The One Big Ad

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		Blog This is my blog, I'll try and update it as often as possible Hello India 17th July 2007 18:14 Sorry it has been so long since I have written on here. I have been very busy and had a week or so of feeling pretty unwell due to a rather unpleasant bug, but I have fully recovered now and back in action! Although I have been feeling pretty unwell my hip has been improving amazingly and is now nearly 100%. I am running most evening as part of my physio; something I had never really done even prior to my accident. However personally I don’t quite believe my body was built for running (bad hip or not), but, anything that means I won’t end back in a hospital bed has to be a good thing! Had some great news today, I have been in contact with a journalist in India for the past week or so as he was interested in covering the site and today the article was actually published. It’s not just any paper though; it’s one of the biggest business paper in India, the Economic Times. This is brilliant news as I have had lots of articles in local papers and people and companies have blogged about me which have been fantastic; however this is the first major national publication to cover the site. Hopefully this will increase the awareness of the site further still and of course this should lead to an increase in hits and visitors. Obviously the population of India and its current growth rate is incredible (I did learn a few things in my business degree) so it would be great to get some banner sales out there. I’ll upload the article onto the press page shortly, but, it will have to be as a pdf document as you have to log into their site to view the actual article. So a really big thanks to Niranjan for writing the article and lets hope it helps with the progress of the site. To slogan or not to slogan? 19th June 2007 01:12 Well The One Big Ad has now had more than 60 banner submitters, taking the current total raised to over $600. To the relief of many of my friends I have even succumb to a hair cut which I promised I would do after 50 submissions! There has also been a large uptake on the newsletter front which is great; this lets me drop you a quick email to alert you to blog updates, or, any major site changes. If you haven’t seen it, the signup box is on the homepage, just enter your email and hit submit and I’ll send you occasional updates. Don’t panic, I promise not to bombard you! The more observant of you may have noticed a few changes to the site the main one being I have added a new page, yes “Press” has finally arrived. From the start of this ‘experiment’ (I heard someone call it that the other day and I quite liked it) I have had links to articles emailed to me by various people (whom I am hugely grateful to) and I have decided to start listing these on a page; partly as a thank you to everyone who has written about the site and also to let visitors to the site see what people are saying. So if you see an article, or a blog which mentions the site, or better still you fancy writing one just drop me a quick email here and I’ll post it on the press page for all to see. So what else has been happening? I have had a couple of interviews recently for newspapers in the last few days which should hopefully be coming out soon and there is potentially some radio coverage which may be happening, I’ll keep you posted on that. I might even be able to post it online depending on copyright issues and getting hold of the audio, fingers crossed. Now I’ve used the term ‘experiment’ it makes me wonder if this site should have a slogan it does seem to be the done thing nowadays! ‘The One Big Ad Experiment’, ‘The Internet Experiment’ not quite sure; suggestions on a postcard please! Enough of these ramblings it’s gone 1am, my hip needs its sleep and I still need to do the last bit of physio for the day! It is offical: Crutchless 11th June 2007 12:16 It is official I’m off crutches!! I’ve been working on it a little bit each week and building up to it slowly but I think I can finally say I don’t need them anymore. It is amazing walking without them again, if a little scary at first, but, I just have to learn to trust my own hip again which in itself seems a little odd. Carrying things, sitting down, shifting direction etc are all still big no nos but the progress and feeling of being ‘crutchless’ is incredible. Things have been slightly slower on the site in the past week mainly because I had been focusing on walking again and hadn’t spent as much time creating attention for the site. Saying that I find it pretty overwhelming to think that well over 50 companies from around the world like an idea I had whilst lying in my hospital bed. Although it’s only around £5, I know how difficult it is to actually click the ‘buy now’ button and I really do appreciate all of you who have. So this week is going to see a huge push on the site, from contacting media companies, potential advertisers and posting on forums etc and just getting people talking and visiting the site. Ever since I was young I have had ideas for business and companies that I have wanted to do. I was 15 when I tried to start up my first ever company. It was an extreme sports clothing company; I came up with the logos, designs etc and sorted out suppliers in India; the only thing that stopped me was the UK distributers who wouldn’t deal with me because I was too young, which was incredibly annoying. Ever since then I have had numerous ideas, some of which have no future, but others are a real possibility; however importantly all require funding. And it’s because of this I am so set on making The One Big Ad a success; my hip was a massive set back with what I was doing, however I really want to turn this bad situation into an amazing one and be able to look back at this point and think that dislocating my hip was in actually in some ways a really great point in my life. Right let the big push commence! Hit and passed 50 30th May 2007 11:09 I decided it was about time for an update and there been some significant advancement in banner submissions. In my last blog entry banner submissions were around the 30 