Tripod, a Lycos-owned community of Web pages, today launches its Premier Builders program, an advertising revenue-sharing effort that it says is an industry first for a free-hosting service.
Combining cash incentives, Web developing tools and free unlimited disk storage space, the Premier Builders program is Tripod’s latest move to attract new Web page builders and reward existing members whose pages attract heavy visitor traffic.
“This program helps position Tripod as the premier builder [of pages] on the Web,” said Don Zereski, general manager of Tripod, Williamstown, MA. “We want to be the default choice for page builders on the Web and for amateur publishers who want to grow into page builders.”
Builder Bucks underpins this Tripod effort to motivate builders to create better pages that draw more visitor traffic. Touted as the Internet’s most generous revenue-sharing program for home-page builders, Builder Bucks rewards creators of both e-commerce and vanity Web sites with a cut of ad revenue.
Tripod members who register for the program will receive 50 cents for 100 to 999 advertising impressions generated on their home pages. Ad impressions over 1,000 will garner $1 for the page builder. A minimum 25,000 impressions are required for a quarterly check.
To qualify, the home page must at least be a month old and meet Tripod’s quality standards. Page builders should be over 13 years old.
Such Premier Builders are also offered the option of embedding ads directly into their pages or to continue displaying the floating pop-up ads common to all member pages. This gives page creators more leeway and control over their site’s appearance while allowing them to share in traffic-driven ad revenue.
The Premier Builder program boasts other benefits, too. Web developers will have free access to Tripod’s collection of Common Gateway Interface and Java scripts. They will be allowed to personalize their subdomains (membername.tripod.com) to navigate easily through simple Web addresses. And, the Web page host claims to be the first to offer unlimited disk storage space to these rent-free tenants.
“Our goal,” Zereski said, “is to help our best builders turn their hobby of page building into their day job.”
