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 ยป 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