mark and they have now passed 50; taking the total amount raised to over five hundred dollars. Thank you so much everyone I really do appreciate it as this has been the only money coming in for me since, well, February as I really can’t work due to my hip. Don’t panic though I am keeping 25% of the revenue back for The One Big Ad prize draw at the end. Most of these submissions were due to people posting on websites and forums for me, so, thank you so much. It doesn’t matter how many people I email or how many forums I post in, it is never anywhere near as effective as having someone who is a regular contributor to a forum positing on it, or a site owner mentioning it on their site, it is basically banner selling gold dust! Bit of a hip update, I did actually have to pop back to hospital yesterday for some further blood tests and x-rays; I’ve never had so many blood tests at once, I thought my arm was going to fall off, but it has just about pulled through this morning, luckily! Unfortunately we were a bit delayed in hospital hence the banner change yesterday was an hour late so sorry about that; I really do need to design it so it changes automatically as currently each banner is changed by hand. There have been a few site modifications particularly to the front page. I decided I would adjust it to explain the concept a little better and I have added a newsletter submission section. Yes, you can now sign up to be alerted to site updates and blog updates. Panic not, I’m not going to bombard you with 5 or 6 emails a week! I’ll use it for example to announce when a blog has been posted. So if you want to stay up to date, go back to the homepage and on your left hand side enter you email address and hit submit; it is as simple as that. Sites Gone International...really (this time) 24th May 2007 15:42 Okay fair enough Scotland wasn’t quite international; but surely Australia is! Yes The One Big Ad has now not one, not two but three banners all the way from down under. A massive thanks to Brennan who submitted his Free Business Tips site from the other side of the world and he’s going to mention me on his forum and blog. I do just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has already mentioned me in their blogs, forums and on their sites; I really appreciate the help and support. The word of mouth effect is quite an incredible phenomenon on the internet, but it always needs a few people to start it off, so thanks. So what’s been happening? As well as going international banner submissions have gone past the 30 mark; at the time of writing a total of 32 companies have submitted, making a grand total of $320, not bad at all, making me very happy. I’ve changed a few bits on the site; most of which you probably won’t notice, but it should be a little quicker now. Also I have updated the Frequently Asked Questions with a few questions which surprisingly people kept asking me! I haven’t yet created the directory I mentioned about in my previous blog, as I said this is something which I will do once a few more companies have entered as it will help visitors with navigating between the advertisers. I am now going to try and generate a bit more press interest fingers crossed. On a slightly cheeky note if anyone has any contacts or knows anyone in the journalism world please do mention the site to them or get them to get in contact with me and I’ll happily forward them a press release. Sites Gone International...just 18th May 2007 10:56 The One Big Ad has gone international! Well just, Aberdeen in Scotland to be precise, not quite the other side of the world but a start! Yesterday was also a great day for submissions with 5 banners being submitted, the most in one day to date! So once again I want to say a huge thank you to all the companies that have submitted banners and to the people who have been spreading the word about the site. The site has been mentioned on several sites including Roddy McLeod’s ‘A-Z New and Notable sites’ which is sent out to lots of subscribers and will hopefully generate even further interest in the site. On the hip front I went to the hospital on Wednesday and got some great news. Apparently there appears to be no damage to the blood vessels, (which is the main reason for hip replacements after a dislocation), and I don’t have to have another x-ray back till next February. There is still a lot of weird clicking/aching/pain etc down in that area but hopefully as I continue with the physio this will progress and improve; well according to the Dr it will! I have also found out that I can get hold of my x-rays; apparently they cost around £30 ($60) so once I have sold a few more banners I might have to contact the hospital, something for the living room wall in years to come. It would also be great to post them on here for visitors to the site to see, although there may have to be a warning, I felt a little sick looking at them (bones definitely shouldn’t be in that position)! Also maybe an x-ray will silence the several people who think that this is all a hoax and that in fact I haven’t dislocated my hip, I’m not Richard Stratton, or as one person even suggested I’m a huge advertising agency (I appreciate the compliment). This is despite several press articles, some even showing my crutches, pictures of me in hospital etc; well I guess it takes allsorts, bring on the x-ray evidence. 