bla.st : free advertising that's actually usefull

When I tell people I'm developing a website called bla.st, the first question they ask is "What is it?". This is easy to answer, "bla.st is a big, free web directory of advertisements, a bit like the yellow pages" I can reply. Inevitably the next question is something along the lines of: "Why would anyone want to look through a website full of ads?".

I'm have very little experience with Marketing, and I'm definitely no sales person. I hate invasive advertising as much as the next guy and, for fun, try to keep tele-marketers on the phone for as long as possible. Advertising has a really negative connotation in society today, probably due to the shear amount that bombards us every day. I decided to make an alternative. A non-invasive, preferably free advertising system that anyone could use. I thought hard about what types of advertising exist, and came up with the following:

Invasive
Forced upon people eg. Spam/electronic junk mail, traditional junk mail and circulars, door to door sales people, telemarketing, Internet pop up windows, bill boards, forum spam.

Peripheral
Around other content eg. Television advertising, contextual advertising, newspaper/magazine advertising, product placement, shop signs, business cards, branded merchandise

Functional
Actually useful to people eg. Yellow pages, business directories, event directories, craigslist, classifieds, notice/bulliten boards

Peripheral advertising is advertising that goes around other content. Usually this is short term, visual advertising, for example a product on sale or some other promotion. Generally users aren't actively looking for ads, but they might often find one that is relevant to them. Really it's just luck if they stumble upon the ad for something they need or want.

Functional advertising is actually used by people as a tool to find what they are looking for. The yellow pages are probably the best example of a really useful collection categorised ads. Traditional Directories are usually long term advertising. Most online advertising directories and classified systems are only text based.

So where does bla.st fit into this? Imagine being able to search through all the companies, promotions, events, and other things being advertised, just to find the ads you want. That is the goal with bla.st. It aims to be useful like the yellow pages, but also combine the advantages of peripheral advertising. Here's what we came up with:

Ads are images of a set size, makign them visual, and easier to browse than most online directories. This helps the little guy as no matter how much you pay, your ads are the same size.
Ads can be short or long term, from 1 day to 10 years. This means products, specials, sales, promotions, events can be advertised along side the long term business and website advertisements.
Ads are organised by categories, aka tags
Completely Free, although advertisers can optionally pay to improve their ad position. This keeps bla.st open to everyone, while making the site viable.
Ads can be targeted locally or internationally.

The end result is a "website full of ads", that can be browsed and searched like a directory, but allows short and long term ads to be advertised. Imagine you wanted to buy a fridge. A search on bla.st could show you not only who sells fridges, but any fridge related promotions such as sales, specials, or competitions. There could even be an announcement for a new type of fridge just released, a local "fridge fair" or an ad for an online forum about fridges. All this is information a normal directory won't show you.

Unfortunately there aren't actually any fridge cards on bla.st yet. We can however offer you mac software, t-shirts, advertising, design related cards or even restaurants in New Zealand which demonstrate how bla.st can be used.

There are just over 400 ads online right now, with more being added every day. The goal is to have thousands. Thing brings up the important point: the more cards in bla.st, the more useful it is, so if you have a business or website consider trying it out.

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