DoGooder ad network-meets-extension closes

DoGooder was an interesting idea. It was a plugin/extension for your browser that swapped out ads on the websites you visited with ads that raised money for good causes. The plugin/extension worked with Safari, Chrome, Firefox and even Internet Explorer.

DoGooder gave 50% of their profits to charity and kept the other 50%. In the end it was lack of money that resulted in the network closing. You can read their final blog post here.

DoGooder was always a brave idea. Some people might have accused them of stealing money from websites. Take this blog, for example, In Pure Spirits looses money – it costs more to host this site than the single ad on the site ever generates. Visitors running the DoGooder code visiting this blog would never see In Pure Spirit’s ad – it would have been replaced by the DoGooder ad. DoGooder would keep 50% of the money your visit made and would give the other 50% to charity. This blogger would have got 0%.

However, as DoGooder was a charity supporting project and far more internet users run ad-blockers than ad-switchers it was unlikely that website owners would have ever really moaned about DoGooder until it became much more successful.

DoGooder needed to have lots of users running their code in order to attract adverts in the first place. It needed to work with digital agencies and arrange cost-per-impresison or cost-per-click deals. I suspect that was the real problem for DoGooder. They might never have had enough impressions to make their “ad network” attractive to advertisers.

In Pure Spirit

Do you think DoGooder was a good idea? Can you see yourself running an extension/plugin like it?