Escalate Media

ContractorTalk Launches Niche Social Network

Building on the success of Contractor Talk’s forum with over 74,000 members, is Contractor Talk 2.0 — an enhanced niche social network.

“We have created a niche social network platform that will offer product reviews, customizable toolboxes, an area for showcasing projects, and many other engaging tools. With all of the new tools made available to our already engaged membership, we will see continued growth and expansion in the B2B sector, serving professional contractors,” says Wingate.

The new site launched Tuesday, April 26th 2011at:http://www.contractortalk.com

Features include:
Forums – to discuss business and get advice from other professionals
Blogs – to share stories and experiences
Projects – to show off completed projects with photos
Reviews – to find and rate tools of the trade
Customizable Toolbox –show off your toolbox and see what other contractors are using
Roofing contractors, landscaping contractors, plumbers, electricians, and even solar energy contractors can find and share valuable information in this online community.
Take the tour here: http://www.contractortalk.com/community/tour

Check Out the Full Press Release Click Here.

Escalate Media Acquires LumberJocks, HomeRefurbers, and GardenTenders

2011 is off to a great start with LumberJocks, HomeRefurbers, and GardenTenders becoming part of the Escalate Media network of sites. The acquisition maintains the original team behind these websites but incorporates Escalate Media’s resources for the best approach towards future growth and development. Staying true to the original vision while meeting the needs of these ever-growing communities led to this win-win decision.

Expanding our Home & Garden Vertical is an exciting development that increases opportunities for both advertisers and community members. We are looking forward to working with the team behind these websites to further the presence and outreach among home and garden audiences on the web. We also look forward to being an integral part of these communities, in addition to already being longtime fans of these websites.

Welcome LumberJocks, HomeRefurbers, and GardenTenders to the Escalate Media family!

Escalate Media’s Communities Going Mobile

Escalate Media has recently launched their mobile platform for 8 of the network’s sites including: Contractor Talk, Electrician Talk, Paint Talk, Plumbing Zone, Woodworking Talk, DIY Chatroom, A   Full Cup, and Sprint Users.  Within days there were multiple thousands of app downloads on both the iPhone and Android platforms. The new platform allows for push notifications, efficient forum browsing and posting, the uploading of photos, private messaging, an more. Escalate Media plans to launch other communities within the network over the coming weeks. This has definitely been a much anticipated enhancement to the various online communities. The user feedback has been fantastic and the growth in community participation via a mobile devices will only continue to accelerate.

Escalate Media Merges with The Building Network

We are very excited at Escalate Media to announce a major business move that will start 2010 off with a blast. Effective January 1, 2010, The Building Network will become a part of the Escalate Media family of sites. This is something that has been in the works for many months now and has finally come to fruition. The Building Network’s founder will become a part of the Escalate Media team of partners and in a single day, Escalate Media adds a new vertical to the family.

The Building Network features fantastic communities such as Contractor Talk, DIY Chatroom, Paint Talk, and many many more. This is a growing network of sites for professional contractors and also a few sites geared towards the do it yourself crowd. With the addition of multiple strong trafficed and niche oriented sites, Escalate Media now has even more to offer its advertisers and its amazing community membership.

The Escalate Media team is looking forward to a very successful and exciting 2010 and we wish everyone much success!

AFullCup.com Reaches 1,000,000 Monthly Visitors

Since acquiring this site in the fall of 2008 we have seen some phenominal growth. This month we hit a solid milestone by achieving more than 1,000,000 visitors in the past 30 days according to Google Analytics!

With this kind of traffic we are seeing over 13,000,000 pageviews which is also a record for the site and simply phenominal. AFullCup.com, coupled with our other Family Vertical sites, is really proving to make the Escalate Media Family channel something attractive and profitable to advertisers looking to reach women and mothers. I look forward to seeing more growth in the months to come and this 4th quarter will prove to be our best to date with AFullCup.com and Escalate Media as a whole.

DiaperSwappers.com Recognized

I wanted to further recognize one of the great sites in our network, DiaperSwappers.com.  The site recently had one of its administrators participate in an interview about the growth of cloth diapering.  Here is a snippet from the article:

Cloth-diapering site Diaper Swappers now has more than 67,000 members, and it is adding new ones at a rate twice as fast as before the recession, now around 100 per day.
To the uninitiated, the cloth-diapering world may seem oddly fanatical. For years, parents had a hard time finding cloth diapers that work well, and the Internet provided support and consumer advice to parents who sometimes felt under siege from Pampers commercials. Sites like Diaper Swappers evolved their own slang, and users zealously evangelize for brands with names like Fuzzibuns, Swaddlebees, and Urban Fluff. Cloth-diapering parents sometimes sound like junkies obsessively trolling the Internet for a hit. “I couldn’t stop researching CDs [cloth diapers],” wrote one Diaper Swapper mother. “I am addicted to them.”

Go green…go Diaper Swappers!

Mom Bloggers May Get the Brunt of the Slumping Online Ad Market

As 2009 starts to unfold, I’m already seeing some of my 2009 women’s trend predictions take place. This morning it was announced that the Glam Media ad network acquired AdaptiveAds, a Mumbai, India based banner and text ad network.

