Haven’t written here in awhile, so I figured that I would mention that I just bought a new shiny car! Woo! It’s a 1999 Pontiac Grand Am (I know, I’m a sucker for punishment), and its definitely the perfect car for me!
At some point in the near future (probably over christmas break), I’m going to try and transform this site into something more personal than the virtualroadside…. so we shall see how that works out. 🙂
Here’s an interesting site for you to see…
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/15663341.htm
Basically (reading between the lines), its about Symantec and other anti-virus companies complaining that Windows Vista is going to be so secure that their products will be useless. Since these companies make their money off the fact that Microsoft products have generally been insecure in the past, obviously making Windows better is bad for them, because then nobody is going to need antivirus protection.
Wait, isn’t not needing antivirus solutions a good thing? *sighs*
I can’t wait until theres a lawsuit attempting to force Microsoft to put security holes in their software so that anti-virus companies can make money. 🙂
Hey, I sold the car that prompted this whole thing! Awesome! Not quite as good as selling a billboard, but close enough I suppose.
And hey, if anyone is selling a car in the Kalamazoo, MI area, then let me know! Here’s what I’m looking for:
If anyone has an idea, send it to me at dustin@virtualroadside.com! Thanks.
I’ve received some complaints about the testbed not working under non-IE browsers, and so I’ve modified the testbed to warn you about using local files. If you’re not using IE, then it is not possible to use the testbed without modifying your browsers security settings.
If you are using IE, you may ‘upload’ any image or file you wish. However, if you are using Firefox or some other browser, you must specify the valid URL of a file somewhere that the browser can access. If anyone has a decent hack around this, let me know! In any case, the testbed checks the filename you pass it and tries to determine whether the file is local or not.
Hope this clears up some of the confusion! 🙂
Check it out!
Also, looks like I’m the #1 result on google for ‘virtual roadside’! Pretty neat!
I thought I’d take some time to write something unrelated to the Virtual Roadside for a minute. Most of the people I know (in college at least) have a facebook account, and most of them are probably aware of the new changes there. I guess theres a few thoughts about that I’d like to share.
a) If I had created one of those massive groups to protest it, I definitely would have tried to cash in on it. I know, its pitiful. But 500,000 people in under two days? I’d love that kind of traffic. It’s been amusing to watch the traffic numbers go way up on those groups and the amount of people just flocking to it..
b) More serious note — On these groups there, it seems like a lot of people keep saying the same thing: Why can’t we come together for important issues, like AIDS or starving children or “The Virtual Roadside” :-p or something that actually matters? Its amazing how much people talk about it (hey look, I’m doing it too!), but really there aren’t any serious efforts to resolve that problem.
Actually, I’ve been trying to think of an effective way to solve that problem, and I’ve got a few interesting ideas I might play with in the future…
c) All of the information people are complaining about is already available publicly, and I think this should serve as a huge warning to people about websites — everyone has access to them, and if you put something stupid there, be prepared for everyone to see it!
Of course, at the same time, I have mixed feelings about this. I understand point C above, but at the same time I recognize that a lot of people are complaining about the loss of their perceived privacy — personally, I think the posting of certain types of information should be opt-in (like whether you added a friend, or wrote on someone’s wall) and other should be opt-out (like if you updated your status, or wrote a new ‘note’, or some other ‘sensible’ public information). I dunno… lots of mixed feelings here about that. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Oh by the way, continue letting your friends know about ‘The Virtual Roadside!’. Been getting lots of traffic, thanks for that! 🙂
Looks like another ad has shown up on the homepage! Thats a total of three ads worth $930! Looks like they got in just in time for the Herald article this week. I’m still working on getting some more press, so look for more announcements here!
I have to say, thanks to everyone for the support. The only way I’ve been able to sustain this kind of traffic is because of you. Continue telling your friends, posting on blogs, and together we can make this another “piece of Internet history”!