20 Companies Milestone 11th May 2007 13:55 Well the grand total has now reached $200! So that represents 20 companies that have submitted banners on The One Big Ad now and to be honest I’m pretty happy! I’ve had submissions for all over the UK now, with the furthest so far being over 300 miles away all the way from Cumbria which isn’t bad! None yet from any foreign countries but hits to the site are coming in from all over the world, with a lot actually from Australia, it would be great to get one from totally the other side of the world (not that I’m being pushy). The mix and diversity of companies as well is great, I wasn’t sure at the start if it would just be design companies or companies in the internet sector as it could initially appear difficult to some people to design banners due to the size etc. This is something several people mentioned and I have added a really simple tutorial here and if anyone is still having problems please just drop me an email I’m always happy to help if I can – while the sites still taking off I’m happy to help design them - I just hope I don’t regret saying that! With regards to the hip, which after all is what started this site, I still haven’t heard back from the hospital about my MRI scan. It was supposed to take 5 days but it was Monday last week so I’m going to give them a ring later and see if I can find out what has happened! As ever I’m still doing lots of physio, which involves 4 different leg lifting exercises which I do 25 times each about 3-4 times a day, I’m getting to know my bedroom carpet very well now! In the mean time I’ve been mainly generating more interest for the site and have also have started designing a site for my mum – and will obviously get her to submit a banner for it (you can’t blame me). Mystery Man 30th April 2007 12:03 I don’t know how many of you saw my latest article there’s a link here if you want to check it out. But the big question is who is the random guy in the photo-not the 1st one that’s defiantly me-but if you click the arrow at the top you will see someone who defiantly isn’t me! Anyone seen him/know who he is? Right back to the site, well banner sales have been somewhat slow recently I think this is mainly due to my concentration being diverted from actually selling banners to creating awareness in press etc; however I’m fully aware that without banner sales there will be no press interest so I will have to up the anti there. Also I have my scan today at 3pm so I have been thinking about that a fair bit, still all a little apprehensive but hopefully it will all be fine. I don’t know when I will get my results but I doubt it will be today. Hopefully I will be able to concentrate a bit more on the site and generally getting on with life once I have got that out of the way. Not great news though, I have heard that these blood vessels can choose to collapse at anytime in the next 4-5 years (not very convenient of them) so going to keep needing scans for the foreseeable future to make sure that doesn’t happen. But I think the first time is the most likely it will occur. Right, I best get ready for my trip to Cambridge for the scan, Dad’s taking me up there shortly. Sorry this is quite a short post but I promise to be focusing more of my attention on this as of this afternoon. Thanks again for all your help. Good and bad 24th April 2007 12:41 Some good news and some bad news; I have just been speaking to some press and I have another article coming out this Thursday which will be awesome, have also been speaking to lots of internet sites and other news distributors and will hopefully have a few more articles coming out shortly so keep your eyes peeled! Some slightly less great news, I found out that the outcome of my scan on Monday will highlight if I need a hip replacement (gulp), basically my physio said it depends if I have damaged my blood vessels, capillaries etc when I actually dislocated my hip. I did lots of Googling but started to scare myself so stopped…at the end of the day I guess if it happens it happens. On a different note I had a few people email me yesterday asking why I hadn’t changed the banners. The answer to this is very simple; it’s a totally random draw and this time the same company, Jarv Design, won twice. At the time of writing there is a 1 in 15 chance of each company winning The Daily Ad draw so it’s likely that occasionally the same company may win twice in a row, or even more. It all goes back to those math’s lessons (or math for you guys over there in America) and tossing a coin for hours on end, recording if it’s a head or a tail! Maybe in some distant way that lesson led me to create this site and perhaps wasn’t a total waste of my time, I must remember to thank Mr Taylor if this site takes off! I have made a couple of minor site changes and added a counter on the homepage so visitors can see how many banners I have sold. I’m going to spend the rest of the day speaking to more press people encouraging them to write some articles and really try and get this site moving. Thanks again for all your help I massively appreciate you all talking about the site, for submitting ads and of course for helping me generate a total of $150 so far! My First Ever Published Article 19th April 2007 13:13 Success first story published! You can view the article here it’s actually made the front cover which is pretty cool for the first ever one! I have another article coming out tomorrow which again I’ll publish the link for as long as they put it up on their website! The article does state that “each week one website is chosen to have its banner displayed at the head and foot of each” page which obviously isn’t quite right as its daily but hopefully this will lead to a significant increase in local coverage so I’m not complaining! Now I have got some coverage in local papers it gives me a bit more sway with the bigger boys out there! So I have spent the morning emailing the Times, Register, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Observer, Sun, Express etc....with the intention of generating some more mainstream advertising, now it’s just a waiting game. I’ve had some good news on the hip front too, doing the physio exercises each day is defiantly strengthening it and I am going to see my physio today at 2pm to see how well I have progressed so will keep you posted. Some slightly less exciting news; I’ve just opened my post and received my tax return for my start up company so it looks like it I will be having a fun afternoon! It shouldn’t be too bad though; as it’s a start up I haven’t actually earned anything so it should be too taxing (no pun intended) should it...? On that note I’ve had a few people asking me about my other company and what it is and why I haven’t mentioned it on here (especially journalists). There is a reason for that, I have created this site to promote and advertise other companies, I’m not going to detract from that by using this space to shout about how great my other one is - although