Free Gitanes?

Jack

Michael, did you see this post on the Yahoo group? I've never had any pop-ups here, so I was wondering if you could prove it true or false...

I'll get to the question first: Are there any Gitane "Django" guitars that are not at least decent instruments?

While at Djangobooks.com I got a pop-up about getting a free Gitane Django petite bouche guitar (also shipped for free) in return for accepting ten offers listed by the Website, including Netflix and Discover Gas card (both of which I wanted anyway) and some other crap that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. After all, it will cost me under $100. I have other good quality guitars and Michael Collins is building me a grand bouche so this guitar would be just for fun and potentially a great bargain, but if I'm not being completely swindled, are these at least OK guitars?

By the way, the Website is www.art-offers.com in case anyone is familiar with them, for better or worse.

Thanks for your help. I tried to hunt around for evidence that this is a scam but I can't find anything. They reached me with good e-mail and telephone support.

Rick

MichaelHorowitz

They're not pop ups...they're google ads. Just look on the home page: http://www.djangobooks.com/

Sometimes that free Gitane one comes up....I have nothing to do with it. It's just an ad.

However, I make about 5 cents every time you click one of those ads...so feel free to click to your heart's content!

'm

Jack

'm wrote:

I make about 5 cents every time you click one of those ads...so feel free to click to your heart's content!

That explains it...the forum is my homepage, so I don't ever see those. So, if I devote an hour a day to clicking the ad, can I get a cut?

MichaelHorowitz

Sure...how many clicks can you do an hour? You might make a whole dollar if you're really fast!

Jack

Well, if I can manage 20 clicks a minute, that's 1200 an hour...what's that-sixty bucks? I'd be okay with a paltry 20%-over a month that's over half my rent! Maybe 30%...ah, there's gotta be a catch. Oh, right-I'd go insane!

Best,
Jack.

thanassis

Michael Horowitz wrote:

They're not pop ups...they're google ads. Just look on the home page: http://www.djangobooks.com/

Sometimes that free Gitane one comes up....I have nothing to do with it. It's just an ad.

However, I make about 5 cents every time you click one of those ads...so feel free to click to your heart's content!

'm

hey Michael,
As this is my first posting, the first thing I want to say is a BIG and grateful thank you for your gypsy picking book. For noobs like me, your brilliant book is the most fundamental resource I've come across to start studying the gypsy jazz style.

The second thing is concerning the google adds. I dont think it's a good idea to tell users to click for two reasons:

1. Suggesting to users to click google adds is clearly against the Adsense TOC. Google can ban you easily, as it has done countless times to others.
A google ban in our day and age is fairly catastrophic for an ecom site.

2. If anybody starts clicking like crazy because they like you and they want to reward you for free, they cause more damage than good. Google runs clever algorithms to detect click fraud, and it will pick it up as such. Even if that does not happen immediately, as the rate of conversion of clicks to actual targets (like purchases or registrations) will be very low, you will be getting much lower value adds.

So, I think -for your own benefit- you should retract your statement, or at least ask users to click only if they are genuinely interested in the subject of the add.

kindest regards,
thanassis

P.S. Also, if you are truly getting only 5c per click you may want to optimize your adds. The top of guitar related adds pay about 0.75$ per click. For more info visit:
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search ... serbidtool

MichaelHorowitz

I was just joking about people clicking the google ads....I'm aware of their fraud detection schemes and so forth.

glad you like the book!!!

thanks,

'm

Jack

Hey Michael,

I don't know if you run ads on other sites, but this might interest you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/techn ... ref=slogin

Best,
Jack.

MichaelHorowitz

I used to...but because of the aforementioned click fraud I've stopped. Over half the clicks seem to be fraudulent so I stopped using GoogleAds.

'm