Publisher

Advertising Info WoodyTone.com is the ONLY blog/webzine that specializes “classic rock” tones, artists and – most importantly – gear! In other words, people who read WoodyTone share the same taste in music, and want to know about old and new gear that pertains to those tastes. WoodyTone is very specific: It is not just another “all guitar news for everyone” blog. It is also professional: Every post is written and/or edited by a professional journalist. WoodyTone’s reporting and research has influenced and informed articles in major magazines (e.g., Guitar Player, Premier Guitar) and websites (e.g., ModernGuitars.com, Gibson.com), and has spurred debate on too many web forums to list (e.g., theGearPage.net, MyLesPaul.com, Fender.com, etc.). Launched at the tail end of Q1 ’09, WoodyTone has quickly established itself as THE place to go for useful, interesting tone info, and has steadily built a following of thousands of readers. Please see quantcast.com for WoodyTone’s traffic and demographics. Quantcast is the best publicly-viewable web traffic measurement software. (For more about web traffic measurement, please see below.) WoodyTone readers want to know: > What gear a certain artist used “then,” and what he uses and tinkers with “now.” Apply that across the full spectrum of “older” artists (e.g., Edward Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley, Allen Collins, etc.) and some “newer” ones (e.g., Joe Bonamassa, Tommy Thayer, Derek Trucks, etc.), and there’s a TON to write about! > Info on and reviews of new (and old!) CDs and DVDs. > Insight about everything in the “tone chain” from everyday Joes who have hard-won tone knowledge and, most especially, from artists and experts including manufacturers. > New gear news, new gear reviews (what gear has the WoodyTone stamp of approval), what gear to buy, what gear they absolutely must buy! As you know, targeted advertising to a fully-qualified audience is the holy grail, and that’s what WoodyTone provides. Rates Did I mention that advertising here is pretty darn cheap? > “Sponsored by” text link right above the menu bar (Home, About, etc.). Link appears on every page that is viewed. $100 US/mo. > A 125X125 pixel button advertisement is US$30 per month. > A 468X60 banner advertisement at the top of the page is $US50 per month. Click here to reserve a spot! A Quick Education About Traffic Measurement If you read my bio, you will see that I’ve been involved in all media types – and in some respects was a web-media pioneer. As a result, I’ve learned a thing or two about traffic measurement. Following are a few items that in my experience lots of people aren’t aware of, and which will help you decide where and how to spend your advertising dollars: > Almost all properties in all media (web, TV, print) exaggerate their “traffic” (Nielsen TV ratings, ABC circulation, etc.). This always involves exploiting advertisers’ ignorance in some way. I find this distasteful – and dishonest – and won’t do it. So take all such numbers with a grain of salt unless you can measure them yourself. > The often-mentioned ability to finely measure web traffic is a myth right now. If it wasn’t, there long ago would’ve been one standard. In some ways, web traffic measurement is less accurate than measured magazine circulation – but everything is WAY more accurate than TV ratings! > On the web, hits don’t mean anything useful. A hit is equal to one element downloaded from one webpage. So if a user visits a page with an article, two photos and three ads on it, that’s six hits. Hits were quoted in the early, VC-backed days of the web because those were (and still are) always the highest numbers. > You as an advertiser will be most interested in users, or what quantcast calls “people;” and page views, which are a rough measure of audience engagement. Page views will be much more interesting to you when advertising in a blog format because the same ads are on every page. This is not true of all websites. > PLEASE CHECK the traffic of various websites using quantcast before you believe what you hear or read about other websites’ traffic. If they don’t use quantcast it’s not because they can’t. > Quantcast is the best and most-recognized “traffic measurer of record” on the web (often quoted in news reports on companies, etc.). The other major free traffic-measuring site is amazon.com-owned alexa.com. Alexa has a poor reputation – notably at the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau, which also really dislikes the complete-BS Nielsen NetRatings) – because it isn’t very accurate. Alexa is mostly an indicator of visit FREQUENCY rather than site traffic – meaning if you go to your own web site 100x/day, you will get a higher alexa ranking even though your visits aren’t really “real” traffic. Hopefully that makes things clearer. If you have any questions about this stuff, please ask.