I believe it is! So by all means keep guessing away and no, as one journalist asked me it’s not an X-rated site! Right physio time then the joys of the tax return, I can’t wait. Smile for the Camera 14th April 2007 15:04 You know what they say about waiting for a bus and then two arrive at once, well the same seems to be true with the press. I have had not one, but two press photographers visit today, with various shots taken of me in bed, at my desk and with numerous different poses! Throughout this week I have also had several telephone interviews with local regional newspapers; the stories of which should be printed in this coming week – I’ll put up the links as soon as they are published - I can't quite believe it and of course this should all lead to a significant increase in visitors and of course hits. Banner sales have been going well, strangely none were sold on the Thursday then come Friday they were flooding in, with a total of four being sold. Hits are also increasing significantly each day as more and more people seem to be talking about the site thanks to the great word of mouth effect! So thanks to everyone who is talking about the site; it’s amazing just how far spread the visitors are already, with hits from Israel, Hong Kong and numerous other far flung locations, wow! Also of course thank you so much to all the advertisers who have submitted banners, I really do appreciate it; we’re over the $100 mark now and seem to be increasing rapidly! I’m off to enjoy the sun with my girlfriend Libby (my devoted carer) who’s come down for the weekend, have fun! Sunshine and interviews 11th April 2007 14:28 The suns shining and banner submissions are coming in! I’ve had some good news on the press front too; so far I’ve had two telephone interviews for regional newspapers and waiting to hear back from several more. Hopefully these will lead to at least two newspaper articles. Once I can get some media attention I think that’s when visitors to the site will start to increase significantly (fingers crossed). The idea is that increased visitors/banner submissions will create more news coverage, leading to more visitors and so on (well that’s the plan). As it is, just from word of mouth hits are pretty much doubling each day which is great news and shows that interest seems to be steadily building, so thank you to everyone who is talking about the site and of course those of you that have bought a banner. Thanks also for all the comments both good and bad (some people do just think I’m mad) all are greatly appreciated! I’ve added a couple of things to the site too, there’s a tutorial for creating banners which can be found here, after a few people asked me about it and I’ve added some buttons at the bottom which allow people to bookmark the website on site’s such as Digg and Delicious etc which again will hopefully lead to increased coverage. Now I’m off for a bit of physio time, a nice walk out in the sun on crutches will be lovely. Happy Easter 8th April 2007 11:29 Happy Easter. Well I’ve earned more in the past few days than I have in the past two months. Okay not quite enough to live on (to be fair I can’t spend a lot currently), but it has given me some slight hope that this idea could just work. I obviously want to say a massive thank you to the companies and people that have taken a gamble and submitted their banner, most of them are friends or friends-of-friends but a couple are complete strangers which is brilliant, so thanks! I have also setup a Facebook group, which at the time of writing has around 120 members, again thanks to everyone who has joined and invited their friends and please continue to do so. However to start getting any serious levels of hits (which will hopefully lead to banner submissions I’m going to have to generate press interest. I have been writing a few press releases which I am going to send out after Easter, I’m planning to contact local newspapers first and try and get some local coverage and then progress onto the bigger boys, wish me luck. Of course I’m not forgetting without doubt the greatest marketing tool (especially on the internet), word-of-mouth, which of course is brilliantly free. Quick ‘hip update’ I’ve now got my MRI scan date which will let me know what damage etc I have done so that good news but not till the end of April so bit of a wait, but doing lots of physio and definitely seeing a gradual improvement each day! Right I think its Easter egg time! Who am I? 4th April 2007 15:37 Well I thought I'd start by telling you a bit about who I am and what I'm doing with my life! My name is Richard Stratton; I'm 22 and currently lying here with a dislocated hip (a long story). As you can imagine, perhaps not the greatest point in my life, but I do have a lot of time sitting/lying around (not as fun as it sounds!) So I’ve decided to use this time to have a go at designing a website. It's actually a website I've been thinking about for a while, probably since the 2nd year of uni. Since leaving university last year unlike the majority of my friends I decided that the standard career route wasn't that exciting and decided that fulfilling my lifetime dream and starting up my own company was what I really wanted to do! I have set the company up, got a website designed and am now at the point of trying to promote it. This is the big problem, I am pretty sure I have a good and unique product but trying to get the idea out there to the customer is so difficult, without large amounts of
cash; which unfortunately I don’t have as I am paying for everything myself by doing random jobs such as working on farms and even punting in Cambridge (Google it), however obviously no money is currently coming in, thanks to my hip! So I have decided to launch this site, the idea being (I'm going to be quite honest here) to make some money. I have student debts which would be great to pay off, but, most importantly I want to promote and get my business idea up and running! An injection of cash would allow me to really market my product fully and hopefully result in some much needed sales! So that's me really, if you want to know more feel free to email me at richard@theonebigad.com

