Month: June 2008

Google Retiring AdSense Referral Program

Google is killing off its AdSense referral program and suggesting publishers check out the rebranded Google Affiliate Network:

Hello,

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program.
We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense
Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate
your patience during this transition and here are some alternative
options to consider:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of
DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now
operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting
users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense
Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on
advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For
further details, please visit: www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.

Referral programs remain very popular with CPA networks, so I don’t see them going the way of the dodo just yet.

It’s really not that interesting or ground-shaking that Google is finally doing away with the AdSense referral program since every publisher under the sun is probably aware of the program and Google really doesn’t have much to gain from such a program at this point with the death of Yahoo and the growing impotence of MSN search.

Summize Expands Twitter’s TinyURL’s

Twitter is broken.

I used Twitter primarily because of its incredible Track function which allowed me to keep tabs on my own name, brands I’m associated with and things I’m interested in through my GTalk client.

Since that feature was taken offline last month in a last-ditch effort to save Twitter, I’ve been hurting.

Summize is rapidly becoming an essential browser tab auxiliary to Twitter.

Steve Rubel is reporting that Summize is now auto-expanding TinyURL links from Twitter into its search results, which makes the service even more handy…

Summize now shows where Twitter TinyURLs go

Now, if we could only get Track back soon, I wouldn’t be so tempted to say the hell with Twitter and just move over to FriendFeed.

Affiliate Classroom Clarifies Association with PMA

Anik from Affiliate Classroom lays out Affiliate Clasroom’s involvement with the PMA in a blog post this afternoon…

What Exactly Is Affiliate Classroom’s Role In The PMA?: “Basically AC has no special rights reserved for us in this organization. No one from Affiliate Classroom, including Rebecca, is on the Advisory Board.
…Herein began the controversy…”

Hopefully, this will dispel some of the unproductive conspiracy theories that are floating about.

This is something that needs to happen for the affiliate marketing industry with as much involvement as possible. People succumbing to bullying and peer pressure to not get involved is a sad state of affairs. Hopefully, this process will continue to involve a wide swath of people, ideologies and agendas as we move our industry forward.

Google Affiliate Network

I saw a few tweets coming in and then Jangro posted the press release… I’m still trying to grok this (that word is acceptable here) but will share some thoughts soon.

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We are pleased to introduce Google Affiliate Network . Effective Monday, June 30, 2008, DoubleClick Performics Affiliate will operate as Google Affiliate Network. The integration with Google’s brand is a reflection of efforts to quickly assimilate our business and teams, as well as reinforce Google’s commitment to the Affiliate channel. Together with our new colleagues at Google we are creating new opportunities for monetization, expansion and innovation in Affiliate Marketing.

Within the next couple of weeks you will see some exciting changes to the user interface reflecting the new brand. The platform will continue to be hosted at www.ConnectCommerce.com, but will eventually migrate to a google.com product url.

As noted in earlier communications, DoubleClick Performics’ Search operations are being spun off and sold to a third party. While many advertisers have relationships with both DoubleClick Performics’ Affiliate and Search, there have always been separate account teams and product-specific specialists servicing clients’ search and affiliate programs. These teams remain intact. While the formal separation will occur when the Search business is sold, the businesses are functionally separate today.

We are proud of what we achieved as Performics and this name change signals a new milestone. Google provides world-class resources and enables us to continue to attract the best talent to support our advertisers and publishers. Now as part of Google we have an exciting and unprecedented opportunity to advance our industry. We remain committed to ensuring you receive the quality service you have come to expect from us.

We appreciate your business and look forward to doing great things together.

Sincerely,

Chris Henger

Group Product Manager
Google Affiliate Network

Validation? Market consolidation? Same old same old? Industry clean up due to the invisible hand of the free market?

Open Sourcing PPC Policy Creation

I noticed from one of brianlittleton‘s tweets that ShareASale is putting together an “open source” PPC policy creation template…

Open Source the PPC Policy Creation – ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum: “One of the things that we will be doing is providing a list of things that a Merchant should and must consider when generating a ‘good’ PPC policy. For example, some Merchants consider things like their ‘domain name’, or ‘TM’, but don’t consider that same word in conjunction with another term such as ‘special’ or ‘vs. a competitor’ …

So – I am here offering and asking for a collaborative effort to generate a template/wishlist/helpsheet for Merchants who want to generate a policy.”

