First of all, please allow us to thank all our wonderful publishers. As of 11:23AM EST on June 2nd 2009, Chitika crossed the 50,000 publisher mark. We really appreciate each and every one of you, and thank you for supporting us in our quest to make Internet ads better for everyone – advertisers, publishers, and readers.
On a side note, in the wonderful game of cricket, when a batsman crosses the 50 mark (called “the half century”), the game stops and the batsman raises his bat (sort of like one of our local Red Sox sluggers giving a post-home run curtain call). Some more cool Chitika stats for data lovers:
- Since the launch of Chitika | Premium last May (about 13 months ago), the Chitika network has more than doubled (an almost 170% increase) from around 18,000 pubs to today’s momentous 50,000+
- The growth has been 100% organic mostly with word of mouth and referrals. <rant>We are the world’s biggest Internet company that has NOT yet been covered by Techcrunch — even though we power ads for most of the companies that ARE covered by Techcrunch </rant>
- A key driver for the growth is that with Chitika Premium, Chitika can run on any type of website (Chitika old-timers will remember a time when Chitika used to be about product-oriented sites only). We are like the AFLAC of online advertising – you add Chitika to supplement your website revenue (sort of like what AFLAC does for insurance)
- Last but not the least, the HUGE new focus on “Respect the User“. The Chitika ads show up only when the user really really wants them (See our 3 Commandments)
None of this would have been possible without our wonderful publishers, and that brings us to part 2 of this post: I would absolutely LOVE to hear your feedback on how we can make the service better. We always strive to come up with new and innovative ways to please publishers and readers, but you are the ones who see our ads in action on your site day in and day out. Please use the comments box below — or if you are reading this on chitika.com, the feedback box at the bottom right of the page — and let us know what we can do for you. I’m sure there’s something out there that no advertising network in the world does that you want — and we want to be the network to bring it to you!