Is Nuffnang ripping us off?

Before the days of Nuffnang ads, most Malaysian and Singaporean bloggers pay little to no attention to monetizing their blogs. Popular bloggers had advertorials, but those small-time bloggers had google ads that pay pittance. Consequently, the average bloggers just didn't care too much about making money through their blogs. End of story.

Then came the founders of Nuffnang (their hard-knock, start-up story had been retold so many times on the net, you can simply google for it).

They had this genius idea of empowering bloggers to be a little bit more productive in bringing in the traffic, because for the first time, we are actually getting paid good money (relatively speaking) for allowing them to display locally relevant ads on our blogs. Even bloggers with less than 10 uniques of sympathetic family readers will get some money. So yippee, life is great!

Now Nuffnang is a year older with thousands of willing sacrificial lambs (Nuffnangers as they call us), it is time we ask some probing questions.

Nuffnang take at least 30% of those ad revenues. The other 70% are shared among the thousands of sacrificial lambs. Those Nuffnanger lambs are the sweat and tears of the whole enterprise. Collectively, we work, toil and blog for Nuffnang's traffic. The most popular amongst us get the biggest slice of that 70%, and the mega popular lambs get special treatment and deals from Nuffnang. These deals are sometimes called advertorials or event invites.


Now don't you think 30% commission is a little steep?

Who decides the 30/70 division anyway? 30% sounds like some arbitrary figure. Okay, Nuffnang operates as a pioneering player and a semi-monopoly in the local net advertising agency, therefore they can call the shot -- right?

To be fair, without them, there won't be any money to begin with. They do the marketing. They do the cold calling. They organise promotional events. They roped in famous bloggers to help promote their business. They have staff to hire. They have expensive offices to maintain (their computers, servers and status). These things aren't free.

But still, is this 30% commission justified? I can't think of another business idea that charge such lofty fee, not a unit trust seller, not a car salesman.

If they say this amount is justified, will Nuffnang make their pay structure more transparent so we all can see who's getting what?

The worst case scenario for them would be when bloggers get disgruntled and form a bloggers' ads union. Collectively it won't be difficult to raise some money, hire an IT member among them and start an ad agency from home (no need rent some more!). Each blogger participant gets equitable sum of money according to their site traffic, minus the cost of getting the ads and hiring the IT service. Budget service and maximum profit margin for all!

Thankfully for Nuffnang shareholders, bloggers are such disorganised bunch, so I can't see the bloggers' ads union happening anytime soon. Sometimes I wonder if Nuffnang purposely created NANGS and DANGS so we all can disagree openly and have major blog war among us, and prevent this bloggers' union from ever happening?

(I also wonder if this Dang King was hired by Nuffnang to dis-unite us?)

Don't you love conspiracy? Or is it a conspiracy?

Reference (updated): “We usually take a 30 per cent cut from the advertisement fees. This way everyone is happy,” Tiah says.