I have been a fairly staunch supporter of Chitika since the wide-release of their advertising program some six-plus weeks ago. Recent events have caused me to question the professionalism and stability of Chitika.

Recent ad changes had a lot of people up in arms and many decried it as the end of the gravy train. While I did not experience any problems personally, I saw many of my referals drop out of the program and/or see large drops in revenue. This didn’t bother me though. I felt the changes were done with the intent of protecting the long-term interests of the program. The problems stem from other actions they have taken.

A recent blog entry had them touting some get-rich-quick e-book about Chitika. I found this listing to be highly unprofessional. The Chitika blog is a place for them to share information with publishers. Instead it is being touted to promote a pay-for-e-book where most of the knowledge was lifted directly from the people it is being targetted. I think such promotions have no place in their blog. If they want to help publishers, use that space to provide us with tips and suggestions to improve our Chitika advertising experience. Could you see Yahoo or Google promoting a get-rich-quick E-Book as part of their publishing program? Not in a million years.

Beyond that I have heard rumblings from others who have tried to apply to the program recently and are being met with silence and non-response. Obviously Chitika’s program is new and has grown like wild-fire. They seem to be undermanned to handle the influx of new publishers. That being said, they still need to do a better job communicating such issues with the publishers. There is a lot of disgruntled publishers and wanna-be Chitika publishers out there. I just hope some of these signs are the exception and not the rule for the future of Chitika.