How did Guba dupe everyone into writing up its “Tell a Friend” affiliate deal to pay out 25 cents to people who refer new users? People, it’s a quarter! When I visited the Guba offices recently, they grabbed me a couple quarters out of a company bucket to pay for the parking meter in front. It’s quite seriously chump change to a profitable company that’s making millions each year.
Guba probably got more free advertising out of its press release than it will ever pay out to its users. Even if the company signs up 1 million members through the program, it’ll cost $250,000 — not bad considering today’s buyout prices (see: Grouper’s $65 million) amidst heavy competition. If the thing gets scammed by people using hundreds of fake emails, well, Guba’s loss…but I’m not sure that “intriguing move” or “a real gamble” is the way to describe it.
P.S. According to a poll of more than 800 of our readers, Guba is seen as second-most likely (after far-and-away winner YouTube) video site to get bought next.
5 comments so far
9:42 PM PT
This quarter business is catching. The NY Times had a headline that showed up practically a few items following this in my RSS reader: “No Quarters for the Meter? No Problem.” It’s about parking meter payment, however, through smart cards and cell phones.
And it reminds me of the classic C.M. Kornbluth sci-fi story, The Marching Morons, in which the tagline on one popular future TV show is, “Would you buy it for a quarter?”
10:09 PM PT
Well, they even got you to write about it. ;)
I have to say that this is very clever on their part. They already got a to of free press and I would pay a quarter any minute for every user that we could get to check out our site. Wait, we are not VC funded so will have to pass on this but if we could still get these headlines for a nickel, perhaps will have to give this a try. :-)
10:56 PM PT
Isn’t it obvious why everyone is writing up the Guba story? They want to get in on some of that sweet quarter action!
Actually, if you look at the Guba affiliate terms, it’s even sweeter for Guba: they don’t pay until you reach $25, so if you refer only 99 users you get nothing, it’s that magical one hundredth user that earns you the bucks.
Also, the 25c per user likely pales in comparison to the costs and (wasted?) effort that goes into developing and managing the affiliate program. Time will tell if that effort could have been better used to, I don’t know, make a better product?
12:00 AM PT
Video sites get a lot of comments; if everyone who wants to make a comment has to register and the publisher gets a quarter for everyone who registers through their pages - then said video site will be taking some number of small publishers out to dinner each month. Users are looking for an alternative to the increasingly corporate look and feel of YouTube, Guba’s made a bunch of interesting moves lately and this is just one of them. It was a slow news day though, wasn’t it! lol, and I didn’t even get a quarter out of it ;)
6:31 AM PT
niice… Om, much respect. Now if you can only address how techcrunch has lost its quality from advertising all the non web 2 bs, crunchgear, technology, advertising, ect…
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