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This is my blog, I'll try and update it as often as possible

Hello India

17th July 2007 18:14

Sorry it has been so long since I have written on here. I have been very busy and had a week or so of feeling pretty unwell due to a rather unpleasant bug, but I have fully recovered now and back in action! Although I have been feeling pretty unwell my hip has been improving amazingly and is now nearly 100%. I am running most evening as part of my physio; something I had never really done even prior to my accident. However personally I don’t quite believe my body was built for running (bad hip or not), but, anything that means I won’t end back in a hospital bed has to be a good thing!

Had some great news today, I have been in contact with a journalist in India for the past week or so as he was interested in covering the site and today the article was actually published. It’s not just any paper though; it’s one of the biggest business paper in India, the Economic Times. This is brilliant news as I have had lots of articles in local papers and people and companies have blogged about me which have been fantastic; however this is the first major national publication to cover the site. Hopefully this will increase the awareness of the site further still and of course this should lead to an increase in hits and visitors. Obviously the population of India and its current growth rate is incredible (I did learn a few things in my business degree) so it would be great to get some banner sales out there. I’ll upload the article onto the press page shortly, but, it will have to be as a pdf document as you have to log into their site to view the actual article. So a really big thanks to Niranjan for writing the article and lets hope it helps with the progress of the site.

To slogan or not to slogan?

19th June 2007 01:12

Well The One Big Ad has now had more than 60 banner submitters, taking the current total raised to over $600. To the relief of many of my friends I have even succumb to a hair cut which I promised I would do after 50 submissions! There has also been a large uptake on the newsletter front which is great; this lets me drop you a quick email to alert you to blog updates, or, any major site changes. If you haven’t seen it, the signup box is on the homepage, just enter your email and hit submit and I’ll send you occasional updates. Don’t panic, I promise not to bombard you!

The more observant of you may have noticed a few changes to the site the main one being I have added a new page, yes “Press” has finally arrived. From the start of this ‘experiment’ (I heard someone call it that the other day and I quite liked it) I have had links to articles emailed to me by various people (whom I am hugely grateful to) and I have decided to start listing these on a page; partly as a thank you to everyone who has written about the site and also to let visitors to the site see what people are saying. So if you see an article, or a blog which mentions the site, or better still you fancy writing one just drop me a quick email here and I’ll post it on the press page for all to see.

So what else has been happening? I have had a couple of interviews recently for newspapers in the last few days which should hopefully be coming out soon and there is potentially some radio coverage which may be happening, I’ll keep you posted on that. I might even be able to post it online depending on copyright issues and getting hold of the audio, fingers crossed.

Now I’ve used the term ‘experiment’ it makes me wonder if this site should have a slogan it does seem to be the done thing nowadays! ‘The One Big Ad Experiment’, ‘The Internet Experiment’ not quite sure; suggestions on a postcard please! Enough of these ramblings it’s gone 1am, my hip needs its sleep and I still need to do the last bit of physio for the day!

It is offical: Crutchless

11th June 2007 12:16

It is official I’m off crutches!! I’ve been working on it a little bit each week and building up to it slowly but I think I can finally say I don’t need them anymore. It is amazing walking without them again, if a little scary at first, but, I just have to learn to trust my own hip again which in itself seems a little odd. Carrying things, sitting down, shifting direction etc are all still big no nos but the progress and feeling of being ‘crutchless’ is incredible.

Things have been slightly slower on the site in the past week mainly because I had been focusing on walking again and hadn’t spent as much time creating attention for the site. Saying that I find it pretty overwhelming to think that well over 50 companies from around the world like an idea I had whilst lying in my hospital bed. Although it’s only around £5, I know how difficult it is to actually click the ‘buy now’ button and I really do appreciate all of you who have. So this week is going to see a huge push on the site, from contacting media companies, potential advertisers and posting on forums etc and just getting people talking and visiting the site.

Ever since I was young I have had ideas for business and companies that I have wanted to do. I was 15 when I tried to start up my first ever company. It was an extreme sports clothing company; I came up with the logos, designs etc and sorted out suppliers in India; the only thing that stopped me was the UK distributers who wouldn’t deal with me because I was too young, which was incredibly annoying. Ever since then I have had numerous ideas, some of which have no future, but others are a real possibility; however importantly all require funding. And it’s because of this I am so set on making The One Big Ad a success; my hip was a massive set back with what I was doing, however I really want to turn this bad situation into an amazing one and be able to look back at this point and think that dislocating my hip was in actually in some ways a really great point in my life. Right let the big push commence!

Hit and passed 50

30th May 2007 11:09

I decided it was about time for an update and there been some significant advancement in banner submissions. In my last blog entry banner submissions were around the 30 mark and they have now passed 50; taking the total amount raised to over five hundred dollars. Thank you so much everyone I really do appreciate it as this has been the only money coming in for me since, well, February as I really can’t work due to my hip. Don’t panic though I am keeping 25% of the revenue back for The One Big Ad prize draw at the end.