While I don’t have intimate knowledge of either company’s inner workings, I got to thinking about this move – its both smart and confusing:

Smart because:

• Glam knows that it is a buyer’s market right now, and they can take advantage of that fact while the economy is wobbly.
• AdaptiveAds has some useful ad-serving technology that comes with the transaction, including a self-serve purchase system for ad agencies (which media buyers love).
• It is likely that AdaptiveAds has penetration in different markets overseas that Glam wants to penetrate. A very smart move to diversify their revenue base.

But even though I predicted this would start happening, I’m surprised that it’s Glam, and I’m surprised that it’s now:

• This is the worst time of year for online media, and the rest of 2009 is a complete crap shoot at this point.
• Glam already has inventory issues – adding more publishers to their roster may compound the problem even more.
• Glam already has stability issues. In the last 3 months they slowed down publisher payments from 90 to 120 days, and slashed exec compensation by 60%.

So What Does All of This Have to do With Mommy Bloggers?

Right now, the online ad industry has a ratio problem – not enough ad inventory vs. too much publisher inventory. Glam, being one of the leaders in the women’s ad space, is doing everything they can to compensate for the fact that they don’t have enough ad inventory. They’ve cut costs in their operations, and are taking longer to pay their accounts payables.

But only thing they can do to compensate on the publisher inventory side of things is cut under-performing publishers from their programs. It’s much easier and cost effective to cut hundreds of mommy blogs from the network than it is to cut one high-performing site. Escalate Media’s DiaperSwappers mom community can deliver the same amount of impressions as 336 mom blogs, and that’s if they have a generously estimated 25K page views a month. Most mom blogs have far less than that.

Glam isn’t the only network working with mom bloggers. I suspect this fear is a non-issue with the BlogHerAds network, as mom blogs are their bread and butter. But BlogHer also has some pretty strict content restrictions that are getting harder for publishers to accept as brands start reaching out to bloggers directly. And who knows what’s going on elsewhere in the already-too-saturated mom’s ad network space.

I truly believe that the online advertising market, while seeing a slump right now, will be the first to recover from the economic mess we are in. And I also believe that ads targeting moms is a realtively-speaking strong market that is here to stay. More advertising budgets are moving online every day, and outdoor, newspaper and TV are getting hit hard.

But it’s anyone’s guess as to when a true advertising recovery is going to happen, and I worry about what the casualties will be in the mom blogging community until then.

Women Online in 2009: 9 Trends to Watch in a Down Economy

Written by Wendy Piersall

2008 has given us all a shakeup. We have a fragile economy unlike anything we have seen in 80 years. And the online advertising and technology industry is in for a rough ride in 2009. But 2008 was also the Year of the Woman online. Over the last 18 months, the number of ad networks targeted towards moms and women exploded. Some high-profile players entered the space, notable examples include iVillage’s partial buy-in of BlogHer, and Circle of Moms growth to 850K registered Facebook application users in less than 2 months.

2009 is a make-it-or-break-it year for nearly every business in existence today. And as for women’s websites and communities, we at Escalate Media think this industry is also in for a bit of a shakeup:

1 – Women’s Ad Networks

We think that if any of the advertising industries are well positioned to weather the economic storm, it is the online ad industry. Newspapers and outdoor media will continue to suffer, but online media has the track record to convince advertisers to move more dollars online. Yet since advertisers will have less dollars to begin with, we’ll see only moderate growth in the online ad space.

I personally think there are too many ad networks targeted towards women and moms right now. All of them have inventory problems and some are only taking in new publishers under more restrictive terms, if at all. I think bigger players are going to take advantage of the fact that they can buy more with less and we will see some consolidation of the women’s ad networks in ’09.

2 – Women’s Social Networks

If there are too many women’s ad networks, then we have an epidemic of social networks for women, especially moms. With tighter VC funding, we’ll see less startups in this space (thank god). And only the strongest of the existing destinations will be able to weather the storm. Yet, those that serve a tight niche, that have great content, or are tied to recession-proof markets will do particularly well. Women love connecting with other women, and will do it even more in ’09.

In fact, the top three activities women engage in online are shopping, reading the news, and socializing via social networks and online communities. This is great news for women’s social sites.

3 – Number of Women Online

History predicts that this number can only go up as computers and internet access become more widely available. Add to that an economy that forces us to keep our entertainment budgets to a minimum, and I predict 2009 sees a bigger jump in women online than predicted.

4 – Social Media Marketing

Since social communities are here to stay, and women are extremely active in these communities, companies and brands are getting to the point where they can’t ignore social media marketing any more. In 2009, we are going to hit the crossover point in which those who are still afraid of social media marketing are going to be left behind if they don’t jump in now.

Nowhere is this more evident than it is on Twitter, where the election forced mainstream news agencies to embrace the medium. Brands who were early adopters such as Dell, Zappos, and Comcast are now the subject of numerous case studies with data to back up their efforts. Quite frankly, I find it astonishing that Walmart, Kmart and Sears beat Target to the punch and have all had a presence on Twitter whereas Target is nowhere to be found. They need to move beyond the walls of their controlled “Momversation” if they are going to keep their market edge.

