The following is a paid review of Publisher Spot.  Although I am getting paid to write this review, it is completely of my opinion and my review is not influenced by being paid.  If you would like your site or product reviewed, please view my Advertise page.

One of the coolest things I’ve really enjoyed ever since getting started in Blogging and especially with Inspired Money Maker, is getting to know other Bloggers who I believe to be Inspired Money Makers.  One such person is Tyler Cruz from TylerCruz.com.  Tyler is a young entrepreneur and the CEO of Merendi Networks Inc. He’s in his 20′s and he works on his various websites and Blog full time.

One of Tyler’s recent projects is a website called Publisher Spot.  Publisher Spot is a professional review site for online ad networks.  What does that mean?  Basically the website allows users to vote and rate the top ad networks on the Internet and leave comments and feedback.

Who is Publisher Spot For?

Publisher Spot is for online entrepreneurs, Bloggers and Affiliate Marketers.  For example, if you run a Blog and you want to start monetizing it, then you could go to Publisher Spot and take a look at all the different Ad Networks which you could look into setting up accounts with, in order to monetize your Blog.

If you are an Affiliate Marketer, you could go to Publisher Spot and take a look at all the different Affiliate Networks and check out their ratings before setting up accounts with them.

What Does Publisher Spot Look Like?

The website is pretty simple to navigate with the ability to browse or search through the database of networks available in the top menu bar, or on the right side panel.  There is also a quick listing of the top overall networks, top ad networks and top affiliate networks on the right side panel which shows you a quick snapshot of the networks in each category.

There is also a Blog and Forum attached to the site as well.  The Blog is mostly just updates relating to the Publisher Spot website and its features.  The forums are a place where people can discuss networks in more detail, as well as offer feedback on the Publisher Spot website.

New Features on Publisher Spot

Tyler has recently launched some new feautres on the website to based on some of the feedback he’s received from people.

Review Commenting

Due to popular demand, the site now offers the ability for people to leave comments for each review.

This is exactly just like leaving a comment on a Blog post, with the added feature that the system also displays your rating in the comment as well, as shown below:

This way, when someone leaves a comment you can see what rating that person gave a network as well.  This makes it easy to scroll through the comments and pick out someone who gave the network a really high score (9 or 10) or a really low score (1 or 2) and then read why they gave them that score.

Universal Member System

Another upgrade that Tyler did recently is upgrading his membership system to allow for a single sign up on the system.  You can now sign up for one free account which gives you access to leave comments on the Blog, place votes on the network rating system and participate in the forums.  No need for mutliple accounts on the system anymore.

Improved Rating System

The rating system has also been improved now due to the implementation of the membership system.  What this means is that people now have to sign up for a free account in order to be able to vote and review networks.  This improves the accuracy of the votes, no longer allowing people to place multiple votes from multiple computers on different IP addresses.

It is still possible to sign up for mutliple accounts, and place multiple votes that way, but that’s just enough hassle to ward off most spammers or people who are trying to game the system.

Improved Side Panel Functionality

The side panels which show you the top 10 overall, ad and affiliate networks have also been improved to only display networks which have received at least 10 votes.  This means when Tyler creates a review of a new network and gives it a 9/10 himself, for example, the network will no longer pop up on top of the list like it did before.

What this does is that it forces the network to receive at least 10 votes before the “average” is determined and the network is ranked amongst the others on the list.

Other Improvements

There is also now an Advertise section on the site which allows people to purchase advertising on the website.  This is probably going to be utilized a lot more by affiliate or ad networks than regular users.

The search section on the site has been improved and now allows you to search for a network by name, and a news area has been added on the front page.

What do I think of Publisher Spot?

What I Like

Well, firstly I want to say that as soon as I saw Tyler launch Publisher Spot I felt like smacking myself on the forehead, thinking “Doh!  Why didn’t I think of that?!”  It’s such an obvious idea and it totally makes sense why Tyler built this.  Most networks offer some form of a referral fee for anyone you refer to them through your link.

What this does is it allows Tyler to basically have his affiliate referral link to each network on the site.  People come and vote and leave their comments on each network,  but anyone who clicks on the actual links to the networks becomes a signed up referral from Tyler Cruz.

