ShareASale Party Pics from ASW ’08
The pics from ShareASale’s party at Affiliate Summit West back in February are finally up on Flickr.
Lots of great shots of affiliate marketers (and lots of shots of Todd Crawford pointing at people)…
Amazon’s New Video Widget
Amazon has a nifty new video solution that allows you to embed product links based on what you’re talking about in videos you are hopefully making. At the end of the video, the featured products are then shown in a list with prices and ratings.
It’s pretty straightforward and the video demo does a good job of explaining the new feature.
Be warned that if you watch from 2:04 onwards, your eyes will bleed.
Told ya.
Twitter Penalties
So true…
The Toad Stool by Alan Wolk: Social Media Cards
Red cards will be issued for the following violations:
* Four or more tweets plugging one’s own blog post within a 24 hour period, including tweets from automated services like Twitterfeed.
* Use of the word “monetize” in an unironic way
* Posts mentioning surprise at the number of followers one has, provided that number is greater than 1,000
* Using a bot or interns or both to follow 1,000 or more people in the course of an evening.
* Issuing 50 or more consecutive tweets without ever once responding to an @ tweet
* Using Twitter for the sole purpose of promoting links to stories and/or posts that directly plug yourself or your company.
* Tweeting the UUSWVW (Using Urban Slang While Very White) violation “My Tweeps”
Identi.ca is an Open Sourced Twitter
Twitter meets open source meets stable Jabber client??
Say it ain’t so!
I’m at identi.ca/samharrelson if you join up. Feel free to add me. I’d love to see this take off because of the potential of open source to provide the kind of stability that proprietary code (as in Twitter) can’t.
Dave Winer has more.
GeekCast 25 Google, iPhone 3G and the PMA
Shawn, Lisa, Jim and I recorded GeekCast 25 today. It was one of our best (in my opinion).
GeekCast 25: It’s a Google World : GeekCast.fm: “The regular gang of Lisa Picarille, Shawn Collins, Jim Kukral and Sam Harrelson once again commenced for GeekCast 25 (our silver anniversary!).
This week, the GeekCast gang all stuck around for the entire show and tackled topics ranging from the PMA to the iPhone to smart blogging.”
Here’s the mp3.
Kowabunga! Slims Down Portfolio
Kowabunga!, rebranded a few months ago from Think Partnership, is divesting itself of Cherish (dating), MarketSmart (offline) and iLeadMedia (lead gen):
Kowabunga! to Divest Several Non-Core Business Units: “The Company intends to focus its efforts on its Network and other interactive businesses which have potential for enhanced growth. The business units that are no longer considered critical to its long term strategy and identified for divestiture are: (1) Cherish Inc., which provides online personals services; (2) MarketSmart Advertising Inc., which provides traditional offline advertising services; and (3) iLead Media, LLC, which provides online lead generation and digital marketing services. Proceeds from the sales will be used to reduce indebtedness and to fund the expected continued growth of the Network segment. “
The company’s stock price has been on the slide since a high of around $6 in 2004 and around $3.50 in 2007.
Kowabunga! has a soft spot in many people’s hearts in the industry (I was a consultant there for a few months) as we remember the “good old days” so hopefully the ship will turn around with this divestment.
Google Assumes Omnipotence, Can Now Index Flash
What does this mean for video?
Once Nearly Invisible To Search Engines, Flash Files Can Now Be Found And Indexed: “Adobe has come up with a way for the search engines to read SWF files and index all of the information they contain. That means any text or links in a Flash application can now be indexed. This is a huge step forward for Adobe and anyone who develops in Flash/Flex. Michele Turner, Adobe’s VP of marketing for its platform business, explains:
We are releasing technology to Google and Yahoo that enables them to crawl and index SWF files. They are now searchable. This will open up millions of Flash files to search.
Adobe has created a special Flash player for the search engines that acts like a virtual user going through each application. It actually goes through the runtime of each Flash application and translates it into something the search engines can understand. So all of those fancy interactive Flash Websites and other rich Internet applications that have been invisible to search engines, can now be seen by them. “
For sites such as Seesmic which rely heavily on a Flash interface, this is great news SEO wise. While I’m not a fan of the mostly Flash pages (like those that seemed to be the front-end of every DirectTrack CPA network in 2005), a little Flash can engage the viewer/user and turn their stay into a longer one.
Regardless, as Jim Kukral says… start doing video and tagging it properly if you want to have a future online.
Out of the Office Notifications
Dear People I Correspond with Via Email,
Please stop using those “I’m out of the office until Wednesday July 2” notifications. I’m not your mom, so I don’t need to know exactly where you are and I really don’t care.
You’re a swell person and you probably are on Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, ABW or some derivative, so I know enough about you.
If it’s urgent, I’ll try your cell or just google your name and get your number. If it’s not urgent, it probably would take you a few hours or even 24 to get back to me. Otherwise, that “I’m out of town until tomorrow” email I get back just wastes everyone time.
kthxbye-
Sam