Looks like Twitter is figuring out a new way to monetize by including relevant social networking tools.
Personally, I like this one:
Foamee is a free service that helps track who you owe beers to (and vice versa) using the popular messaging service, Twitter.
I presented a session with Stephanie Agresta last week on the place of affiliate marketing in the new media atmosphere.
Here’s the video interview we did after the talk:
Hadn’t seen this on ABW yet, but Shawn has news that Ticketmaster (under the IAC umbrella along with Ask.com, etc) is launching their affiliate program with buy.at:
Wow – I just stumbled across some BIG news on the buy at, Inc forum at ABestWeb: Ticketmaster chooses buy at, Inc – Beta affiliate program launch!
Shawn includes:
I’d imagine there is some hand wringing in the board rooms of the other U.S. affiliate networks right about now.
Have to agree, Shawn. This has the potential to be a huge program and really put buy.at on the map here in the States. I love music blogs and subscribe to a good number of them. Having the option to support my favorite sites while getting tickets (which I do frequently) to shows they describe is a win-win. The implications for affiliate sales on those is huge… not to mention long tail local sites.
Hats off to the buy.at team for landing this big fish and potential cash cow (I limit myself to two animal analogies in each post).
I’m excited to be a part of the new Board of Advisors at Affiliate Classroom. We’ll be working with two of my favorite people, Anik Singal and Rachel Honoway, to bring value to the general community of affiliates and affiliate managers as our industry continues to develop.
Affiliate Classroom, a publisher of educational tools for the interactive advertising industry, has appointed a board of advisors.
Recently appointed Board of Advisors are…
- Peter Figueredo, CEO and co-founder of NETexponent
- Sam Harrelson, CEO of ReveNews
- Jeremy Palmer – Owner and creator of “Quit Your Day Job”, co-creator of PPC Classroom
- Heather Paulson – President and founder of Paulson Management Group, Inc.
- Brook Schaaf – CEO of Schaaf Consulting
Board of Advisors Appointed for Affiliate Classroom | Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins
I’m still rather bear-ish on the prospects of continued growth for the internet advertising universe. That sounds heretical given my job and lifeblood, but we can’t expect the continuing economic downturn here in the US to support continued online growth.
New figures released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers show that internet advertising continues to grow to record levels, with the 3rd quarter internet ad spend in the United States hitting $5.2 billion, a $1.1 billion/ 25.3% increase over the same quarter in 2006.
In fact, I think we’re headed for more than a bubble pop of web2.0 as ad budgets will certainly be one of the first things to get slashed when the economy takes its eventual nosedive. In the midst of all that doom and gloom, I do see the smart and adaptable small companies weathering the kill-off, just as our mammal ancestors did a few million years ago.
Interesting new affiliate program from the wifi network FON in CJ (15-18% commission):
Besides earning a commission rate of 15% of all your referred sales, we also provide 120 return day cookies (to track your referrals even after someone has clicked-through on your link) and unlimited referral occurrences.
Refer just $600 or more in sales in any month and you’ll earn a 10% bonus. Refer $1,600 or more in a month and you’ll earn a 20% bonus, bringing your effective commission rate to 18%!
FON has gotten a good deal of press on tech and gadget blogs for its alternative goal to spread free wifi by subsidizing routers for individuals (costs around $50). I’m not sure how successful the program will be, but it’s interesting to see a company trying to gain traction here in the States turn to an affiliate solution.
blognation USA has more coverage.
FON
This one shows the building from the outside. Cool, eh? And this one shows part of a Hebrew inscription on the inside. The first part of the inscription is outside the frame, but the rest reads הנביא בן בוזי הכהן זכותו ינן עלינו ועל כל ישראל אמן, “… the prophet, son of Buzi, the priest. May his merit increase upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.” The prophet in question is, of course, Ezekiel, who was a priest and whose father’s name was indeed Buzi (Ezekiel 1:3).
JJ Abrams (Lost, etc) is heading up the eleventh Star Trek movie. Supposedly, it’s going to be based on the academy time of Kirk, Spock, etc and how they all meet.
Here’s a (potentially) major spoiler post (that you have to read if you’re a fellow fan):
I can’t stress how big of a potential spoiler the following information is. If you want to remain spoiler free DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.
IESB.net – Movie News, Reviews, Interviews and More! – JJ Abram’s Star Trek Story Details!