Lots of great stuff going on in that thread at ABW and it’s awesome to see a network reaching out to both affiliates and merchants in such a manner. Go over and participate if you have thoughts on the issue (and who doesn’t?!).

As always, nice work, Brian.

Doing My Thing

I co-hosted AffiliateThing with Shawn Collins yesterday (in place of Lisa Picarille).

Affiliate Thing Podcast – June 25, 2008 : GeekCast.fm

“The June 25, 2008 episode of Affiliate Thing was missing Lisa, who was still celebrating her LinkShare Golden Link Award win.

Sam Harrelson filled in to chat about the LinkShare Symposium and Golden Link Awards, which just took place in New York City.

Shawn and Sam Harrelson also chatted with Jonathan Van Clute, one of the favorites for the upcoming Top Affiliate Challenge reality show.

They also talked about what’s going on with the Performance Marketing Alliance, some cool WordPress plugins, and how all your business are belong to Google.”

Even though Lisa pwns my AffiliateThingness, it was still a fun show. I think that makes for my 7th appearance, so I’m on my way to the 10 Timers club (the current 5 Timers Club consists of Jim Kukral and I… maybe Jangro?).

FeedFront 2

Make sure you’re on the list… FeedFront is good stuff as I’ve said before:

Get Issue 2 of FeedFront Magazine | Affiliate Summit Blog: “We are closing out issue 2 of FeedFront Magazine, so if you didn’t get a copy of the first one in the mail, and you want to get issue 2, subscribe now.

Anybody based on the U.S. who attended Affiliate Summit last year in Miami or this past February in Las Vegas should have received an issue of FeedFront in the mail by now.”

Head over to the Affiliate Summit blog if you haven’t signed up yet or didn’t get the first issue and sign up.

Sorry, Jangro

Yes, she did say it. Evidently it went over pretty flat. More people need to listen to GeekCast, dammit!

Congrats again to Lisa AND Jangro. My wife thinks Scott is my most normal “internet friend” if that means anything (which it does). We give you lots of heck on the show, Jangro… but we do love you and you’ll always be the fifth Beatle in my book.

Golden Twitter Links

First, congrats to my pals Lisa Picarille and the FabulousSavings team for winning Linkshare Golden Links last night. Also, a big congrats to the excellent nominees like Mike Allen, Scott Jangro and Stephanie Agresta.

Second, this year’s Linkshare awards event was made possible by the live tweeting of people like Missy Ward, Stephanie and Lisa P. That was a tremendous service and all of us following you thank you three for doing that. It’s amazing to me how events like the Linkshare awards take on more of an industry wide communal feeling because of something like Twitter. Now, just fast forward a couple of years into the future when we all have live streaming video capabilities on our phones and we’re live broadcasting from events like that (or is that even kosher?).

Nevertheless, boundaries are falling and Twitter has become a big hammer between that wall of attendees and remote viewers who wish they could be there.

Third, Shawn, Lisa, Jim and I made a friendly wager on this week’s GeekCast regarding the results of the Linkshare awards. Needless to say, I won (since I clearly know more about the industry than the others on the show):

Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins: “Prior to the awards, Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille, Sam Harrelson, and I shared our predictions for each category on the weekly GeekCast show.

Below are the picks each of us made, as well as the winners (in yellow).

* Jim: 8 for 14
* Lisa: 7 for 14
* Sam: 9 for 14
* Shawn: 5 for 14 “

So, it looks like free drinks for me in Boston on behalf of the other GeekCasters. OR, if you’d like to get tons of exposure for your business, you can sponsor GeekCast for that evening and we’ll mention you a few dozen times during a live taping. Get in touch with any of us if you’re interested. Great chance to get your name out there!

And of course, thanks to the Linkshare team for putting on what sounded like another great event.

Angie Seaman Joins PMG

Just got an email from PMG saying that Angie Seaman had come on board there. Angie is a great affiliate manager and I had the pleasure of working with her for a while at Kowabunga…

Paulson Management Group would like to welcome Angela Seaman to our PMG Team of affiliate managers – Angela Seaman comes to us from Kowabunga where she was the client services director working on accounts such as several Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and CNET.

Angie is the recipient of an honorary affiliate management certification from AC Classroom in 2008. To View all of the PMG team members please visit our about us page here.

