Month: March 2008

So Wrong It’s Funny

Shoemoney® is early on the April Fools’ Day jokes…

How Long Until Someone Is Killed At An Affiliate Summit – ShoeMoney®: So lately I have been asked a lot why I no longer attend affiliate summits. Well this is basically it. I think I would have had a lot more fun at the affiliate summit back a few years ago when I used to love to get drunk and crazy but that is not really my thing anymore. Mix that in with the fact each time I was asked to speak it was a complete train wreck. Then mix in the death threats, and the fact its kind of become a thug conference … well I just have a hard time justifying paying money to experience that… if that makes any sense.

This is why I don’t watch much TV these days… I have posts like this on the internets to laugh at and entertain me.

Head over and read the whole gut-busting post (and don’t forget the comments from the Shoemoney® Sheep Show as well).

Shawn Collins is Wrong: Asus eee Owns Dell Vostro

Shawn Collins has a new video demonstrating his crush on the Dell Vostro(I was waiting for him to lick it at the end).

He compares the Vostro to the Asus eee so I wanted to set the record straight…

The Asus eee (“Easy to Learn, Easy to Work, Easy to Play”) is a fantastic little machine that solves a number of problems in my life. It’s comparable to the Macbook Airor the Sony Vaiobut is still much smaller and much less expensive (around $400-$500 depending on memory, etc) than either of those.

Plus, the Asus is a solid state machine meaning that it boots up almost immediately (takes about 10 seconds), is very rugged and has an incredible battery life (around 3 to 3.5 hours for me).

With a gig of memory, 8 gigs of storage, 3 usb ports and a MicroSD slot, it’s the perfect travel machine.

So, there’s no comparison between Shawn’s bulky 14 inch Vostro that is sure to be dead in 3 years since it’s a Dell and my little Asus which will be humming along for years to come.

“It was from that planet [Nibiru], the Sumerian texts repeatedly and persistently stated, that the Anunnaki came to Earth. The term literally means ‘Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came.’ They are spoken of in the Bible as the Anakim, and in Chapter 6 of Genesis are also call Nefilim, which in Hebrew means the same thing: Those Who Have Come Down, from the Heavens to Earth.”

– Zecharia Sitchin, Genesis Revisited

Genesis Revisited

“Throughout Mesopotamia, from the earliest times of Sumer and Akkad, all lands were owned by gods and men were their slaves. Of this, the cuneiform texts leave no doubt whatever. Each city-state had its own principal god, and the king was described in the very earliest written documents that we have as ‘the tenant farmer of the god’.”

– Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

The Sons of God

Untitled

“It was from that planet [Nibiru], the Sumerian texts repeatedly and persistently stated, that the Anunnaki came to Earth. The term literally means ‘Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came.’ They are spoken of in the Bible as the Anakim, and in Chapter 6 of Genesis are also call Nefilim, which in Hebrew means the same thing: Those Who Have Come Down, from the Heavens to Earth.”

– Zecharia Sitchin, Genesis Revisited

Genesis Revisited

Untitled

“Throughout Mesopotamia, from the earliest times of Sumer and Akkad, all lands were owned by gods and men were their slaves. Of this, the cuneiform texts leave no doubt whatever. Each city-state had its own principal god, and the king was described in the very earliest written documents that we have as ‘the tenant farmer of the god’.”

– Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

The Sons of God

ShareASale Goes Video

shareasale.gif

Looks like all of our wishes (well, mine at least) are coming true and Brian, Carolyn and the ShareASale gang are going to introduce affiliate marketing into the online video space.

Earlier today, this message was sent out to the ShareASale Facebook group by Carolyn Tang..

Facebook | V-Commerce Playahs: “Alrighty, we’re gettin’ with the times and exploring v-commerce. Nothing like bringing the magic of television online! Our tech team is hard at work developing a player with embedded tracking for affiliates to use on their sites.

So…open ended wishlist style question…in a perfect world, where we had boundless tech and financial resources, what features would you like to see in that player? Customizable? Size? Rating systems?”

This is every exciting indeed and the replies to Carolyn’s initial post have been beyond interesting with a number of affiliates weighing in.

