I'm always on the lookout for new ways to advertise my blog and a new website Million Dollar Avatar my be the next big thing.
Mad props to Baron for breaking this story to me on his blog Million Dollar Avatar - get hits or die tryin’.
I signed up right away and it looks like this site just went live.
There is currently no fee to be a member though they do say they reserve the right to charge for "premium" service at a later date.
If you click on a members avatar you go to their blog. If you click on their name you go to their profile page.
How it works:
In its simplest, MillionDollarAvatar(MDA) works by users clicking on avatar image links or username text links. User can view member profile pages to find out about members, visit their webesite, read their 5 latest blog entries, add comments, see who else visited this profile page, see who else has this member in their favorites search user profiles, search for users by tag, etc.
MillionDollarAvatar(MDA) is membership based. That means to have your profile on MDA you need to register and pay the $10 membership fee (Read more about membership benefits). Once MDA has 100 or more members, the homepage will then randomly select 100 members each day of the week to display on the homepage (note: Until we have 100 members, the homepage will display each member in chronological order based on membership created date).
The backpage is where you can find 100 randomly selected members who have created a membership account within the last 7 days. The backpage is regenerated every 5 minutes, which means a greater chance to get your avatar seen and to find new members.
MDA also produces "The Daily 20" which is a random selection of 20 members each day. We post these 20 members each day on our blog. The goal for the The Daily 20 is to provide subscription access to these daily 20 sites via RSS readers and email - so think of it as just another way to get your site publicized or an easy way to find out about 20 new sites each day. Users can also search user profiles or search by tag. Searching by tag (aka category) is a great way to find communities of users who categorize themselves in the same manner.
source: the Million Dollar Avatar FAQ
I'm very curious to see how well this catches on. Why not take a minute and register?
Thanks for the mention. All we need is a proper A-list blogger to break this story in. Hmmm…
How about John Chow?
Wait a minute… Are you saying we are “Z” listers???
I was going to register and read this:
“All comments, feedback, profile descriptions, taglines, messages, avatars, contest entries, suggestions, ideas, and other submissions disclosed, submitted or offered to MillionDollarAvatar.Com on or by this Site or otherwise disclosed, submitted or offered in connection with your use of this Site (collectively, “Content”) shall be and remain MillionDollarAvatar.Com’s property”
I’m not sure how to unravel this legalese. I would assume that it means that MillionDollarAvatar owns everything as “content” and does not give ownership rights to our avatars themselves.
I didn’t register – I gotta read the Terms and Conditions again.
Ms. – I’ll change that. You are correct – your avatars should be yours to own. So I’m changing that now and any other issues or concerns, please let me know.
I didn’t build MDA to try and own your images, etc. I apologize for using the incorrect terms. I’ll work with you and anyone to help straighten those terms out so no one is concerned about ownership. Thanks for taking the time to read through carefully.
Kevin – thanks for the update. I figured that it wasn’t your intention and I’m glad you’re going to change it.
Kevin,
It sounds like you used a generic “boiler plater” TOS. One that is designed to say, “Anything you submit to our site becomes our property so we don’t have to get a bunch of forms signed just to show your links/images/comments.”
Is that about right?
basically. I updates the TOS to say essentially you own your avatar but allow MDA to use it for advertising or promotional purposes…like if we put screenshots on our ads and such.
thx again for all the support. just keeping an eye on things for a few days – getting the word out, etc.
you’ll see some more features soon enough.
I’ve just submitted. I am curious how well it will work, but thanks for sharing, anyway.
Regards,
WMA
Interesting Steve, Wonder how it will turn out for you
[...] days ago I wrote a blog post about a new site called Million Dollar Avatar. Before writing that post I signed up for an account and added my avatar to their [...]
Cool. I’m all signed up.