Keep your Mouthshut and don’t Burrp
While I sparingly use Burrp and almost never use Mouthshut, I dont really see how either of the models can be money spinners for the owners or any VCs looking to invest. My gutt feel tells me that Mouthshut is probably making revenues of about $3,000 per month and Burrp is yet to monetize significantly. The visitor traffic numbers simply don’t add up to the large scale and traffic numbers that investors look for. I estimate Burrp is getting around 9000 daily page views and Mouthshut is getting around ten times that amount - of about 50,000 daily page views. For those not familiar,
Equation for free content portals:
High Traffic = High Adsense Revenues
So, some quick math will tell you that at a $2.00 CPM rate - Mouthshut makes around $100 daily and Burrp around $18 per day.
Both sites are very well designed (Burrp specifically) and some visitor traffic is coming in, but the numbers are still too low.
A recent Business2.0 article quotes CEO of Burrp - Deap Ubhi, saying that Burrp gets 80,000 visitors to the site daily. I beg to defer. Alexa ranking comparison shows not more than around 9000 page views - which probably is about 1500 visitors daily. I dont know why statistics reporting program Deap is using? Am I missing something?
My take is that these are both good free-content web models to be monetized by ads, but the time is not ripe yet. We’re still about 3 years away for these Web2.0 and “review based” free-content models to work in India. There simply isn’t enough of an audience still.
My question to readers… while the ad revenues generated may not be high enough currently - do these models have potential in the long run?
— Vishal Lamba Filed under: Uncategorized
Fair points, Vishal. I do agree that we’re some time away from meaningful monetization, but the point was to create enough brand equity early in the game to well-position the product to become a market leader when maturity settles in. I wouldn’t lie about our traffic numbers, especially publicly, so believe Alexa if you will. I’m sure all Indian internet users have the Alexa toolbar installed in their browsers, so it must be calibrated to perfection, right? Secondly, nobody has come up with a rule of thumb in India given that maximum surfing happens from shared IP addresses (offices and internet cafes).
Lastly, it’s “I beg to differ” not “I beg to defer” - sorry, I’m a grammar nazi.
Hi Vishal,
If you feel that ad revenues is the only way to monetize these sites, then probably you are being short-sighted! Its definitely a major chunk but not the only one!
Don’t know wat these sites are doing. But I can vouch for the data that they are collating. The reviews that are being amassed can easily be sold by making qualitative reports to brands! There is lots more to it, if only you widen your horizon.
Hi Deap,
Welcome to the blog.
While I completely understand your move and desire to build a brand - I personally dont see this to be a large enough B2C model that is going to be (mostly) supported by ad revenues (unless you have another secret plan on making money akin to subscription fees, restaraunt paid ads/publicity, events etc). I simply dont see the numbers adding up here or the potential for viral growth of such a model. Perhaps, I am missing something here?
Alexa uses a system of sampling from a large fraction of the global Internet population. So, the numbers on their site are very accurate and infact used by a lot of Internet pundits to analyze various online models. They apply the right scaling model to come up with their estimates - which are very accurate - and match those seen by site owners.
Also, can you share with us the data source that you have to backup your claims of getting 80,000 daily visitors. Maybe, your sys admin mistook unique hits for unique visits
Hi Santosh,
I’m not beng short sighted. Infact - go here, and see my signature
I completely agree that Ad revenues is not the “only” way these sites can monetize - but it is a BIG chunk of it. And, you’ve said that yourself, in your posting.
I’m sure these sites can come up with other unique ways to monetize - but ad revenues will be the backbone support. If that doesnt work - i’m not sure there is / are replacement alternatives that can take over as large revenue earners.
Also, while i’m sure they can sell critical data to brands - i’m not sure if these brands would be willing to dish out top dollar for the data - and how critical this data is for them, as opposed to the data they get from other sources in the market. Further, the data is open for anyone to come in and see - right? So, why would any third party pay for it? Unless, you meant some some sort paid/customized market survey study with profiling of users data.
Perhaps a merger with or sell out to JustDial would work well
1. Alexa data is wildly inaccurate. The data sources used by sites is their own log file or internal / external statistics programs. Alexa data is widely known among site assessors and senior SEOs to be inaccurate and easily manipulated. On the other hand, everyone uses it as a rule of thumb. I have seen alexa rankings of 5000 for sites with 5000 unique visitors a day, and rankings of 75000 for sites with 20k visitors a day. Both numbers checked by analysing logs with multiple stats programs.
2. $ 2 cpm — where did you get this from? It can be a lot lower than that - for forums - and a lot higher than that for certain type of content websites. I would say it is possible that it is 3-4 times as I have seen content sites with such CPMs.
Sysadmin mistaking hits for visitors - I say cheap shot! That belongs to the days of 1996, and I don’t think any CEO is such an idiot.
Despite all these, I agree with your basic premise in your post.
1. Sure, agree it may be manupalateable… but my guess is that 95% of the time it is right to 10% to 15% plus minus…which is good enough to give us a fairly decent idea / estimate.
2. my $2 CPM estimate is only for THIS TYPE (content category) of site. I am very well aware that this is NOT a standard… and some specific sites and blogs command a much higher CPM… and some lower.
3. You’ll be surprised what inaccurate data and hype people are creating in Web2.0… there is a lot of incorrect figures floating out there - even from the larger / VC funded companies. I dont agree w/ u that it only belongs to Bubble1.0 - this is a plague you will aways see not only in Web2 but in most business interviews in general - online and offline. Lot of people/CEOs prefer to hype to increase value.
Yes, it is true that often the figures are not right. Often outright lies. But Alexa should not be used as a measure of actual traffic - it can at best give you a comparative ratio when you are comparing two sites in the same category. I have had a few real nasty surprises relating alexa data to actual traffic. I agree with your general point though.
Deap, you are smoking pot if you want people with *some* IQ to believe your fake traffic numbers. While Alexa may not be accurate in providing concrete numbers, it does a very decent job of providing relative comparison between two sites.
Your reach is around 40 on Alexa. Your traffic is close to 10,000 uniques a day. Guaranteed. Prove me wrong and drinks are on me.
Sorry to break your bubble. But next time, think twice before cooking up a number.
cheers!