It’s another 365 days gone into the history books in the traffic exchange industry and while we are still going strong, this past year was a real wake up call for a lot of owners. In this post, I hope to stir things up a bit and look back at the year that was in our beloved industry.

This past year we saw a huge push towards the ‘social surfing’ movement. With the launch of programs like Sweeva and the ever growing popularity of in-surf chat at exchanges around the net, the ‘social’ aspect of doing business was very prevalent.

We saw a change in mentality. The future is very bright for this movement and while a lot of people in the industry, like Traffic Hoopla, do not agree with me on the social front, we are seeing brand names being built and surfers becoming ‘famous’ in their own right, just by being active. It’s pretty exciting but that’s not all that happened in 2010.

Newcomer of the year award has to go to Carl Bailey. The owner of Instant Splash quickly became a fan favorite and his blog is one of the most read and commented on sites in the traffic exchanges. His programs are top notch and he has a fantastic outlook on business in the industry. I personally cannot wait to see what he has up his sleeves in 2011.

The traffic exchange of the year goes to Sweeva. I know, I co-own it but when I sat down to write this article I asked myself which program made the most noise this year. Lots of names came up like Traffic Swirl, EasyHits4U and the like but in terms of bringing something new to the table and igniting a fire in everyone’s behind…Sweeva did it. Please do comment if you disagree, because I don’t want this to come off like I’m bragging. I’m just trying to be honest =)

We saw a big change in how the ‘big boys’ do business. A few years ago, there was a whole lot more joint ventures, new launches and basic community between the bigger and more active programs. Now we are seeing more ‘surfers’ uniting. I see a lot of communities being built and surfers working together. The whole ‘team’ mentality was very popular this past year and while I think the idea was good, to work with like minded people, a lot of the promises left something to be desired…

I suppose that’s the way the cookie crumbles and I say kudos to the surfers. The people that are the life blood of this industry, 2011 will be once again your year to shine.

2010 is done. It’s been a fun year and I am very excited about 2011. Both I Love Hits and StartXchange will be celebrating their 10th anniversary in 2011 and lots more milestones will be reached.

What do you have planned for 2011? What do you want to see in the traffic exchange industry? Here’s to a great 2010 and an even brighter future in 2011!

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A few years ago, there was a guy named Rich Taylor who was very active in the traffic exchange community. Not trying to get all sentimental and stuff but I do think Rich was a major reason that I became branded as a traffic exchange expert simply because he pushed me to find my niche and really excel at it.

Rich Taylor was a pioneer in this business and one of the first traffic exchange owners who used ‘themes’ with his businesses. Anyways, long story short we started a traffic exchange consultation gig together and one of the ideas we came up with was the 3:1 surf ratio. Surf ratios in the traffic exchanges have always been a hot topic and well, some people swear up and down that programs shouldn’t give any less than a 1:1 ratio while others have gone as low as 5:1.

The 3:1 surf ratio was adopted at every program I owned and was consulted on and for years and it’s been fantastic, it was a very healthy ratio for the program and savvy surfers really understood why we kept it at a 3:1. But in the time and era of the cash for surfing epidemic (and yes I think it’s the worst thing to happen to traffic exchanges in years) we need more ways to entice surfers to view sites WITHOUT relying on cash for surfing.

So I have made a pretty big change in the way I do business with my cornerstone traffic exchange I Love Hits.

I have raised the minimum surf ratio for Light Weight members from a 3:1 to a 2:1. So now for every 10 page views in I Love Hits, you receive 5 hits back instead of the old 9 page views for 3. Now a few things before I get the tomatoes thrown at me…

I have been monitoring the surfing at I Love Hits for quite a few months and we can mathematically sustain this ratio thanks in large part to Bracket Surfing. Raising a surf ratio is VERY hard to do when you have a balance to maintain in a program but today I’m going to give it a shot…

Let’s see how it goes. If traffic delivery plummets, I’ll have to bring it back to a 3:1. But something tells me, with the added bonus of Bracket Surfing and the vibrant community at I Love Hits, this will do nothing but increase surfing.

In other news with I Love Hits, I am in the process of adding IM Faceplate to our Profile Pages. This is to give members even more networking opportunities for themselves and their businesses. This will be up and running very soon.

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