5 – Beyond Advertising

Even if online ad spending doesn’t take a big hit in 2009, it doesn’t mean that online companies aren’t going to prepare themselves for the worst. Only strong business models can survive an economic storm like the one we are in. So we bet that you will start seeing more products, services and incentives from sites that were 100% advertising based in the past.

Enter the era of the social shopping network. Companies are taking clues from successful product blogs (like Engadget), social networks (Facebook), and shopping comparison sites (Shopping.com) & mixing it up to find new ways to generate revenue off of site visitors.

6 – Companies will Lean on Recession-Proof Industries

There were a few bright spots in this incredibly dismal holiday shopping season. While nearly all retailers tumbled, WalMart & Amazon rocked. Macy’s can’t get rid of merchandise at 60% off, but craft retailers like Jo-Ann and Michael’s were a surprise hit as shoppers decided to make more presents this year instead of buying them.

Health & skin care, groceries & cooking, children’s clothing and educational products are all relatively safe places to be in 2009. We’ll be seeing a lot more online engagement from these companies than we will from companies like GM or WaMu.

7 – Women Love a Deal

Coupon and discount sites may seem very 1999, but we’re betting on the fact that *every* woman loves a sale. In 2009 women, and especially moms, will *need* a sale. As more women move online, we’ve seen bargain hunters increase activity across our network of sites, even in this economy. The lowest prices will win, and any site that serves up savings is going to do well this year.

8 – Local Family Recreation & Travel

The camping trend that emerged in 2008 thanks to high gas prices is going to extend into 2009 thanks to falling incomes. Families unable to take big vacations will do more locally at parks, attractions, and local tourist destinations. And moms seeking cost-effective activities for their kids will be turning to the internet to find more things to do close to home.

9 – Think Green

With our new president comes a new focus on going green. While consumers have purchased green products for decades, we think that a paradigm shift is finally on it’s way so that green will become mainstream in 2009. Not only will women be doing more research about living more eco-friendly, they will be hunting down more products that won’t harm the environment.

Escalate Media’s A Full Cup Rocks the Mashable Open Web Awards!

A Full Cup Wins the

Congratulations to us! A Full Cup, Escalate Media’s grocery coupon and deal forums, was announced as the winner today in Mashable’s 2008 Open Web Awards!

We had some stiff competition in the “How To” category. College Cram and Howcast were worthy opponents and deserve praise themselves. This category was one in the “People’s Choice” group, so we’re especially pleased to know that we won this award through our peers and the ‘A Full Cup’ community coming together and voting for us!

This year, the Open Web Awards received 50,000 total nominations, 80,000 total votes in the first round, and 90,000 votes in the final round.

A Full Cup has over 80,000 registered users and has over 5 million monthly page views. A big congratulations to Lee and David for all their hard work and making this coupon community such a success!

How Escalate Media was Born

It came to pass in the summer of 2006 that Lee Dodd sat in session at the Affiliate Summit conference working on his laptop rather than listening to the panel of speakers.  While working that day he stopped by one of his latest successes in the forum world, EarnersForum.com.  As he browsed through the community he came upon a thread discussing what these web entreprenuers did with the money they made in terms of giving back to society.  He saw a user, XboxUndone, posting about how he always gives the first part of his income to his local church.  The aroused Lee’s curiousity that day enough to reach out to this user and thus the relationship between Lee Dodd and David Adams was born.

Over the following months these two guys communicated about their work and further strengthened a friendship that would blossom into much more, but that time had not yet come.  Finally, in December of 2006 the Elite Retreat Conference was born which was led by Lee Dodd and Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker.  David Adams was one of the 20 or so attendees at that conference and this was the first occassion where the Dodd and Adams families got to meet in person.  The fellowship was good and the friendship further strengthened.

Within the next 4-6 months the affiliate marketing business really began to grow for David Adams.  That was his specialty and concentration for Adams Media LLC.  Lee Dodd’s forum empire was also growing and things were going well for both parties.  It was then, in the early summer of 2007, that David Adams approached Lee Dodd with the idea of a partnership and the merger of their two companies, Adams Media and Zydeca Media Group.  At first glance, it was very interesting to both sides.  Combining the powers of a high level affiliate marketer and a high level community builder could really work.  Combining the two companies web site holdings under one umbrella would create a powerful network.  Over the following 2-3 months the two of them met in person and spent much time in planning and discussion.  The end result was that both Lee and David felt that it really made sense.  Their families, desires, goals, beliefs, and lifestyles were so inline that the process was smooth and easy.

The most difficult brainstorming took place when the two of them were attempting to come up with the new company’s name.  The final list of possible names included (and you wonder why the final decision was so tough):

• Orange Cone Media
• Twin Giants Media (they both stand 6’5″ tall)
• Escalate Media

After plenty of meetings with CPAs and attorneys, the relationship officially became a partnership on September 1, 2007.  That was the birthday of Escalate Media LP and the beginning of what has been an extremely fun and fast-paced ride!