Congrats Angie and PMG… sounds like a great fit!

Changed My Mind on the PMA

Originally, I stated that I wasn’t going to get involved with the Performance Marketing Alliance on GeekCast.

I was nominated for the formation advisory board and originally thought I would probably decline as I said on GeekCast. However, I changed my mind on Thursday night after some very good conversations, including one with my very wise wife (who has nothing to do with affiliate marketing, but has been to an Affiliate Summit).

I’m working to be the change I want in the world… are you?

PMA and Datafeeds

Interesting possibility for the thread that Rebecca just posted on the Performance Marketing Alliance’s blog regarding Haiko’s datafeed standard from 2005:

Data Feed standard update at Performance Marketing Alliance: “Haiko de Poel just emailed me with a link to a data feed standard he developed in 2005 and posted on A Best Web. It is really concise and certainly looks like it covers details important to affiliates.”

This is the sort of involvement that a lot of people from ABW in particular have been asking for in terms of what sorts of issues the PMA might address within the realm of affiliate marketing. Hopefully, issues like ethics, merchant communications, etc will also be addressed there in the coming days and weeks as the PMA moves into its formation stages.

If you haven’t read the Industry Association Meeting thread on ABW definitely head over there for the conversation.

Linda Buquet also has a neat idea on Twitter today:

@billykay An aff group w/in PMA would have so much more clout, could decide on issues that the larger group needs to tackle etc.

It seems to me like the PMA conversations across the wide spectrum of affiliate forums like ABW, blogs like ReveNews, etc have moved to the next level. That is a good sign for the possibility of the alliance both having a life and being beneficial to all ranges of affiliates.

Affiliates Aren’t Just B2B Pimps

Be careful lumping all “affiliate marketers” into the B2B John Reese camp, Tony…

Deep Jive Interests » Mashable vs. John Reese: The Bigger Issue In Internet Marketing: “Because one of the biggest problems with Internet Marketing is that are very few real conversations about it. Most of it are on the forums, but the even there its hard to find a real opinion on things.

Why is this?

Because of affiliate marketing.”

There are lots of us who have some involvement with the world of affiliate marketing who find the sort of marketing you describe later in your post just as sketchy as you do (and should).

I’m an affiliate marketer, social media early adopter and a longtime Twitter user (since ’06) and don’t think I fit the description you make. John Reese and I got into it last night on this topic at Andrew Wee’s blog.

All of my affiliate stuff (as well as 99% of the people I know in affiliate marketing) is consumer related, not B2B ebooks and rarely, if ever, promoted on any of the myriads of social networks I belong to.

There’s a big gap between the B2B “affiliate” marketers and the B2C variety.

Seth Godin on the Kindle (And Why I Still Love Mine)

I love my Kindle.

Just this morning, I was in bed watching my favorite program on TV (and about the only thing I watch on TV these days), MSNBC’s Morning Joe. There was a fascinating exchange between show pundit Pat Buchanan and economist Jeffrey Sachs on the topic of energy independence and offshore drilling. Sachs fired back against Buchanan’s typical conservatism (and nativism) with clear and coherent points about the future of energy production and our planet.

At the end of the segment, Joe Scarborough mentioned Sachs’ new book, Commonwealth. I knew then that I had to have it. So, I reached over to the bedside, grabbed my Kindle and about a minute later I was reading the book on the same device that I had read half of another book just a few hours ago.

For me, that’s a game changer.

I love my Kindle.

So, I was happy to see that Seth Godin had written about his experiences with the Kindle since getting one a couple of months ago. Thanks to Jim Kukral for sending that link over.

Seth’s Blog: Random thoughts about the Kindle: “Two months ago, I got a Kindle. It’s a fascinating device, unlike almost any other launched by a significant tech company. Here’s why:”

The only part I disagree on is the “Kindle is a woman’s device” part because most of the top selling Kindle books are on an Oprah list and non-techy. The same can be said for the NY Times Top 10 list (or any top 10 book selling list). Heck, I’m a geek and I don’t read tech or business books. There are plenty of history and political books in the Kindle’s top sellers list which traditionally skew male as well.

Head over and read his thoughts. You just might want a Kindle yourself.

1,000th Post

“Now, with the blogs, you can share your thoughts with up to 10 people.”

