Carbon is still there… owned by BuySellAds who also bought Fusion and absorbed it into Carbon, or something. (Fusion's website redirects to Carbon.)
Where we deviated from The Deck's model is that we made some changes a few years ago that are working quite well. On the advertiser side we started selling on a cost per thousand impression basis vs a fixed monthly price per "slot". And on the publisher side we started paying them a dynamic rate based on traffic and performance of the ads vs. a fixed monthly amount. Hope that doesn't come across the wrong way - just a fundamental difference that I believe is one of the reasons why an otherwise incredibly similar business can work well for one, but not for the other.
Thanks for your insider's take but who was the originator of the old business model? The Deck or Carbon?
The Deck was first.