As we reported last week, DevHub is a new web publishing system that makes it easy for aspiring non-technical developers to build and monetize a site.
Over 100,000 websites were created within the first month of launch. To attract new sign-ups, DevHub also pays affiliates 10% of whatever a referred user earns. To become an affiliate, you need to register, click “My Referrals”, and use the links or banners provided.
However, the company has just announced a headline-making promise to pay their top affiliates US$20,000. To qualify for the bonus payment, you must generate $5,000 of referral revenue by 31 December 2009. As soon as that occurs, DevHub will credit your account with an additional $20,000.
But what are the catches?
- Be under no illusion: you will need to work hard to get the referrals.
- Your referred clients must build successful sites that generate at least $50,000 of advertising income (after DevHub has taken their share).
- It will become increasingly difficult to attract new sign-ups as the user base grows. Remember that your referred clients may start referring others to DevHub using their own affiliate codes.
- DevHub has only been operating a few weeks and there is little information about potential earnings at this stage. My example Formula 1 site raised a total affiliate revenue of $0.05 in 4 days. Your sites will need to work better than my paltry effort!
- The long-term future of DevHub looks good, but it can not be guaranteed.
$20,000 is certainly an attractive deal and it is likely to lead to an explosion in new registrations. However, I suspect the only successful affiliates will be those who sign-up early and push the service before it becomes a mainstream success.
Want to try? Sign up at DevHub (affiliate link – all proceeds donated to charity)
Are you tempted by DevHub’s offer? Is $5,000 revenue in 9 months achievable and realistic? Do you think it will raise DevHub’s profile above competing site builders? Is this the start of similar affiliate deals?
Craig BucklerCraig is a freelance UK web consultant who built his first page for IE2.0 in 1995. Since that time he's been advocating standards, accessibility, and best-practice HTML5 techniques. He's created enterprise specifications, websites and online applications for companies and organisations including the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, the Department of Energy & Climate Change, Microsoft, and more. He's written more than 1,000 articles for SitePoint and you can find him @craigbuckler.
