In comparison to a life of midterms and Maloney’s, the
ever-competitive job market even makes living in our parents’
basements an appealing option.
Yet despite the horror stories of post-college penury, one Bruin
has avoided the parents ““ and created his own innovative
market.
Ricky Liunarto, who graduated from UCLA last spring with a
master’s degree in computer science, co-founded the
advertising Web site GoldenSeconds.com, which sells, literally,
seconds for video advertisements. The site was launched in early
September.
“The more you pay per second, the more homepage coverage
the advertisement will receive,” Liunarto said.
Each “golden second” starts at $1 and can rise in
price depending on competition for the space on the site.
“It’s based on a proprietary bidding system. You can
bid up the price based on what other advertisements are
paying,” said Ruben Dua, Web development partner and
GoldenSeconds.com public relations representative.
After registering videos, corporations and organizations track
the positions of their advertisements and adjust the price to
obtain the desired placement and exposure on the site.
Liunarto currently holds the position of GoldenSeconds.com Web
developer, in addition to physically maintaining the Web site.
A native of Surabaya, Indonesia, Liunarto left his family in
2000 to pursue an education in the United States. He transferred to
UCLA two years later, attributing his current success to his
experience at the university.
“(UCLA has) one of the best computer science departments
in the nation,” he said. “I learned basic programming
through the bachelor’s program and database architecture from
my master’s program.”
Liunarto and co-founder Patrick Falls, who is currently a
fourth-year computer science student at Loyola Marymount
University, began working together as Web data developers during
the rise of the popular video-hosting site YouTube.com. The pair
was inspired by the revolutionary technology.
“They use flash videos, which allows you to share videos
of reasonable size and quality,” Liunarto said.
In light of YouTube’s success, Falls and Liunarto
recognized that easy and inexpensive video technology could
potentially provide a useful outlet for companies wanting to post
video advertisements online.
Over the span of only a summer, they developed a site designed
exclusively for the “advertising community.”
“Everything was really built from scratch,” Dua
said. “A lot of sites out there will buy a piece here and
there, but with this site, there was almost no money spent
developing it, just time.”
The site offers a total of 1 million seconds and epitomizes the
phrase “time is money.”
But why go to a site devoted to advertisements many choose to
block online and change the channel to avoid?
According to Dua, the novelty site has become an online gallery
for companies to post entertaining, high-quality ads for other
companies and organizations to mutually enjoy.
The videos are separated into 22 categories ranging from
business to movies and entertainment to health and beauty. And the
site currently attracts many smaller companies seeking a medium to
display video clips inexpensively.
“If you have a small startup company, you can’t post
your video advertisements on television. That costs
millions,” Liunarto said. “This site is really good for
smaller companies with smaller budgets.”
Although appealing to smaller advertisers, the Web site has
achieved no small success. After a September launch, the site has
already sold 6,000 seconds and made over $10,000.
“We still have many more seconds to sell,” Liunarto
said.