I joined an ad network to try and generate some more dough to keep my web sites up and running and cover my dedicated server costs. I’m a small time, shoe string operator. Every penny counts. I was convinced to try out a certain new golf ad network. That was August. To date I’ve logged over 629,000 ad impressions (527,311 “paid impressions”) for some pretty fancy advertisers on this network.
Not One Red Cent
The payout for said 527,311 impressions? Not one red cent, ever. Their current (and final balance, since I’ve now removed their ads) is $1,002.53.
Contacted Them Several Times
To date I’ve contacted several different people at this network and complained, asked nicely, got on my knees and begged them to settle up their account. I’ve done this on several occasions and was assured I’d get a payment in November, and then again in December, 2009. It is now January 12, 2010 and not a peep or payment.
I’d even deleted an ad campaign on my blog which was paying me on a monthly basis, and replaced it with this ad network’s ads. I find it to be a bad business move to remove campaigns which pay and replace them with ones which don’t.
Nothing But Excuses
I get excuse after excuse about accounting problems, vendor problems, moon spot problems, solar flare problems, dog ate the accountant’s homework problems etc.
Here are a couple:
10.28.09 “payments from June onward have been delayed as we have yet to receive payment from advertisers for these months. It is most likely that we will resolve these accounts within the next month and be able to send your payment in the November billing cycle (you would receive it at the end of November).”
Oh really? Didn’t get a payment of any kind in November. Actually I’ve received no payment of any kind, ever. Here’s another good one:
10.28.09 “We can provide you some more detailed reports shortly- our system is momentarily down.”
Aw shucks their system is momentarily down. Darn it anyway.
11.23.09 ME “I’m weary of running any ads from xxx-slimeball-company at this point, since I have yet to be paid and I’ve been running your ads for over three months now. I’ve sent numerous emails into you guys about this yet nobody has even responded.”
11.23.09 THEM “I am very sorry to hear that my team has been unresponsive. A number of late advertiser payments forced us to push publisher payment back. You will receive payment for August and most likely September as well at the end of December.”
One more, just for fun!!!
12.03.09 “You should have been paid by now so its probably a simple administrative fix…”
I’ve got your administrative fix right here. It is called sending me a check.
I was even told on the phone that they secured “X” zillion more dollars in investor money to pay their advertisers. If they could get x-zillion dollars from their investors, they could probably send me the .00000000001% of that dough to settle up with me.
Filling out their stupid “report cards” does nothing
I get emails from this company asking me to fill out a “report card” so they can “know how to improve.” Under the fields communication, responsiveness and payment I grade them an “F” every time. Then in the text field at the bottom it asks “How can we improve?” I usually type in something really hard to understand like “pay me” and I’ll bitch about not getting paid, ever. Obviously nobody reads their stupid report card surveys, or if they do they choose not to do anything about the complaints.
Lowering The Boom SOON…
If these inconsiderate aholes don’t take care of their balance with me pronto, I’ll be plastering their name all over my golf sites and letting everyone know that they’re deadbeats. Anyone Googling them to see if they want to work with them will surely find my posts about how they don’t pay, and stay away. I would.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to have a martini.
I’ve now updated my PGA Tour Schedule page to reflect the 2010 season. You can quickly find that any time you need to know where they’re playing and what network is covering on a particular week. Just go to the sub-menu PGA Tour Schedule from the Blog Pages menu.
I’ve had the pleasure of evaluating several different brands and models of golf balls over the last season. I’m beginning to wonder if any company is making a bad golf ball these days. One of the very best is the Srixon Z-Star and Z-StarX series. The Z-StarX is the longer, firmer and and less “spinny” of the two.
Z-StarX Construction
The Z-StarX is a three layer ball. The three layers are the core, mid-layer and cover.
The cover is .02 inches and made of urethane. The thin cover helps the player control shots and gives the player great control in the short game. The X cover has 324 dimples, less than many higher spin balls. “Invisiseam” technology means no seam. Actually maybe there is a seam but it is invisible.
The mid-layer is an ionemer plastic. This layer helps control spin on the longer shots, keeping it low off the driver for accuracy and distance.
The core is an “energetic gradient growth core.” This is a technology which varies the core density. We’ve see this same idea in some other popular golf balls.
On The Course
The Z-StarX is yet another golf ball which performs incredibly for me. Despite Srixon advertising that this ball is for 105mph+ swing speeds and a little harder than the regular Z-Star, the ball doesn’t feel hard at all. My swing might top out at 105, but I’m sure it averages 100-103ish.
Around the greens and on short game, this ball performs perfectly. There is plenty of spin and control.
Durability
Like I mentioned in my Z-Star review, this ball is very durable. The cover lasts much longer and the ball says playable for many more holes than some other high performance balls out there.
Conclusion
I’m a Z-StarX fan. There’s another ball to get excited about when you find it in the hazard.
Related Links
Srixon image gallery.
Srixon web site.
Wrong… You figured I’d be golfing tomorrow.
I’M GOING SKIING! No hope of golf so for the first time in about five years, I’m strapping flat sticks on my feet and sliding down a hill, trying not to impale myself on a pine tree.
A report will follow.
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