It’s great to see an affiliate network using a channel such as a Facebook group to gather feedback. I only wish more networks would follow ShareASale’s lead on this sort of communication (as well as blogging) and feedback solicitation. You don’t need to control the conversation in order to produce value as Brian and team are clearly showing.

And I’m beyond excited to see an affiliate network getting into video. Take notes.

n the night of 2008-03-20 (UT) we observed the optical afterglow of GRB 080319B (GCN 7427, Racusin et al.) with Gemini-South + GMOS in g, r, i, and z filters (4x180s in each filter). The source is well-detected in all bands. Magnitudes, calibrated to SDSS DR6, are: UTstart UTend t(hr) filt mag err 06:52:17 07:10:19 24.808 g 20.95 0.09 07:11:19 07:26:11 25.099 r 20.55 0.03 07:27..

GRBlog: GRB080319B

sometimes i hate blogging. scoble nailed it this morning (scobleizer.com).

thinking about rolling it all up into one crispy paper ball and throwing it into the fire.

whatever it is… i guess i’m referring to the blogging aesthetic. so completely fucked up and unncessary.

didn’t we invent this blog shit to counter the stogedy crap that was flowing from the pro’s?

what happened to punk blogging?

we sold out.

for shame.

fix it?

Careful With that Twitter, Eugene

D’oh.

McCain staff person gets the boot after sending out a troublesome tweet…

McCain Staffer Out, Spread Obama Video – Politics News Story – WCVB Boston:

Republican Sen. John McCain’s campaign suspended a staff member who sent out a provocative video linking Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama to the comments of his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

“The staffer, a low-level aide named Soren Dayton, sent out a link Thursday to the YouTube video, titled ‘Is Obama Wright?’ on the social messaging Web site Twitter.”

Lesson?

Don’t staff your social network duties with low level employees or temps. Take it upon yourself to make sure that your company is being represented by the best and brightest possible on these emerging social platforms. They do have sharp edges.

(Title refers to a Pink Floyd song if you are uncool and didn’t get it).

Mainstream Media Can Still Drive the Traffic

I noticed on Google Trends that one of the hottest terms this morning was “coupon mom.”

hotcoupons.jpg

So, I dug a little deeper and it looks like the site received coverage from a local news outlet in Pittsburgh, PA…

kdka.com – ‘Coupon Mom’ Offers Tips For Shopping Online: “Searching for great bargains doesn’t have to be about spending hours hunting for the best prices in local stores. Instead, it can be done with just a few clicks of the mouse.

KDKA’s Consumer Editor Yvonne Zanos talked with ‘Coupon Mom’ Stephanie Nelson about some internet surfing secrets that can save consumers money. “

So while we continue to talk mostly about online social networks or web2.0 traffic, don’t forget to include more mainstream outlets if you’re trying to grow your brand.

Untitled

n the night of 2008-03-20 (UT) we observed the optical afterglow of GRB 080319B (GCN 7427, Racusin et al.) with Gemini-South + GMOS in g, r, i, and z filters (4x180s in each filter). The source is well-detected in all bands. Magnitudes, calibrated to SDSS DR6, are: UTstart UTend t(hr) filt mag err 06:52:17 07:10:19 24.808 g 20.95 0.09 07:11:19 07:26:11 25.099 r 20.55 0.03 07:27..

GRBlog: GRB080319B

Untitled

sometimes i hate blogging. scoble nailed it this morning (scobleizer.com).

thinking about rolling it all up into one crispy paper ball and throwing it into the fire.

whatever it is… i guess i’m referring to the blogging aesthetic. so completely fucked up and unncessary.

didn’t we invent this blog shit to counter the stogedy crap that was flowing from the pro’s?

what happened to punk blogging?

we sold out.

for shame.

fix it?

@GaryVee’s School of Marketing

Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTVsantagaryvee.gif is at it again… this time schooling all of us on how to market through Twitter.

Pay attention, folks. Class is in session…

Santa GaryVee: “A couple days a week (and sometimes much, much more!) the benevolent Santa GaryVee will direct you to exclusive mind-blowing deals, available only via Twitter.

