time it is....
Story time with Jongo :)
I've been writing blogs for a long time...Heck, when I started, we didn't even call them blogs, instead we used the term 'e-zine'...My goodness I'm old!
I had to dive into the Way Back Machine to take a snap shot of my first publication. And as you can see, my expertise was in the often misunderstood 'traffic exchange' industry.
(Snap shot of my old blog...Ahhh memories!)
I had a deep DEEP passion for these marketing tools and I was there literally at the beginning of the traffic exchange and safelist industries. Free website traffic was a thing, and I decided from a very early stage in my online career, this would be my focus.
Throughout the years, I started attending live events to help promote and build the 'traffic exchange' brand to the rest of the online marketing world. It was never looked at with much respect and most of that was self inflicted.
(I travelled a lot, to try to spread the message of these programs...)
Traffic exchanges always seemed to lack the 'it factor' and were often flooded with get rich quick schemes and very poorly run business models. Still, there was a group of us that led the charge and often got great results from using them.
Excuse me Jongo...What the heck is a traffic exchange?
(Heck, I even wrote a book about these things....)
As a model, I still think they are brilliant and we'll get into it soon. However the concept is extremely easy to understand...I look at your website, you look at mine. There is an extrinsic value placed on the user of these programs because the more they use it, they should in return get traffic in return.
Again, the model to me is awesome because we have seen what they can become in history....IE StumbleUpon!
But the rest of the world didn't think the same, and they started a downwards spiral into being filled with those schemes and inflated promises.
I gracefully stepped away from them about 5-6 years ago, sold all the traffic exchanges I owned and decided to focus on ClickTrackProfit and....This blockchain.
Still, the passion for traffic exchanges always remained and Blain and I always said...We'd build one, but build it better than what's out there. We have the dream to create the 'StumbleUpon' for Hive with Veews currently but we wanted to continue to bring people TO Hive, and thought a traffic exchange model would be perfect for that.
Here's a few issues facing the traffic exchange in 2023...
The traffic they deliver is considered low quality. Mostly because people aren't using them because they like it, they are using traffic exchanges to get people to look at their own products / services. So you can end up getting thousands of 'hits' to your website, with very little conversions.
The majority of the programs out there just look awful. The designs look like Uncle Ed designed them using Paint Shop Pro in 1997. The severe lack of professionalism in the industry just hurts anyone that wants to use them regularly. This is not always the case, but sadly it is the majority of the programs out there.
Because of this, most people have given up trying to get results from them, rather they use them for the games they offer to keep 'surfers' engaged. Which again, hurts the reputation across the board.
So along comes our little project...
Here's what we plan to do going forward to help bring a little bit more 'buzz' to the traffic exchange world.
Rebrand!
We're not calling CTPX a traffic exchange. I think that's old school marketing and we need a fresh take. As you may know, we've been on the 'content discovery' wagon for a while now and welp...The name just fits. So we're calling CTPX a content discovery platform.
Clean Look!
Like I mentioned above, most platforms out there are just eye sores. And I've always thought how a program or service looks, tells a lot about the member experience. I want members to LOVE their experience using CTPX!
Emphasize Hive
One of the majority issues that faced traffic exchanges over the years was the lack of embracing new tech. Crypto is a big deal and as online marketers and businesses, we MUST look at crypto for buying and selling our products. Our 'game / giveaway' in CTPX requires members to get an account on Hive to claim their CTP winnings. Slowly, we will introduce our members to the blockchain and even if it takes years, we'll still spread the Hive word!!
Focus On CONTENT!
Not just marketing projects...I have no problem with people trying to promote their latest opportunity, but eventually I want to see tons of Hive content and other blogs on the platform. We want users to DISCOVER cool stuff on CTPX and enjoy the experience.
Categories
And finally, we want our platform to grow by leaps and bounds so that we get tens of thousands of members xploring content at any given time. Which would then allow us to get our machine learning engine into place and then serve content that people actually wnt to see. Start seeing things you like, you'll see more of it and so on. This would keep people there for an intrinsic reason, they actually WANT to be there!
Obviously, there is a ton of development still to take place. We've got so many plans for it and our marketing campaigns are just getting started. But this is something I truly believe can offer value to Hive.
And hopefully, I can once again offer value to the traffic exchange world as well. I just need to stop calling them traffic exchanges lol
