What's wrong with this idea?

Quote: Why hasn't it been any interest for adspace-auctions.com?

Not trying to be mean, but here's why I think it didn't take off:

• The domain isn't great
• The concept isn't original, and you failed to separate yourself from the competition
• You started out with way to many categories (makes the site seem even less busy)
• You put ads on the site right away, which is a turn off to some people
• Your registration system is way too complex, keep it simple stupid!
• You offer no content to visitors
• You didn't do a good job marketing

A lot more is wrong, but I think you get the point. You need to do more planning before you launch a site. Decide what is going to make you different from the competition (webmaster forums, in your case). How are you going to keep a visitor's attention when you first start out and there are hardly any posts in the marketplace (good content). Think about investing in a good domain. It's all stuff to get figured out before you launch.

When you first startout with a community site like that, be sure to make registration easy! And don't make so many categories, it makes the site look empty. Add them in later.

Of course, easier said than done.

This sounds like something I'd be interested in doing! I'm definitely in favor of selling your own ad space instead of going through a third party that takes half your money.

I think you have a good start here. I agree that there are too many categories. Even 3 for right now would be good: Technology, Entertainment, and General (anything else). Whenever you're starting something with categories (anything with categories), it's always good to start with less and add more as needed. It makes it easier for people to find what they need. The ad titles listed on the front page should have a category or topic in them. I look at those and think that it's going to be difficult to find something that targets my audience without clicking and reading every ad. People who post auctions should be strongly encouraged to include their site topic and something about their traffic in the title if possible.

Also, I'm not sure that it would be best to run this in an auction format. I think more of a classifieds method would be better. As a webmaster, I have several spaces available - I would want to post an ad and allow as many buyers as are interested to purchase spaces rather than having one listing that would only be purchased once. It also makes my job more difficult in that I would have to post 4 separate listings for our 4 sponsorship positions etc. I'm not sure if you offer this or not but renewable or re-postable ads would be helpful.

The actual listings have more prominent information about the auction than the ad. I'm really not that interested in the auction details - what I could want is lots of details about the site. Most of these auctions only have one-line descriptions. It's not enough information to go by. If I was advertising I'd want to know who the site is targetting, what type of people visit, what products they might be interested in, things like that. I think there could be a better way of designing this page so that the most important information is easier to read.

The other thing you really ought to consider doing is adding some content. A blog about online advertising would bring in a lot of linkbacks and repeat visitors. It's a great way to build interest even among people who might not want to use your service right away. I'm also wondering about the bids on there - $20 for what? How long? What's the placement?

Have you heard of Campaign Monitor? It's an email newsletter service. They have a lot of great content about designing email newsletters. I have several of their articles printed out to read next week when I start redesigning our newsletter. That's a great advertisement for their service - they are providing quality, valuable resources to the community. Even to people who don't use their service. It's almost a one-stop shop for information about designing HTML emails. You could be a one-stop shop for information about online advertising.