Most of these submissions were due to people posting on websites and forums for me, so, thank you so much. It doesn’t matter how many people I email or how many forums I post in, it is never anywhere near as effective as having someone who is a regular contributor to a forum positing on it, or a site owner mentioning it on their site, it is basically banner selling gold dust!

Bit of a hip update, I did actually have to pop back to hospital yesterday for some further blood tests and x-rays; I’ve never had so many blood tests at once, I thought my arm was going to fall off, but it has just about pulled through this morning, luckily! Unfortunately we were a bit delayed in hospital hence the banner change yesterday was an hour late so sorry about that; I really do need to design it so it changes automatically as currently each banner is changed by hand.

There have been a few site modifications particularly to the front page. I decided I would adjust it to explain the concept a little better and I have added a newsletter submission section. Yes, you can now sign up to be alerted to site updates and blog updates. Panic not, I’m not going to bombard you with 5 or 6 emails a week! I’ll use it for example to announce when a blog has been posted. So if you want to stay up to date, go back to the homepage and on your left hand side enter you email address and hit submit; it is as simple as that.

Sites Gone International...really (this time)

24th May 2007 15:42

Okay fair enough Scotland wasn’t quite international; but surely Australia is! Yes The One Big Ad has now not one, not two but three banners all the way from down under. A massive thanks to Brennan who submitted his Free Business Tips site from the other side of the world and he’s going to mention me on his forum and blog. I do just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has already mentioned me in their blogs, forums and on their sites; I really appreciate the help and support. The word of mouth effect is quite an incredible phenomenon on the internet, but it always needs a few people to start it off, so thanks.

So what’s been happening? As well as going international banner submissions have gone past the 30 mark; at the time of writing a total of 32 companies have submitted, making a grand total of $320, not bad at all, making me very happy. I’ve changed a few bits on the site; most of which you probably won’t notice, but it should be a little quicker now. Also I have updated the Frequently Asked Questions with a few questions which surprisingly people kept asking me! I haven’t yet created the directory I mentioned about in my previous blog, as I said this is something which I will do once a few more companies have entered as it will help visitors with navigating between the advertisers.

I am now going to try and generate a bit more press interest fingers crossed. On a slightly cheeky note if anyone has any contacts or knows anyone in the journalism world please do mention the site to them or get them to get in contact with me and I’ll happily forward them a press release.

Sites Gone International...just

18th May 2007 10:56

The One Big Ad has gone international! Well just, Aberdeen in Scotland to be precise, not quite the other side of the world but a start! Yesterday was also a great day for submissions with 5 banners being submitted, the most in one day to date! So once again I want to say a huge thank you to all the companies that have submitted banners and to the people who have been spreading the word about the site. The site has been mentioned on several sites including Roddy McLeod’s ‘A-Z New and Notable sites’ which is sent out to lots of subscribers and will hopefully generate even further interest in the site.

On the hip front I went to the hospital on Wednesday and got some great news. Apparently there appears to be no damage to the blood vessels, (which is the main reason for hip replacements after a dislocation), and I don’t have to have another x-ray back till next February. There is still a lot of weird clicking/aching/pain etc down in that area but hopefully as I continue with the physio this will progress and improve; well according to the Dr it will!

I have also found out that I can get hold of my x-rays; apparently they cost around £30 ($60) so once I have sold a few more banners I might have to contact the hospital, something for the living room wall in years to come. It would also be great to post them on here for visitors to the site to see, although there may have to be a warning, I felt a little sick looking at them (bones definitely shouldn’t be in that position)! Also maybe an x-ray will silence the several people who think that this is all a hoax and that in fact I haven’t dislocated my hip, I’m not Richard Stratton, or as one person even suggested I’m a huge advertising agency (I appreciate the compliment). This is despite several press articles, some even showing my crutches, pictures of me in hospital etc; well I guess it takes allsorts, bring on the x-ray evidence.

20 Companies Milestone

11th May 2007 13:55

Well the grand total has now reached $200! So that represents 20 companies that have submitted banners on The One Big Ad now and to be honest I’m pretty happy! I’ve had submissions for all over the UK now, with the furthest so far being over 300 miles away all the way from Cumbria which isn’t bad! None yet from any foreign countries but hits to the site are coming in from all over the world, with a lot actually from Australia, it would be great to get one from totally the other side of the world (not that I’m being pushy).

The mix and diversity of companies as well is great, I wasn’t sure at the start if it would just be design companies or companies in the internet sector as it could initially appear difficult to some people to design banners due to the size etc. This is something several people mentioned and I have added a really simple tutorial here and if anyone is still having problems please just drop me an email I’m always happy to help if I can – while the sites still taking off I’m happy to help design them - I just hope I don’t regret saying that!

