As a followup to our post yesterday on the PayPerPost buying Performancing story – it seems that I was right in saying that the sale (or intended sale as it’s still yet to be finalized) was only for part of Performancing. Nick explains it in his post Performancing and PayPerPost which outlines that it is only their metrics and classifieds (exhange) that they’ve sold and that they are hanging onto (and will be re-branding) their firefox plugin and partners program. More details are also available at PPP’s press release. There’s no word on the purchase price.
update: what does concern me a little is that as a blogger who is a user of Performancing’s metrics program that all the details of my blog now are going to be transferred to PPP. While this is a fairly normal and standard operating procedure with any sale I can’t say that I’m overly happy with a company like PPP who in my opinion have caused so much controversy and who have been accused of some less than transparent and ethical behavior having access to my blog’s statistics.
While the metrics package is a useful one I think it might be time for me to find another one.
Spot on, Darren.
This partial sale leaves me scratching my head. It seems all they’ve really purchased is a list of names (that will diminish PDQ) and the performancing name/brand (and that now has taken a hit as well).
I don’t see too many users of Metrics being happy with PPP taking over – but who knows. Time will tell.
BTW, pretty hard to go past Google Analytics, imho.
~ ~ ~
For cricket lovers – Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi – I’m glad I can say I was at the ‘G for that last day. :)
I’m with you on this one, Darren.
I was really into the metrics and now I’m thinking it’s time to find another right away like you say. Definitely keep us posted on what you wind up with – because we all know that G’s analytics isn’t a grand idea, especially in my case (yeah yeah I’ll write a post on it sometime soon when work stuff slows down), so I’m kind of feeling like an orphaned puppy at this point.
It’s a real shame… I think Nick and the crew could’ve done themselves a million times better at this point in time.
Hey Lara – am interested in your views on your comment…
“because we all know that G’s analytics isn’t a grand idea”
I’m on no side here, just really intrigued by this comment – have I missed something. Am I wasting my time with G’s Analytics. Now you’ve given me something to look into – ie: more work. Thanks ;-)
And btw, do that post – I think getting metrics right will be a big thing for 2007 for bloggers.
I’m also confused… I have been quite happy with Google Analytics.
I’m not happy with PPP having my info either, but as complicated as google is I do like them alot and i’m not at all worried about them having stats, they probably know more about me just by crawling.
I’ve had both Analytics and Metrics going on my sites for a while and had debated which I would give up, but never decided. Metrics was so nice because it updated during the day (I have OCD and am proud of it) and was just a clean easy to use interface for a blogger. Analytics is AMAZING, but something I only check here and there to really dig into my stats and see where things are happening.
Recently I’ve been using the tantan reporting plugin for WordPress which grabs my Analytics and Feedburner data and presents the past week’s data in a clean bar graph format. So I have a simple stats interface (tantan) and the full blown interface (analytics proper) So, once Performancing announced Metrics had an uncertain future, I figured I’d lose it eventually.
But selling to PPP? How utterly sad. I mean I know this is a good deal for Nick and Chris because they get some funding for Partners and the Firefox extension. I really want to see Partners succeed – I think it’s a great concept. But of all the companies to sell out to. I really wonder if they were prepared for the backlash that is growing. People are posting on the forums asking that not only their metrics accounts be deleted but that their entire metrics histories be deleted (good luck with that…) and a few are cutting ties entirely which is unfortunate. As word of this spreads, the Performancing forums should be interesting to read.
Oh well. Just got done yanking the Metrics code from my sites and deleted my metrics profiles. If PPP gets my historical stats anyway – life goes on. But I will not use the Metrics service any longer.
Sorry for the confusion… let me see if I can sum it up quickly…
Firstly, the entire statement is: “because we all know that G’s analytics isn’t a grand idea, especially in my case” – please take note of “especially in my case”
I don’t want Google knowing all the details of what I’m doing in terms of SEO and Marketing that they don’t get from their spiders alone. No, I’m not doing anything “naughty” or “black hat” – I don’t believe in that stuff (as you can tell from my site if you check it out).
When you use Google Analytics, you’re essentially handing them all your site’s traffic data in terms of what words and phrases bring you traffic, what phrases convert to sales, and as a person who is working on optimizing sites to rank in Google (among others), I really don’t feel comfortable handing them all that information telling them what I’ve optimized for. I would feel the same way about using a metrics app from Yahoo or MSN. You just don’t turn over all your SEO work to a company that can use it against you in the long run. This by no means is to say that I don’t love Google, or that I know for sure that it would matter either way – it’s just something I personally tend to be a little wary of. SEO is all about flying low under the radar! :)
I’m not alone in this thinking either… many other organic/white hat SEOs I know don’t use Google’s app.
