Midnight of the new year signaled the reopening of CMF Ads.   Featuring a redesigned blog directory, redesigned blog promotion page, a blogging resource forum, and a soon to be released widget that pays publishers for ads shown on their site.  What began as a closed beta in October 2008 is now open to everyone meeting our blog quality standards.  The relaunch is actually a two-part launch.  Everything but the new widget is available as of January 1st 2009.  The new widget is being tested and should be finished shortly.   I hope all my readers who aren’t already members of CMF ADs stop by and sign up for the forums as a first step.

Why the need for a relaunch?   There were a number of issues with the old setup.  Let’s look at a few of the issues and how they were addressed. 

1. There was no unified look to the network: We now have a familiar theme throughout each area of CMF Ads.  The forum, promote,  directory, and the soon to be released advertising control panel section.
2. There were too many URLs:  Between ec-ads, cmfads, and Ben’s forum, that was too many URLs to remember.  We are now using one main URL http://cmfads.com for everything.
3. Some parts of the network were under utilized:  The community blog didn’t really catch on.  Like people have time to post on their own blogs even?  Nor did the community chat get used much.  I blame twitter.  Curse you twitter!  That’s why it was a beta network.  I designed all the modules as proof of concept.  We kept what worked and cut out or redesigned what didn’t.
4. We needed a unified login:  Under the old system as an admin, I had 7 different logins to remember.  Now I have one.
5. The ad network needed to be automated: I used to mail the code to each publisher by hand and then work with them to make the code function.  I had to upload all ads to the server manually.  This was too labor intensive a process.  Now everything but blog approval should be automated. 
6. The beta servers ran off shared hosting: We have now moved to a dedicated server, giving us more control, better reliability, and the ability to handle a large number of users.

The following letter was sent out to current CMF Members:

“Today sees the public launch of the brand new CMF Network, a number of interlinked resources for bloggers.

 * What’s different about CMF?

We are bloggers just like you. We understand the challenges that bloggers face and we have first-hand experience of what blogging is really like. We don’t just spend a day or two looking at blogs then go off to do something else.

We don’t just run the CMF services – we are reading, commenting and promoting blogs every single day.

 * What’s new since the previous version?

If you’ve been using CMF prior to this announcement, here’s what has changed:

   1. Brand new link directory – we are now using vbAdvanced Links Directory, which is fully integrated with the forums. We have already migrated most of the links over from the old CMF Direct, but we couldn’t migrate links for the people who haven’t joined the forums yet.
   2. Control panel – in the future this will allow you to manage your ads, but for now you can go here to see all of your sites, and upload a 125×125 image for each. Please go and upload your images so you’re all set up for when we launch our new widget and advertising services.
   3. Only one login ID required – sign up at the forums, and you can use the whole of CMF.
   4. Only one URL to remember – www.cmfads.com. Everything is now running on the one domain, so there’s no need to worry about all the URLs we had before.
   5. Unified theme and navigation – all sites have the same look and feel.”