As a member of the pubCenter team from day one, it was embarrassing to not own a website till last week. Now, as a new blogger, I’ve just started showing beautiful pubCenter ads on my personal blog: http://micksalot.blogspot.com/. Impressive how I’ve already graduated to become an unabashed blogger happy to gain page rank benefits from the forum, no?

My non-Microsoft blogging software (Blogger) integrates with pubCenter to receive targeted ads through an AdRotator (to test various ad unit look and feel styles). It worked seamlessly and I was up and running within an hour. I ran into a couple of editorial issues but rest assured we’re already working on smoothing them out so you won’t have to face them! However, as a longtime pubCenter employee, I already know every nook and cranny in the system. I’m keen to hear what your on-boarding experience (or in the offline world: OOBE-out of box experience) was like. For most customers a new product means spending lots of time confused and/or overwhelmed around how to achieve their simple goal (in this case: just give me an ad!). On the other hand, if your first 5 minutes with pubCenter was exciting and straightforward, like getting a shiny new toy in the mail, even better—I’d love to hear that.

So, please tell me, what was your first interaction with pubCenter like? Were you able to signup and get into the web site easily? Once in, were you confused? Or did you find it easy creating an ad unit for your site with your ad serving preferences? Did you have any trouble getting the ads to show up, viewing/interpreting ad performance, or getting paid? My goal is to understand the first major glitch you hit in those first few days with pubCenter and went: how in the world can I accomplish this simple task? Please let us know so we can make the system more intuitive and user friendly for you!