Year: 2008

Twitter Penalties

So true…

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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”

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.

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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

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.