With regards to the hip, which after all is what started this site, I still haven’t heard back from the hospital about my MRI scan. It was supposed to take 5 days but it was Monday last week so I’m going to give them a ring later and see if I can find out what has happened! As ever I’m still doing lots of physio, which involves 4 different leg lifting exercises which I do 25 times each about 3-4 times a day, I’m getting to know my bedroom carpet very well now! In the mean time I’ve been mainly generating more interest for the site and have also have started designing a site for my mum – and will obviously get her to submit a banner for it (you can’t blame me).

Mystery Man

30th April 2007 12:03

I don’t know how many of you saw my latest article there’s a link here if you want to check it out. But the big question is who is the random guy in the photo-not the 1st one that’s defiantly me-but if you click the arrow at the top you will see someone who defiantly isn’t me! Anyone seen him/know who he is?

Right back to the site, well banner sales have been somewhat slow recently I think this is mainly due to my concentration being diverted from actually selling banners to creating awareness in press etc; however I’m fully aware that without banner sales there will be no press interest so I will have to up the anti there. Also I have my scan today at 3pm so I have been thinking about that a fair bit, still all a little apprehensive but hopefully it will all be fine. I don’t know when I will get my results but I doubt it will be today. Hopefully I will be able to concentrate a bit more on the site and generally getting on with life once I have got that out of the way. Not great news though, I have heard that these blood vessels can choose to collapse at anytime in the next 4-5 years (not very convenient of them) so going to keep needing scans for the foreseeable future to make sure that doesn’t happen. But I think the first time is the most likely it will occur.

Right, I best get ready for my trip to Cambridge for the scan, Dad’s taking me up there shortly. Sorry this is quite a short post but I promise to be focusing more of my attention on this as of this afternoon. Thanks again for all your help.

Good and bad

24th April 2007 12:41

Some good news and some bad news; I have just been speaking to some press and I have another article coming out this Thursday which will be awesome, have also been speaking to lots of internet sites and other news distributors and will hopefully have a few more articles coming out shortly so keep your eyes peeled! Some slightly less great news, I found out that the outcome of my scan on Monday will highlight if I need a hip replacement (gulp), basically my physio said it depends if I have damaged my blood vessels, capillaries etc when I actually dislocated my hip. I did lots of Googling but started to scare myself so stopped…at the end of the day I guess if it happens it happens.

On a different note I had a few people email me yesterday asking why I hadn’t changed the banners. The answer to this is very simple; it’s a totally random draw and this time the same company, Jarv Design, won twice. At the time of writing there is a 1 in 15 chance of each company winning The Daily Ad draw so it’s likely that occasionally the same company may win twice in a row, or even more. It all goes back to those math’s lessons (or math for you guys over there in America) and tossing a coin for hours on end, recording if it’s a head or a tail! Maybe in some distant way that lesson led me to create this site and perhaps wasn’t a total waste of my time, I must remember to thank Mr Taylor if this site takes off!

I have made a couple of minor site changes and added a counter on the homepage so visitors can see how many banners I have sold. I’m going to spend the rest of the day speaking to more press people encouraging them to write some articles and really try and get this site moving. Thanks again for all your help I massively appreciate you all talking about the site, for submitting ads and of course for helping me generate a total of $150 so far!

My First Ever Published Article

19th April 2007 13:13

Success first story published! You can view the article here it’s actually made the front cover which is pretty cool for the first ever one! I have another article coming out tomorrow which again I’ll publish the link for as long as they put it up on their website! The article does state that “each week one website is chosen to have its banner displayed at the head and foot of each” page which obviously isn’t quite right as its daily but hopefully this will lead to a significant increase in local coverage so I’m not complaining!

Now I have got some coverage in local papers it gives me a bit more sway with the bigger boys out there! So I have spent the morning emailing the Times, Register, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Observer, Sun, Express etc....with the intention of generating some more mainstream advertising, now it’s just a waiting game.

I’ve had some good news on the hip front too, doing the physio exercises each day is defiantly strengthening it and I am going to see my physio today at 2pm to see how well I have progressed so will keep you posted.

Some slightly less exciting news; I’ve just opened my post and received my tax return for my start up company so it looks like it I will be having a fun afternoon! It shouldn’t be too bad though; as it’s a start up I haven’t actually earned anything so it should be too taxing (no pun intended) should it...?

On that note I’ve had a few people asking me about my other company and what it is and why I haven’t mentioned it on here (especially journalists). There is a reason for that, I have created this site to promote and advertise other companies, I’m not going to detract from that by using this space to shout about how great my other one is - although I believe it is! So by all means keep guessing away and no, as one journalist asked me it’s not an X-rated site!

