Advertlets - A Review..With A Big Login Bug Among Other Things and No I'm not paid to do this...
Today I decided to drop Nuffnang and put up Advertlets ads on my sidebar. Some of you might ask, why not put both instead, but just in case you didn't notice, there's simply not enough space on my sidebar for the two of 'em and Adsense together.
Anyways, I guess this is the start of my review of Advertlets. Do take note that they are not paying me anything for this, not even a contribution to my Xbox 360 fund.
First up, I like the entire look and feel of the main page and the dashboard. The main page isn't sparse, but not too "busy" either. However, I did find out a bug or two. Here's the sequence of events:
Anyways, I guess this is the start of my review of Advertlets. Do take note that they are not paying me anything for this, not even a contribution to my Xbox 360 fund.
First up, I like the entire look and feel of the main page and the dashboard. The main page isn't sparse, but not too "busy" either. However, I did find out a bug or two. Here's the sequence of events:
- Enter Advertlets site at http://advertlets.com
- Login with my username and password
- Browser redirected upon successful login to http://www.advertlets.com/publishers/dashboard
- Use the back button or the mouse button on my Intellimouse or backspace to go back to http://advertlets.com
- No indication that I've logged-in
- Login again with the same username BUT key-ed in the wrong password
- Successful login despite the wrong password, and browser is redirected to http://www.advertlets.com/publishers/dashboard
As a programmer and a project manager, I would most certainly give my developers a strongly worded dressing down if they can't get something simple as login, done right. The flaw even happens when you key in the wrong username (or even a blank password) for step 6, it will show a successful login for the previous succesful login attempt.
The dashboard is something you get to see once you have joined Advertlets. It shows your accounts (earnings) balance, profile, blog html codes, earnings and stats. These are pretty standard, but as a former Nuffnang user, I really miss the Analytics page, whereby visit information is logged down. I think it would be an indispensable addition to the dashboard.
In case you are wondering what does the "Stats" page holds. Well, it contains demographic results from the polls conducted by the Advertlet ads on your blog. To me, this is rather gimmicky, Internet advertising is supposed to be seemless and not disruptive to the entire user experience.
I wouldn't want to be polled at Kotaku.com asking what gender am I, etc, etc, for the sole purpose of being served better ads. This is the only reason why I chose the lite Advertlets ad, instead of the one with polls. I don't really want to bother my readers.
There's also a totally rubbish stats summary report which I don't know what to make of it.
This review does sound a little harsh on Advertlets, but here's one good point. I made 50 cents in less than 24 hours. Despite being slow, having money coming in at a steady pace is good, and as a bonus the ads do not look fugly.
In summary, Advertlets is walking a fine line between looking good and fulfilling its (and its users/clientele) needs. While some parts look really nice and the ads seem to function well, some parts feel like they are cobbled together by a caffeinated code monkey.. I know this because I have one in my office too.
Suffice to say that the login has a vote of no-confidence from me.
The dashboard is something you get to see once you have joined Advertlets. It shows your accounts (earnings) balance, profile, blog html codes, earnings and stats. These are pretty standard, but as a former Nuffnang user, I really miss the Analytics page, whereby visit information is logged down. I think it would be an indispensable addition to the dashboard.
In case you are wondering what does the "Stats" page holds. Well, it contains demographic results from the polls conducted by the Advertlet ads on your blog. To me, this is rather gimmicky, Internet advertising is supposed to be seemless and not disruptive to the entire user experience.
I wouldn't want to be polled at Kotaku.com asking what gender am I, etc, etc, for the sole purpose of being served better ads. This is the only reason why I chose the lite Advertlets ad, instead of the one with polls. I don't really want to bother my readers.
There's also a totally rubbish stats summary report which I don't know what to make of it.
This review does sound a little harsh on Advertlets, but here's one good point. I made 50 cents in less than 24 hours. Despite being slow, having money coming in at a steady pace is good, and as a bonus the ads do not look fugly.
In summary, Advertlets is walking a fine line between looking good and fulfilling its (and its users/clientele) needs. While some parts look really nice and the ads seem to function well, some parts feel like they are cobbled together by a caffeinated code monkey.. I know this because I have one in my office too.
Suffice to say that the login has a vote of no-confidence from me.