This is my 1,000th (published…a few dozen never saw the light of day, thankfully) post on CostPerNews.

CPN went live on Nov 1, 2006 and I had no idea where it was going (and still don’t). 19 months later (at an average of 52 posts a month), we’ve hit the magic 1k mark.

I knew in October of ’06 that I wanted to have a place where I could write as frequently or infrequently as I wanted and cover the emerging web2.0 space and the connections I was (and still am) seeing with traditional affiliate marketing. I came up with the name while mowing the lawn that Fall and ran inside to register the domain before I forgot. Luckily, I didn’t forget.

I can honestly say that this little blog has been the most important vehicle for my own personal brand and business, helping me to get into doors that wouldn’t have been opened otherwise and helping me to get to know some pretty incredible people along the way. If you’re wondering if you should start a blog, take it from me… yes.

So, thank you for being there and listening to my crazy ramblings about Twitter and Tumblr and RSS and open source over the past couple of years. I’ve sold this blog, quit this blog (twice), re-acquired this blog and redesigned it (at least 10 times). And here we are again.

I’ve grown a lot with this place and I look forward to growing even more with the next thousand posts.

Many thanks all!!

Sam

Disqus Trackbacks

disqus trackbacks.jpg

Yay!

Our long international blogging conundrum is over.

Disqus FTW!

Disqus Blog » New: Enable Support for Trackbacks in Disqus: “Go to the Configure tab and scroll down to General Settings. Check the box and let it do its thing. This is our support for standard Trackbacks. More fun Linkback implementations still to come.”

However, this only works for the JS plugin, not the API plugin. Sorry, Jangro (seriously, head over to Jangro’s blog to see why that matters to some).

Spore is Brilliant

We talked about Spore on GeekCast today because the Spore Creature Creator was released.

How will you create the universe?

With Spore you can nurture your creature through five stages of evolution: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space. Or if you prefer, spend as much time as you like making creatures, vehicles, buildings and spaceships with Spore’s unique Creator tools.

CREATE Your Universe from Microscopic to Macrocosmic – From tide pool amoebas to thriving civilizations to intergalactic starships, everything is in your hands.

EVOLVE Your Creature through Five Stages – It’s survival of the funnest as your choices reverberate through generations and ultimately decide the fate of your civilization.

EXPLORE your world and beyond – Will you rule, or will your beloved planet be blasted to smithereens by a superior alien race?

SHARE with the World – Everything you make is shared with other players and vice versa, providing tons of cool creatures to meet and new places to visit.

So, I spent some time creating a creature tonight (just a few mins, I promise). First impressions is that this is going to be a wildly successful hit. Why? Incredible game design/feel and incredibly smart marketing. We’re talking original Doom style viral stuff that is going to make this game a runaway.

You can grab pictures, avatars and videos of your creature as you go through the game. There’s even an “upload to YouTube” function right in the game. Brilliant. You can see a short vid I did of my creature above as an example. And there’s even a dedicated site called SporeVote integrated into the game for fan votes on their favorite created creatures.

On your harddrive, everything is kept nicely in a folder that is created within the Documents section (on a Mac… not sure how that works on PCs):

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All in all, I’m highly impressed. Of course, this is going to be a big “time waster” but isn’t that what all games are for? I can’t tell you how much time I “wasted” on Sim City (who shares its creator with Spore), but I look back on fondness at those times.

Can’t wait until the full game is released in September.

GeekCast 23: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

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This most recent episode of GeekCast is the best we’ve done.

We spend a great deal of time talking about the ABW and Performance Marketing Alliance controversy and our own frustrations with how things are playing out.

GeekCast 23: Can’t We All Just Get Along? : GeekCast.fm: “The show kicked off with discussion around the ABestWeb forum thread on the Performance Marketing Alliance initiative and whether or not affiliate marketing as an industry is being helped or hindered by the organization and whether or not some of the comments there were helpful to the industry as well. This theme comes around at the end of the show. So, make sure to listen to the whole thing for the proper context.”

Be sure to listen to this one if you’re interested in the industry organization movement.

There’s lots of other good stuff in the 80 minute podcast as well (you can find the whole description on the GeekCast page as well as link to the streaming player).

