A New Big Idea in the Internet Named Examiner

Review of Examiner.com as a Potential Web 2.0 Website

May 19, 2009

Examiner.com is a rapidly growing website launched in 2008; it is based on a brilliant modification of an old idea in the scope of web 2.0.

Web 2.0 was a revolutionary advancement in the internet, as users enjoy a virtual environment in which they can have role (c.f. Internet Culture). On the other hand, the development of online advertising provided new opportunities for making money over the internet. Moreover, the importance of search engines was strongly increased by rapid growth of the internet contents; as the main source of traffic for almost all websites is search engines (except e.g. email providers).

Therefore, article-based websites paying to their contributors came into the online business. It is based on a mutual benefit, as the websites actually share their revenue from online advertising with the contributors. Among several examples, Examiner.com attracted a considerable attention in the past year, due to its rapid growth. However, it is subject of controversial debates, as there are both positive and negative views about its future.

The Idea of Examiner.com

Examiner.com, instead of creating general categories, assigned a specific category to each expert Examiner (in some cases, examiners can have a second column too). As the main problem in this business is the creditability and quality of the contents contributed by a broad range of writers, Examiner.com attempts to control this issue by hiring expert Examiners.

However, this brilliant idea did not work perfectly. Although the Examiners are experts, for some of them, the primary motivation is to make money; thus, they are thinking of mass production of web contents. As a result, Examiner.com is now full of low-quality contents, as well as many high-quality contents.

This also caused another problem for Examiner.com, as some of the Examiners found this situation frustrating and became inactive. Although Examiner.com aims to remove the inactive Examiners by prior notices, it is just a remedy not an ultimate solution.

Examiner.com Paying System

A doubtful point about Examiner.com is its high paying rate, which is currently $0.01 for every page view (PV). Since this value is significantly higher than those of rivals; some believe it is just a trick for expanding their business. Whether changing this value or not, this value is reasonable.

For a content-based webpage, the revenue through AdSense is normally $1-5 per 1000 PVs. According to this value, some believe the $0.01/PV is unreal and impossible in practice. However, it depends on the advertising scheme used.

First, Examiner.com use graphical ads, which normally have higher price and click rate. Second, Examiner.com is not based on a relevant ad system, and irrelevant (tempting) graphical ads may attract the attention of any visitor regardless of his/her purpose for surfing the website.

Like Google AdSense having Cost Per Click (CPC) scheme, there are several leading companies which sell ads based on Cost Per Impression (CPM), and the usual price is $1-5 per 1000 PVs. In this case, the revenue is proportional to the number of ads. In other words, if using 4 ads on a single page, the revenue is 4 X $1-5 per 1000 PVs.

However, there are some requirements for this kind of online adverting, but there should be no worry for a leading website like Examiner.com to do so. Since advertisers of this kind look for better visibility, the cost is much higher for famous websites with high traffic.

On the other hand, Examiner.com accepts direct advertising (for example see the bottom of right column in the Picture attached). In this case, the advertising cost is calculated on a CPM basis, and the price is much higher.

Examiner.com Future

Apparently, Examiner.com aims to focus on quantity first, and then quality. It is a correct strategy in the online business, as the success is always for the internet giants. The internet business is indeed a perfect example of Friedrich Schiller’s famous quotation about the civilized world that “the rich become richer and the poor become poorer”.

In other words, the first requirement for success in the internet environment is to be famous and popular; then focusing on quality. This is a repeated scenario for several internet giants, and also middle companies (websites). In a different context, forums pay members to post (i.e. usually low quality posts), when becoming a big forum, it normally attracts the attention of the internet users.

As the final words, Examiner.com is a big company with a well-established strategy. People may witness some failures in this transitional stage, but soon they will become one of the internet giants with unique service, as can be judged from their operation.

The copyright of the article A New Big Idea in the Internet Named Examiner in Internet is owned by Ali Eftekhari. Permission to republish A New Big Idea in the Internet Named Examiner in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Oct 26, 2009 9:20 AM

Guest :

Examiner doesn't pay .01 per click or $10 per thousand. They advertise that but, in reality, pay less. I've made less than $8 per thousand since I started writing for them and for the amount of work you have to put in but with no payment and low page views payment it's a bad site to work for. I stopped writing for Examiner after three months as do a lot of their writers. It's not worth most people's time, not with the low money you make. I think they're the worst website online for writers.