What does this mean?  It’s very simple.  Take Market Leverage for example.  They pay 5% referral fee for life on anyone you refer to them.  So if someone goes to Publisher Spot, and they see a review of Market Leverage, and then click on the link and sign up for an account, Tyler will make 5% of anything that person makes for life from Market Leverage.  All it takes is one person being referred who ends up making $100k and Tyler has $5k in his pocket.

This is definitely not a new idea in terms of reviewing things and making commissions off of affiliate referrals, but so far nobody has thought of doing that for Ad and Affiliate Networks until Tyler launched Publisher Spot.

So, in terms of that aspect of things I think the website is a brilliant idea on Tyler’s part.

What I Am Cautious Of

There is a fundamental “flaw” in a system like Publisher Spot.  It is not anything Tyler did wrong, but it is a flaw that exists in a lot of systems out there.  That flaw is that not all votes are equal but they are valued as equal.

What does this mean?  Well, to illustrate, lets imagine if I did a poll and I asked this question:

Which car do you like driving the best?

• Honda
• Toyota
• Jaguar
• Hummer
• BMW
• Mercedes

Now lets say that the poll came back and out of 1,000 responses, the highest rated car was a Honda.  A person might think that this means that a Honda is the best car out there.  However, this may not be true.  The BMW could be a much better car, but the majority of people may not be able to afford one.  Most people are biased, and if the best car they can afford is a Honda, then they will most likely support Honda during a poll.

Not only that, but people who drive a BMW might be too busy to even respond to a poll like this.  So what’s my point in this?

Well, what this means is that when you go to Publisher Spot, you get to see what people voted as the best networks based on “Popular Opinion” but the problem is that Popular Opinion is unfortunately, typically not very useful.  Well, I should qualify that by saying that it really depends on what you’re looking for.

If you want to know what the typical Blogger or Affiliate marketer thinks are the best networks out there, then Publisher Spot may give you an indication of that.  To me, however, that doesn’t really mean much because I know that 99% of Bloggers and Affiliate Marketers aren’t making any money online.

Personally, I think the opinion of ONE “Super Affiliate” who makes $100k/month is worth way more to me than 1,000 new affiliates who vote for a network, even though they haven’t made any money in Affiliate Marketing yet.

As I said above, this is not Tyler’s fault.  It’s not a flaw of Publisher Spot, but rather of any voting system out there.  Personally, I have built my success in life largely by going AGAINST POPULAR OPINION rather than with it.  When everyone is running around talking about how they are buying Tech Stocks and getting into the stock market, I invest in Real Estate.  When everyone is killing themselves over buying Real Estate and nobody likes the stock market, I’m buying shares in the markets.  When people look for secure jobs, I’m trying out “risky” things like Blogging or Affiliate Marketing.

95% of the population in North America will retire at or below the poverty line by the time they are 65.  That is a sad thing, but it is a fact.  So, my approach in life is NOT to just listen to what everyone else is doing and be a sheep.  I prefer to be the guy heading in the opposite direction to everyone else.

So that would be my biggest concern with a site like this.  I would not recommend that people just look at what ad networks and affiliate networks are highest rated by popular opinion and sign up for those, ignoring the rest.  I think it’s OK to look at popular opinion to see what people are saying about things, but at the end of the day it’s important to understand that the popular vote is not necessarily the best vote for your specific situation.

Verdict

Having said that, there is still a lot of value that can be derived from a system like this if approached properly.  Firstly, by looking at some of the feedback people leave, ad networks and affiliate networks can improve their services.  If they are getting slammed with low votes because everyone hates the fact that their site is always down for maintenance, maybe they’ll take a hint and fix the problem.  If their reporting functions suck, it could be a good way for users to communicate that to the networks.  This function alone can be of tremendous value to the online community, allowing people to voice their opinions of the networks and make them listen.

Secondly, I would say that 75% of he networks on the system right now I never even heard of before going to Publisher Spot, so the system does bring awareness to networks which may not be doing a lot of advertising right now.

So, my final verdict is that Publisher Spot definitely has the potential to become a really valuable tool to the online community, providing a central hub where people can become aware of, vote and provide feedback for ad networks and affiliate networks.  Besides my concerns related to “public opinion” voting systems, I think the site is really well thought out and put together.  My only real complaint would be that Tyler thought of this idea before I did!

You can find the website by following this link: PublisherSpot.com

You can find Tyler’s Blog and read about him and his other projects here: TylerCruz.com