This is good. 🙂
Alright, I’ve gone a few days without selling any ads, but thats ok, because theres going to be an article written soon! The Western Herald contacted me yesterday about the site. The Herald is distributed and read by 27,000 students and others in the Kalamzoo community per day. Not only that, but a majority of the readers have a computer or access to one, so I expect to get a lot of hits on publication! Expect more press to be posted soon!
Now is definitely a good time to purchase an ad! 🙂 I’ve already said this, but it just keeps getting more and more momentum…
Well, round one of advertising can be declared complete, time to move into round two! Apparently journalists/editors don’t answer their email (only one response, from Eric Benderoff of the Chicago Tribune — thanks for that, by the way). I’ve also released a press release on eMediaWire, which I’ve had some limited success with. If you search Google News for virtualroadside, you can find my press release easily!
As a result of trying to promote this website, I’ve been reading a ton of literature about well.. promoting. And it just seems like everyone talks about  ‘viral’ marketing and other cool buzzwords, but it seems like most of the time people are just pointing out the obvious. Like I’m doing, if you’ll notice. But it seems, nobody really has ‘it’ down yet — its just throwing stuff up against the wall, and seeing what sticks. So, thats what I’m doing.
This reminds me of my experience at Boys State in 11th grade. Boys State is an educational program that puts a lot of students together for a week, and lets them run a fictional state. It sounds corny, but really its quite cool. In any case, I was determined to make my mark there, and so I put up probably around 250-500 flyers in the space of a day promoting my candidacy for attorney general. I ended up losing the actual race — but by the time I left at the end of the week, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t know my name.
I still run into people from time to time, and they still remember me as the guy with all the crazy signs. Heh. And thats my goal to some extent here on this site — is to create something that people will remember. Because really, this site is quite entertaining and unique. Not many sites will allow you to blow its advertising up.
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Is a view the same as a hit?? is a blog post written by Mark Cuban, which I recommend you read. He brings up a good question — what exactly is a view or ‘hit’. And how exactly do you determine whether it was a ‘successful’ hit?
For example, this website has a semi-addicting game you can play with the advertisements shown on it. However, theres not really a way I can measure whether people enjoyed it or not — maybe a survey, but thats hardly accurate. In any case, its brought up some thoughts for me to see how well my promotion efforts are working, and we’ll see where this gets us.
As for this site, it continues to get around 100-150 unique visits a day (1200 this month already), so my thought is that as more ads come in, more traffic will. Round two of site promotion is coming up soon, so check back here soon!
Ok, I have a press release written up, which I am planning on sending to a number of news organizations tomorrow, with possibly some minor modifications. In any case, let me know what you think of it!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WMU Student Sells Virtual Billboards to Replace Car
Aug. 23, 2006
(KALAMAZOO, Mich.) An engineering student at Western Michigan University is using a non-traditional way to replace his broken car.
Dustin Spicuzza, 20, has launched virtualroadside.com in an effort to replace his car, which broke down in early July. “I visited a number of local car dealerships in July, and they all told me the same thing: You don’t have enough credit.”
He decided he needed to take a different approach. “I thought to myself, what would be entertaining and unique? Then it hit me – billboards on the Internet.”
The Web site took two weeks to complete. It features large advertisements in the form of billboards and airplanes moving along a highway. Visitors may also play a game that allows them to interact with the advertisements.
Customers can purchase one or more billboards for placement on the Web site, at $1 per virtual square foot. They remain on the site for at least five years.
Asked about a virtual square foot, he said, “I wanted to use a unique unit of measurement that people could readily relate to. It’s much easier than saying 10×10 pixels.”
According to Spicuzza, the traffic on the Web site has increased sharply in the last week. “It was getting a steady stream of 30 to 50 visitors per day, but now it’s around 100 and rising.”
The Virtual Roadside has sold two advertisements so far, one to his roommate’s parents. He remains upbeat. “I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from everyone who has seen the Web site, and I expect traffic to continue increasing.”