Right physio time then the joys of the tax return, I can’t wait.

Smile for the Camera

14th April 2007 15:04

You know what they say about waiting for a bus and then two arrive at once, well the same seems to be true with the press. I have had not one, but two press photographers visit today, with various shots taken of me in bed, at my desk and with numerous different poses! Throughout this week I have also had several telephone interviews with local regional newspapers; the stories of which should be printed in this coming week – I’ll put up the links as soon as they are published - I can't quite believe it and of course this should all lead to a significant increase in visitors and of course hits.

Banner sales have been going well, strangely none were sold on the Thursday then come Friday they were flooding in, with a total of four being sold. Hits are also increasing significantly each day as more and more people seem to be talking about the site thanks to the great word of mouth effect! So thanks to everyone who is talking about the site; it’s amazing just how far spread the visitors are already, with hits from Israel, Hong Kong and numerous other far flung locations, wow! Also of course thank you so much to all the advertisers who have submitted banners, I really do appreciate it; we’re over the $100 mark now and seem to be increasing rapidly!

I’m off to enjoy the sun with my girlfriend Libby (my devoted carer) who’s come down for the weekend, have fun!

Sunshine and interviews

11th April 2007 14:28

The suns shining and banner submissions are coming in! I’ve had some good news on the press front too; so far I’ve had two telephone interviews for regional newspapers and waiting to hear back from several more. Hopefully these will lead to at least two newspaper articles. Once I can get some media attention I think that’s when visitors to the site will start to increase significantly (fingers crossed). The idea is that increased visitors/banner submissions will create more news coverage, leading to more visitors and so on (well that’s the plan). As it is, just from word of mouth hits are pretty much doubling each day which is great news and shows that interest seems to be steadily building, so thank you to everyone who is talking about the site and of course those of you that have bought a banner. Thanks also for all the comments both good and bad (some people do just think I’m mad) all are greatly appreciated!

I’ve added a couple of things to the site too, there’s a tutorial for creating banners which can be found here, after a few people asked me about it and I’ve added some buttons at the bottom which allow people to bookmark the website on site’s such as Digg and Delicious etc which again will hopefully lead to increased coverage. Now I’m off for a bit of physio time, a nice walk out in the sun on crutches will be lovely.

Happy Easter

8th April 2007 11:29

Happy Easter. Well I’ve earned more in the past few days than I have in the past two months. Okay not quite enough to live on (to be fair I can’t spend a lot currently), but it has given me some slight hope that this idea could just work. I obviously want to say a massive thank you to the companies and people that have taken a gamble and submitted their banner, most of them are friends or friends-of-friends but a couple are complete strangers which is brilliant, so thanks!

I have also setup a Facebook group, which at the time of writing has around 120 members, again thanks to everyone who has joined and invited their friends and please continue to do so. However to start getting any serious levels of hits (which will hopefully lead to banner submissions I’m going to have to generate press interest. I have been writing a few press releases which I am going to send out after Easter, I’m planning to contact local newspapers first and try and get some local coverage and then progress onto the bigger boys, wish me luck. Of course I’m not forgetting without doubt the greatest marketing tool (especially on the internet), word-of-mouth, which of course is brilliantly free.

Quick ‘hip update’ I’ve now got my MRI scan date which will let me know what damage etc I have done so that good news but not till the end of April so bit of a wait, but doing lots of physio and definitely seeing a gradual improvement each day! Right I think its Easter egg time!

Who am I?

4th April 2007 15:37

Well I thought I'd start by telling you a bit about who I am and what I'm doing with my life! My name is Richard Stratton; I'm 22 and currently lying here with a dislocated hip (a long story). As you can imagine, perhaps not the greatest point in my life, but I do have a lot of time sitting/lying around (not as fun as it sounds!)

So I’ve decided to use this time to have a go at designing a website. It's actually a website I've been thinking about for a while, probably since the 2nd year of uni.

Since leaving university last year unlike the majority of my friends I decided that the standard career route wasn't that exciting and decided that fulfilling my lifetime dream and starting up my own company was what I really wanted to do!

I have set the company up, got a website designed and am now at the point of trying to promote it. This is the big problem, I am pretty sure I have a good and unique product but trying to get the idea out there to the customer is so difficult, without large amounts of

cash; which unfortunately I don’t have as I am paying for everything myself by doing random jobs such as working on farms and even punting in Cambridge (Google it), however obviously no money is currently coming in, thanks to my hip! So I have decided to launch this site, the idea being (I'm going to be quite honest here) to make some money. I have student debts which would be great to pay off, but, most importantly I want to promote and get my business idea up and running! An injection of cash would allow me to really market my product fully and hopefully result in some much needed sales!

So that's me really, if you want to know more feel free to email me at richard@theonebigad.com

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