Awww-A-Day

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

The awww-a-day calendar by Cute Overload sold out in a day on Amazon:

[T]he birth of Cute Overload was almost purely accidental. Meg Frost, a 36-year-old design manager at Apple, started cuteoverload.com three years ago to test Web software. Within months, it became an online institution, drawing about 88,000 unique visitors a day — about the same as the political gossip blog Wonkette. BoingBoing linked to Cute Overload, saying that viewing the site “is like taking a happy pill.”
[...]
Ms. Frost will not talk about how much money she has made from the site, although it is enough money that she recently hired two part-time assistants. Nor will she say how many calendars have been sold. But the calendar’s top ranking in its category — accessories — and its reaching as high as No. 21 last week on the overall category — books — are indications of its success.

The site’s ads are placed by Blogads, which handles advertising for about 1,500 blogs, including the gossip site PerezHilton.com and the political site Daily Kos. On Blogads.com, advertisers can view traffic numbers for each site and the cost of various types of ads. According to Blogads, a “premium” ad on Cute Overload costs about $2,000 a week, with an estimated 808,000 page views. Hartz Mountain currently has a premium spot for its UltraGuard line of flea and tick repellents, as does American Apparel for its Essential X 3 line of underwear three-packs.

The site also offers “standard” ads for $500 a week. Those are taken up mostly by small companies serving what might be called the “cute market.” Sublime Stitching, for example, sells “cute embroidery patterns,” like “Forest Friends,” while Shanalogic offers clothing and accessories emblazoned with cute imagery.

According to Blogads, there are nine “standard” ads currently running on Cute Overload.

That’s good money for a niche site.

Naturally, you’ll want one for yourself, right?

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