Gary Vaynerchuk loves EVERYONE and wishes happiness and most importantly health to all. But once that’s granted, he wants nothing more than to put together incredible deals on wine and other merchandise.

Free shipping, discount codes, unbelievable prices… all will come as your gift from the one and only Santa GaryVee.

Friend up Santa GaryVee on Twitter today and reap the benefits of these wild, generous offers!”

Should be fun and yet another reason for you to check out Twitter. And if you’re already on Twitter, here’s your reason to join the Very Green Team.

The Greater the Fear, the Nearer the Consultant

If you’re in Chicago on June 9, this could be a “fun” talk to hear…

Affiliate Marketing: Far More Dangerous Than You Think: “For many years, Alan has been (and remains today) highly critical of the affiliate channel, so this promises to be a lively session!

Joining Alan on the panel will be Barbara Hurd, VP of Business Development, Harry and David; and Vicki Updike, VP of Merchandising and Marketing, Miles Kimball.

Affiliate fan or foe, come watch the fireworks!”

Or you could head over to the Oriental Institute at Univ of Chicago and ponder how, much like the consultants, false confidence in their own superiority (instead of developing better chariots) cost the Assyrian empire it’s position as a super power in the ancient near east. Both would accomplish the same thing.

Denton Resigns from Linkshare

Big news out of Linkshare today.

LinkShare Announces Executive Management Team Changes: “NEW YORK, March 18 /PRNewswire/ — LinkShare, a leading pay-per-action
marketing network, announced the resignation of Stephen R. Denton as
President of the company and two promotions in its executive management
team.”

While a search for Denton’s replacement gets underway, his duties will
be assumed by John J-H Kim, who will become Interim President in addition
to his role as CEO of LinkShare’s parent company, Rakuten USA.

(As a side note, it’s always heartening to find this sort of thing on press release outlets instead of from a phone call… don’t you hire out very expensive PR firms? Thanks, networks).

I Love Disqus

The comment solution I use here at CostPerNews is called Disqus. It’s fantastic and the best of both worlds for building a community out of your commenters.

Today, Disqus is announcing a new funding round and a slew of new (and very cool) features that enhances the platform:

Disqus Blog » Disqus releases Beta 2 – New features, lots of bug fixes, improved performance: “Bloggers are some of the most opinionated and vocal people out there. So when creating a product for bloggers, expect them to significantly shape the thing every step of the way.

Disqus is very much such a product. Late last week, we release what we dubbed Beta 2. That’s the label we’re giving to one of the biggest Disqus updates in a long time. And credit goes to you, wonderful Disqus user, for all the help in improving your favorite discussion service.”

So what’s new?

For one the forum look-and-feel is gone and replaced by very nice “Community Pages.” Everything is much more coherently organized and easier to browse. You can see the CPN Comments Page here for an example.

Disqus is also making it easier for commenters to create their own profiles and add social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn to that profile fairly easily. Since the crowd here tends to be the same commenters, this could be a neat feature for this particular blog and help you get some traffic to your other social networking spaces. That profile travels with you to other blogs that use Disqus.

There’s lots of additional goodness on the backend for blog owners that I won’t bore you with, but it’s easier to configure the look and feel of the place and easier to bake in the Disqus comments into the originating blog.

For example, the biggest request I had was for a “Recent Comments” widget that would display new comments here on the blog that were reflective of the forum. That’s baked in now, thank goodness.

So, if you’re a blogger and looking for something to spice the place up and bring in extra functionality for your readers and commenters, I highly suggest Disqus.

Interview with Kerri Pollard of Commission Junction

kerripollard.jpgKerri Pollard, GM of Commisson Junction, joins me in a special podcast.

We cover the Pepperjam controversy, CJ's perspective on the current status of affiliate marketing and where she sees the industry heading in the next decade (and whether or when CJ will blog).

http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=P47613cf518301b70b0a03d3382f0de02Yl9wRVREYmR8&buffer=5&fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap28

MP3 File

The podcast runs about 25 minutes and is a must-listen.