Attention and the Web Worker (or Affiliate Marketer)

Sam Harrelson on February 14, 2008

I waste too much time.

I know this, but I’ve been working on it. My time is pretty valuable and I’ve spread myself pretty thin between ReveNews, AffiliateFortuneCookies, GeekCast, this site, my affiliate sites, my consulting gigs… not to mention my baby, wife, family, dogs and Nascar watching.

Attention is a particular problem for people in the affiliate marketing industry because we don’t have one job where we work for one person.

One of my favorite web personalities is Merlin Mann (who I suggested as an Affiliate Summit keynote candidate), and his new vid hits on this attention problem.

So, this video is more aimed to general web workers, but it’s definitely appropriate for those of us in performance marketing:

http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthemerlinshow%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss%2F&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F648550&brandlink=http%3A%2F%2Fthemerlinshow%2Eblip%2Etv%2F&brandname=The%20Merlin%20Show

(Via 43Folders.)

Better Metrics for Marketers Coming to YouTube

Sam Harrelson on February 14, 2008

YouTube had a small event last night in which it unveiled some of the upcoming tweaks and improvements to its video platform. Included with better video editing tools and more distribution is this interesting tidbit…

What’s Next for YouTube (Video Editing, Recommendations, Advertiser Analytics): “—For marketers, the ‘real news was YouTube’s announcement of an impending launch of advanced analytics tools. You’ll be able to see where video views are coming from (geographically and site-wise), as well as many other data points. This will be a huge help to advertisers trying to extract more success metrics and data from their YouTube efforts.’”

Whether or not online marketers and advertisers will hop on the video bandwagon en masse in 2008 remains to be seen, but the addition of a more solids metrics program to a large video distribution platform like YouTube does point things in a pro-video direction.

GeekCast Episode 5: Cease and Desist

Sam Harrelson on February 14, 2008

Lisa Picarille, Shawn Collins, Jim Kukral and I taped another episode of GeekCast that was published yesterday. It’s a free-form and fun show where we discuss current trends in the geek marketing world ranging from tech to performance marketing.

[display_podcast]

This week, the gang tackles wearable video, fake Twitter-ers, master link baiters, affiliate link cloaking and Lost Geekend ’08. Give it a listen and let us know your thoughts.

If You Can’t Let Go, Twitter – New York Times

Sam Harrelson on February 14, 2008

Interesting piece on my favorite piece of web tech, Twitter, in the NY Times today:

If You Can’t Let Go, Twitter – New York Times: “Some day these people will get their own lives, and I’ll be able to pop out to buy ballet flats whenever I want. But until they do, I figured there had to be a more efficient way for me to keep in touch with all of them at once.

This was how I ended up signing up for a free account from Twitter, a group-messaging application that despite all the media attention it has received still hasn’t broken into the mainstream or become a to-die-for tool for the youngest early adopters. While some tech-savvy adherents use Twitter to ‘micro-blog’ from cellphones and BlackBerrys, as well as from computers, other digital natives like my teenage daughters and their friends have remained oblivious to its charms.”

Sam Harrelson on February 14, 2008

sick for the first time in years. it’s terrible.

Smart Youtube – WordPress Plugins

Sam Harrelson on February 13, 2008

If you’re doing video and using WordPress and YouTube, this is a really nifty plugin that alleviates some of the frustrations that people often have when they start embedding video into blog posts:

Smart Youtube – WordPress Plugins: “Smart Youtube is a WordPress Youtube Plugin that allows you to easily insert Youtube videos in both your post and in RSS feed. It is small, fast and does not depend on any external scripts.

The main purpose of the plugin is to correctly embed youtube videos into your blog post. The plugin is designed to be small and fast and not use any external resources. Unlike other plugins the link to the video will also appear in your rss feed. And the best thing is, Smart Youtube will also display a preview screenshot of the video in your RSS feed.”

Wearable Video

Sam Harrelson on February 12, 2008

dork2.jpg

I’ve seen some pretty strange ideas for catching eyeballs over the years (RIP Mr. PopUp… we hardly knew ye), but I’m not even sure how to classify this:

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Is Your Site’s Copyright Wrong?

Sam Harrelson on February 11, 2008

I see this all the time on merchant and affiliate sites… if you’re going to put copyright notices on your sites, make sure that are at least up-to-date (along with your T&C’s and Privacy Policies):

Gullible.info: “Among web pages that show a copyright date, 3.5% have a date that is more than one year out of date. As of February of 2008, 11.4% of pages with obviously new information still show ‘© 2007′”

Nokia’s New Mobile Ad Network Points Towards the Future

Sam Harrelson on February 11, 2008

Nokia is rolling out a mobile ad network according to CenterNetworks:

Nokia Launches Mobile Ad Network | CenterNetworks: “Nokia (NOK) is announcing the launch of a mobile ad network this morning at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Named the ‘Nokia Media Network’, Nokia notes, ‘The biggest brands in the world trust us with their mobile advertising because they know the Nokia Media Network enables them to reach the largest, highest quality audience on mobile and provides the best ROI.'”

The key difference between Nokia’s potential for success and the existing mobile ad networks is the reach that Nokia has on the hardware side of the mobile phone universe.

With Google revealing its Android platform at this week’s Mobile World Conference in Spain (and it looks spiffy… can’t wait to try out an Android mobile with all of my Google cloud data) and the increasing numbers of people (primarily young people) doing things other than just talking and texting on their mobile phones using increasingly sophisticated phones like the iPhone, a well leveraged mobile ad network could payoff.

The first company to grab a leading market share will help pave the way for this avenue of monetization and be a force to reckon with as more and more of “the web” goes mobile.

A few years from now, we might look back on this launch as a very big deal.

Now, when are the affiliate networks going to start encouraging mobile ads? 🙂