Bottom line is that it’s very similar to why I’ve removed all my sites from PMetrics – because I don’t want them having my info – but in a different regard. I appreciate Google and it’s “power”. I have no respect for PPP.
Let me add as a final note: If you’re not doing any SEO work on your site, then no, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. :)
Odd… that last one went through, but the full explanation I wrote beforehand is in moderation… sorry gang! :P
Other than Google Analytics, what are y’all using out there? I’ve tried several metrics services over the years, but most are a pain when it comes to site validation.
Wow, that was a SPECTACULARLY bad move on Performancing’s part in my opinion. Just having their name in the same sentence with PayPerPost is going to do a huge amount of damage to their reputation, and the details are far from clear despite Nick’s post. (Read the headline in the press release: “PayPerPost Acquires Performancing.com”)
Performancing has always had a very good reputation in the problogging community and this seems like an odd choice, associating with PPP so publicly at a time when PPP is at the height of controversy.
It’s a shame because I have a great respect for what Performancing.com has done. Maybe they’ll move on, but if PPP is allowed to keep “Performancing” in the names of those products, the old Performancing might be better off with a name change to distance themselves…
update: er, I should have read more carefully. Apparently they are indeed planning a name change.
[…] Other blogs talking about the Performancing sale: Performancing.com | TechCrunch | WinExtra | Deep Jive Interests | On Tokyo Time | The Blog Herald | ProBlogger […]
For stats, check out Mint. Not quite free, but cheap, customizable and very good. http://haveamint.com/ :)
[…] ProBlogger is worried about Metrics, and I don’t see why. Yes, PPP has used some questionable business practices (not requiring disclosure), but it has overcome that with mandated disclosure now. […]
I’m still waiting for them to let me know how to remove my site from the ad network, and from performancing.com all together. I deleted the blogs from the listings, but can’t find a delete button for the ad network. I don’t even want my posts to be on there anymore at this point.
“Performancing” is not a word. I do’t understand this new prevalence of turning nouns into verbs on the fly, and creating exexcrable sentences that jar on the brain and completely confound the reader. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Please write English.
I have been thinking about this issue very carefully.
PPP do not represent a niche competitor, they are just another advertising network, that up until now didn’t have any substantial metrics on their backend.
The fact that their service is going to be making money is a good thing as that funds future development.
The PPP acquisition of Performancing Metrics is good from another perspective. The metrics data can be used to make higher paying opportunities possible.
I haven’t seen any occurrence of PPP being dishonest, in fact they are ahead on the ethics issue compared to affiliate networks, including Google’s referrals program, and have been for some time (since they introduced disclosurepolicy.org)
Motmaitre – “Performancing” is the name of the company we’re discussing here, and http://www.performancing.com is the website URL where all of this is taking place. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, do some research on it.
I recognize that it’s “not a word” but who are you asking to speak English? We’re discussing an event that’s taken place here… we don’t have control over what a company names themself.
Andy – I think it’s more about PPP causing controversy and strain right out of the starting gate, gaining themselves a lot of negative publicity, and users simply not wanting to be a part of it. The recent statement by the FTC that it should be required (it’s not yet a law, apparently, but rather the “opinion” of the FTC – which means we can most likely look forward to a law on it) is something that affects all of this – but disclosurepolicy.org only helps people create disclosure policies, and happens to be sponsored (created) by PPP. They still don’t set things up on PPP to require them, from what I am aware. I know that the one review I’d done for reviewme.com (back before all this hubub) explained that the post I wrote was going to be scanned (by human or machine, I forget), checked for disclosure, and approved before payment was granted. From what I understand (and I could be wrong, because I’m not a member), PPP still has no way to force disclosure.
All that said – looks like Nick finally got tired of my complaining and deleted my account completely. I couldn’t be more thrilled.
[…] A couple of interesting views on PPP and PPP & Performancing can be found at ProBlogger and Andy Beard (under the “2007 A reality Check” subtitle). Read the comments as well if you have time. […]
Performancing, Pay Per Post and Me…
So many people have asked me I thought I might as well put up a post to pre-emptively settle your curiosity.
The big question people are asking is if I have made a bundle out of it. No, I did not make anything out of the deal, I won’t make anyth…
Performancing, Pay Per Post and Me…
So many people have asked me I thought I might as well put up a post to pre-emptively settle your curiosity.
The big question people are asking is if I have made a bundle out of it. No, I did not make anything out of the deal, I won’t make anyth…