Recently I bought a couple post-level ads on other sites to get an idea of how they work. The first thing I noted was it took me a long time to find them for a specific site. As good as the TLA and related services might be, their websites suck ass in a major kind of way. Their Web 2.0 interfaces are more like Web 1.8 because they lack some pretty simple features that would make the service easier for potential advertisers to use. Chief among those is the ability to actually find a post level adspot. After inquiring with them on the best ways to go about this this is what I’ve found out.

First things first. If you want to advertise using Text-Link-Ads you have to sign up to be an advertiser. This is a real simple process, just go to Text Link Ads and signup. Your request will be reviewed and then your account will be activated and you can get busy with buying those post-level ads, but where do you start?

First you need to browse the marketplace, to get there you simply click the “post level ads” link from the Buy Links dropdown menu.

This will take you to the main selection screen that contains an overview of what post level ads are and how they work. If you look in the upper left portion of this page, you’ll see a search box that has the options “Search Regular Posts” and “Search Within Blog Posts”. To scan all available posts enter your keyword or phrase then select “Search Regular Posts”.

From here you can browse the post inventory. Each listing gives you a brief description of the site/page, the Alexa ranking and the cost to purchase the adspot. You can also click the green “Advertise On Individual Posts” link to get additional inventory from the site.

That’s all well and good but let’s say you know you want to place an ad on a particular site and you want to see what posts are available. Well this is where the system falls apart and really fails both the advertisers and publishers. There is no option to simply search by domain. The best option is to search by a related keyword or phrase. For instance, if you know you want to place an ad on Reality Wired that’s pretty easy, simply repeat the above search using the term “reality wired” including the quotes. Viola! You’ll get a listing for the site.

However, if your looking for inventory on johnchow.com the system really fails you. Performing the same search or any variation it’s virtually impossible to find the main listing for John Chow. Try searching for “John Chow” and you’ll see what I mean. What comes up isn’t related to John at all. Searching for johnchow.com returns numerous posts where his site has been referenced. Using the “Search Individual Blog Posts” option doesn’t help either, as it returns numerous posts that use the term.

In this case, you’ve got to work a bit harder and either hunt through all the available posts to find one that does belong to John or you can retry the search using an actual post title from his site. Keep in mind though, inventory is based on indexed posts so something relatively new won’t be in there and if it’s already been sold it most likely won’t show up.

Once you’ve found the site your looking for you can get additional information by placing your mouse over the “reveal” link. A popup will give you additional information about the site.

What your looking for is the link on the main listing that says “Advertise On Individual Posts“, it will be in green next to a green star. Only sites that have opted to run post-level ads will display this option.

Select the link and you’ll be presented with a list of all the available posts in the TLA inventory for that site.

Once you’ve made it this far you can now select the post you want to place your ad on. The inventory page will tell you the link popularity and the price. It’s a little bit of work but if a site has posts that are really popular and specific to your niche you can gain a lot of traffic by having an ad placed near the end of the post.

I know, some of you are thinking that you should be able to get a link under your Publisher options that just links right to your available inventory right? WRONG! That option doesn’t exist. Maybe in the future but it doesn’t right now so if you really want to take advantage of this marketing option then you might have to work at it. Hopefully in the future the folks over at TLA will make that option available but for now I’ll make it easy and you can just follow this link to view the inventory for Reality Wired.

If your a publisher then you may want to consider finding your own site and making the link available to your readers. I know if I hadn’t been intent on placing an ad I’d have given up after a few minutes and that’s a sale someone would have lost.

If anyone has any other tips or tricks for find post-level ads with Text-Link-Ads please leave us a comment.

Staring at women’s breast is good for men’s health and makes them live longer, a new study reveals.

Researchers have discovered that a 10-minute ogle at women’s breasts is as healthy as half-an-hour in the gym.

A five-year study of 200 men found that those who enjoyed a longing look at busty beauties had lower blood pressure, less heart disease and slower pulse rates compared to those who did not get their daily eyeful.

Dr Kren Weatherby, who carried out the German study, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicin: “Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well endowed female is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute arobics workout.”

“Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation.”

“There is no question that gazing at breasts makes men healthier.”

“Out Study indiciates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of a stroke and heart attack in half.”

“We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years.”

Well, there you go. Documented medical advice that you don’t need to spend hours in the gym to stay healthy. Finally, I can exercise while surfing the net for photos.

Update: So it seems this is an Urban Legend since no actual study can be found in the archive of the New England Journal of Medicine. I really think the Myth Buster guys should take this one on and find out for sure. What do ya’ll think? (Thanks to the folks that sent this in).

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Remember when we were kids and the big thing was playing rock music backwards to find the hidden Satanic messages. Well check this out, if you flip the Zune logo upside down it spells “anus”. Too funny. Guess now we know that Microsoft developers secretly thought it was a piece of crap.

Cult of Mac via CrunchGear

It’s one f the biggest vaporware rumors to date. The iPhone Killer. The end-all to the cell phone industry. Here it is boys & girls, your first look at the upcoming commercial for the Microsoft Zune Phone.

credit: eegerecke from YouTube