And here’s the mp3 for your downloading pleasure

AffiliateClassroomLive in Boston

I’ll be leading a workshop on social networking stuff for affiliate managers at the AffiliateClassroomLive event the Saturday before Affiliate Summit in Boston this August:

affiliateclassroomlive.com | Home: “Join us for a half-day workshop dedicated to Affiliate Managers. In the past, our LIVE Affiliate Manager Workshops have taken place over a full day and have been comprised mainly of presentations.”

And here’s the description of my session (no, I didn’t write this or refer to myself as an extraordinaire!):

Web 2.0 Practical, Successful Applications for Affiliate Managers
Sam Harrelson
Web 2.0 extraordinaire, Sam Harrelson, will talk to you about the various community networking platforms, applications and systems. He’ll discuss how affiliate managers can apply Web 2.0 techniques to their jobs for more effective affiliate recruitment, communication and motivation.

Lots of good people leading workshops like Trisha Fawver, Peter Figueredo, Heather Paulson, Lisa Riolo, Brad Waller and Lee Gientke.

I promise mine will be interesting, so stop by if you’re in town that Saturday.

Android News

I’m a fan of Apple in general, but I’m holding out for Google’s Android initiative before I move away from my BlackBerry (rather than going with the Android 3G).

This is mostly because I’m a fan of the open platform and open source approach to software and hardware. Plus, Google has so much of my data in their cloud because of my usage of their web products.

Just wanted to let everyone here know that the best blog I’ve found for Android updates is a blog called AndroidGuys.

Good stuff if you’re into the mobile side of things.

Russert

As I head into my first Father’s Day as an actual father, the news of Tim Russert’s passing hit me like a ton of bricks for a number of reasons.

First, I love politics. I love the art of politics and the science of politics and the religion of politics. Russert was, to many of us, the priest of politics. Sunday mornings without him on Meet the Press will never be the same for me.

Second, I love Meet the Press and its format. I have religiously watched the show for years (even in college when Sunday mornings at 9am came way too early most weekends). After I watch, I download the audio and listen again to the show throughout the week:

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It was a daily ritual that will be tough to perform without Russert.

Third, Russert loved what he did. You could see it on his face and it was inspiring to see someone so happy, fulfilled and challenged by their job.

Lastly, Russert is leaving behind a close family. Russert’s passing makes me take pause as this being my first Father’s Day with a child.

As professionals, we have a lot to learn from Russert’s example. Love your family, love what you do and seek to build bridges and find understanding instead of following the path of least resistance which normally resides on the plateau of negativity and greed.

NASCAR TV on Ustream

I’m not sure how happy the Speed Channel and networks that broadcast NASCAR races would be about this. But until they start streaming the races in a similar format to MLB.tv, this is a nifty Ustream workaround for those of us stuck in offices during qualifying or races:

http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/133638Online Video provided by Ustream

Pay attention networks… people want to do things like watch NASCAR races or football games or soccer games. Hulu is excellent for dramas and sitcoms, but there’s huge opportunity here for content producers in the sports and live events content creation business!

Buying Links: Good or Bad?

At the https://www.fusionquest.com/cgi-bin/main/hotlinks.cgi?aflt=afc1&client=affsumAffiliate Summit West this year, one of the most talked about moments was the back-and-forth between SEO expert Wil Reynolds and Jason Calacanis during Wil’s session.

Here’s Wil’s take:

Well the BIG topic – buying links to help boost your SEO rankings, let me say again…if you properly analyze your landscape you can determine if you may or may not need to buy links. If you do, you should buy ones that are actually on GOOD sites – while producing great content is the ideal, you may have to prime the pump a bit with a few strategic bought links. This is an advanced tactic, if you don’t understand what makes a good vs. bad link, don’t buy one!

As you can imagine, Jason was not too supportive of the link buying tactic and has called out Google and SEO’ers many times over the issue (and created a company to combat the problem he sees in search today).

And thanks to the power of the interwebs, you have the chance to see the throw down (not really) between Wil and Jason (or head over to YouTube to see the annotations that Wil has added to the video… they don’t carry over to embeds):

The video also shows why you should be going to the https://www.fusionquest.com/cgi-bin/main/hotlinks.cgi?aflt=afc1&client=affsumAffiliate Summit in Boston this August. Unlike many of the shows I go to, there is both real substance and real discussions that go on during the sessions. This is just a taste of that.