FoldSpy is a new app that soft-launched yesterday and aims to help web developers optimize ad placements on their websites. Because every browser, operating system, and especially screen resolution will display pages a little different, the “fold” (the part of the website that is visible without needing to scroll) is not the same for every visitor to your site. FoldSpy lets website owners see their site how their visitors see it and figure out how best to place above-the-fold ads so that a maximum number of visitors will see them.
The free app installs on your server (by inserting a single line of code) and creates a javascript overlay by navigating to /#foldspy. The javascript display shows which part of your site is visible at various screensizes, and can be manipulated to any dimension. As you change the size of the visible portion, FoldSpy tells you which percentage of your visitors can see everything displayed in the visible area. The end result is knowledge of the exact screensize in px that you should develop for to reach the maximum number of above-the-fold viewers.
FoldSpy is the first product of Eoghan McCabe, a two person web development outfit out of Dublin, Ireland. “Right now, people have to guess about where to place ads on their site as there’s no easy way to know what people see,” McCabe told us. FoldSpy fixes that problem with an extremely simple and elegant solution.
The free version of FoldSpy uses global browser stats culled from all FoldSpy users, but for $6/month FoldSpy can collect data only from your website, which of course would be more helpful. If 85% of FoldSpy users are tech sites, for example, the data would be skewed toward higher screen resolutions and newer browsers. So if you run a site about knitting, the global stats might not actually reflect your users at all. (That’s just an example, I have no idea what FoldSpy’s current user base is like.) So ponying up for a pro account is probably wise if you want the app to provide truly useful data to help you determine your website’s ad placements.
