The web has always been about communication and community. For many, it was no surprise when ’social-networking’, ‘AJAX’ and volumes of users came together to create last year’s big bangs of investments and acquisitions regarding “Web 2.0″.

Now, everyone has heard of MySpace, a juggernaut of this zeitgeist. Valerie Burgess (ProfileJewels.net) discovered a unique way to work with MySpace users some years ago. As Community Education Manager of RMX Direct, I am honored to present to you our new ‘Featured Publisher’: Valerie Burgess.

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Vince Panero (VP): How did you get interested in web publishing originally? What were those early days like for you?

Valerie Burgess: Web publishing was a natural progression for me. I started out at a time when programming in Basic, Q-Basic, Cobalt, and Fortran, was considered cutting edge technology–and women in the field was unheard of. During this time of course, the internet consisted of text-based BBS’s (Bulletin Board Systems). But once the internet moved into a GUI environment I knew I had to be part of this, so I purchased every book that I could get my hands on in order to begin learning. I spent the next 10 years as a Systems Engineer learning web development during my free time.

If anything, the early days were thrilling and exciting since this was cutting edge. It was also very challenging since the internet’s potential was only becoming fully recognized day by day. And accomplishing some things during this time was also, at times, frustrating since we did not have all of the tools then that we have available to us today.

VP: Can you tell us about your Myspace focused website? Having this focus, are there any particular issues exclusive to your site that you had to overcome to make the advertising model work?

Valerie Burgess: I have been on Myspace.com for over two years, being introduced to it by my oldest daughter. My husband and I created the first Macromedia Flash MP3 Player which was compatible with Myspace.com. It was skinnable, and could play multiple songs utilizing a play list. This naturally just progressed into ProfileJewels.net where our main focus still is to offer Macromedia Flash products such as the “Daily Horoscope”, “Up to the minute Weather for your City”, “This Day in History”, “Sports News”, “Amber Alerts”, and of course our far better MP3 Players. But at the same time we offer the typical profile layouts, graphics, text generators, and more.

I wouldn’t really say there were issues to making our advertising model work; I would say it was more of a challenge. Because the Myspace communities are quite large, traffic builds fast, leaving little time for anything other then getting your server upgraded in order to handle the traffic requests. But this of course means that unless you want to pay out of pocket, you had to find advertisers to work with, and you have to find these fast. RMX has been a blessing since I have very little time to run from site to site, trying to manage numerous ad networks, while also trying to keep up with my projects and server.

VP: Did you get into this with the idea that you would make ad dollars from this site? How did you initially monetize your site? What problems did you encounter utilizing these early methods?

Valerie Burgess: Before RMX, I ran Lead-based ads, had signed up for a few CPC affiliate programs here and there, and had only one ad network. I was far too stretched thin to have even considered bringing on other ad networks since I had no clue as to how I would manage or oversee them all. So honestly, before RMX, I was barely paying the bills and I was very frustrated with having to manage my ads as sole entities. It was insane.

VP: Why did you start using RMX Direct as your ad network management system of choice?

Valerie Burgess: Actually I contacted Right Media about becoming a publisher and was re-contacted instead about RMX. The concept sounded like a dream come true so I quickly responded with a “where do I sign up”. So in reality my initial thought was not that RMX would help generate me more revenue, it was more that it would make life a lot easier for me since at times I am stretched so thin. So when RMX did help in generating me a better price for my impressions, this was icing on the cake.

We had finally undergone a major server upgrade and I knew I had to hustle up some way to pay my overhead. Then I was contacted about RMX instead and came to realize that this was not only going to help me cover my cost, but was also going to help me make better use of my time, allowing me to bring on other ad networks in hopes of filling my inventory. Seriously, RMX was a blessing.

VP: What statistical changes have you seen since you started using it? For example, have your eCPM and revenue increased?

Valerie Burgess: Since coming to RMX everything has changed for us in amazingly positive ways. Not only has our eCPM increased considerably, but we have also been allowed now to focus more on the site itself again since we are running all of our networks from one location.

VP: What do you like most about RMX Direct? Are there helpful parts of it that other ad management interfaces simply don’t offer? And how does it address the specific needs of being a Myspace companion website?

Valerie Burgess: Well, I can’t boast enough about how RMX managed to literally change everything for us in a positive manner. RMX not only greatly assured that I am being paid the best price possible for each impression, but it also has helped me to better manage my ad networks. It’s freeing me up to take care of other things such as web development. Again with Myspace.com’s popularity, so much time is spent upgrading and overseeing our server, creating and supporting our applications, and making regular web site updates. Who has time for marketing when your hands are already so full? Because of RMX, I am now able to make better use of my time…it’s allowing me to actually have multiple ad networks running while I spend my time building onto the site itself.

VP: Do you have any tips or tricks that you think others using the exchange might find useful?

Valerie Burgess:
a) If all else fails, contact the RMX Staff because without a doubt, the staff will work closely with you to ensure that you fully understand your potential within this environment, and they follow through and assist you in utilizing this environment to its fullest potential.

b) Don’t be afraid to play with your network frequency caps and geotargeting because once you begin tweaking your networks within RMX, this is when you begin to better utilize this environment, potentially increasing your revenue to amazing levels.

VP: Do you have any final thoughts on this “exchange concept” (network transparency and competition, the utility of having just one login, etc.)?

Valerie Burgess: RMX is helpful in so many ways! There is, of course, the great ability to increase your revenue in leaps in bounds since this system ensures you are getting the best price for each impression. But because it also allows you to manage all of your networks from one location, it is simply a smart choice for both big and small sites.

VP: Thanks for being part of RMX Direct, Valerie.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Publishers, Direct Media Exchange. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.