Google just took over the mobile world…
Seesmic is basically a “video Twitter.” I got an invite today from Jeff Pulver (it’s in very private pre-alpha release) and have to say that I’m liking the service…
Learning to play the piano at a respectable level is not difficult (or so I’ve been told).
So I’m going to learn to play the piano.
Anyone have a link to a site to help me out? Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email (mail@samharrelson.com) if so!
I’ll keep you posted on my progress here.
Here’s a great piano tutorial from Mahalo:
http://www.mahalo.com/How_To_Play_Piano_For_Beginners_(And_Save_$500_In_Lessons)
Caroline Middlebrook has put together a tremendous guide to Twitter (both how and why answered).
I’ve started directing people here when they ask me why I Twitter and what I get out of Twitter (since I’ve been there for about a year now).
Required reading…
The Big Juicy Twitter Guide
The Big Juicy Twitter Guide | Caroline Middlebrook
I got to meet and hang out with Brian Solis at this week’s BlogWorldExpo. Brian is one of my favorite bloggers and a heck of a photographer.
I liked this shot of me that he took at the ShareASale / Conversation Group party on Wednesday night at the Wynn Hotel in Vegas.
Linkshare has announced new mobile and video/embed object initiatives within their affiliate interface.
It’s great to see the major affiliate networks moving into these areas!
I mentioned yesterday that Linkshare is releasing a series of interesting new platforms within the affiliate network’s interface. Here’s the update on those: Flex Links (a video link embed platform), Mobile Links for pay-for-performance tracking in the mobile space and Link Locator 2.0 for enhanced web services. All in all, this is a great step ahead for the affiliate network space as the performance market continues to mature and encompass other areas than traditional (or "1.0" if you will) affiliate sites.
Linkshare’s Flex Links for Video, Mobile Links and Link Locator 2.0 Roll Out
Based on the recommendation of video guru Jim Kukral, I bought a Flip camera a couple of months back. If you watch my YouTube channel, you’ll notice the frequent shaky and unprofessional videos that I shoot with the neat little device.
Gizmodo says that this indicates that YouTube has arrived… I think this is an indication that The Flip has arrived.
For amateurs, it’s perfect. Evidently Oprah feels the same…
Oprah, that generous talk show host who no longer needs a last name, stooped down to YouTube to join up with the great unwashed yesterday, and to commemorate the occasion she gave away a $150 Flip Ultra camcorder to everybody in her talk show audience. Check out her condescending peptalk to YouTubers in the video above, promoting her show on which YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, whom Oprah says “don’t go out much,” appeared.
I’m heading out to catch my flight for BlogWorldExpo in Las Vegas in just a few moments, but wanted to let you know that if you’re going to be there, send me an email (sam@costpernews) or give me a call (803.413.6834) if you’d like to meet.
I’m glad CostPerNews is back (best traffic day ever yesterday, btw and FTW).
More soon…
So, I’m trying out something new for the comments called Disqus. It’s a rather neat (and easy to install) platform that allows for comments to turn into a forum and allows for you the user to keep your comments organized with other blogs using Disqus (Dave Winer, Fred Wilson and a few others are using it).
Give it a whirl and let me know what you think. If you think the old comment system is better we’ll switch back, but the forum integration is nifty.
The webwide discussion community where you carry your conversations with you.
The ad network space is incredibly crowded (especially in this age of loose spending by advertisers). That may be coming to a close in the near future, but for now it looks like there’s more and more ad networks popping up everyday who aren’t bringing much creativity or uniqueness to the table.
I found AdReady while doing research for another post and I’m trying to figure out exactly what they do that is different from either AdSense or CJ, Linkshare, Performics, ShareASale, etc. From the site, AdReady is working with Google (AdSense?), Yahoo’s RightMedia and AOL’s Advertising.com.
TechCrunch gave some coverage of the site with details like a 20% cut for the network. Beyond the ability to customize graphical ads (Photoshop?? The Gimp??), I’m not seeing the value proposition here or a reason why publishers (or advertisers) should choose something like AdReady over one of the existing ad networks.
I’d love to see them expand and improve, though… the ad network space (especially in the graphical realm) needs some tree shaking.
AdReady is an advertising technology company focused on making online display advertising accessible and effective for advertisers of all sizes. Through AdReady’s data-rich library of proven creative, real-time ad customization tools, and intuitive web-based interface, marketers are learning that AdReady makes it easy to build and run effective online display ad campaigns in minutes.
AdReady — Company Overview
TinyURL is supporting Ron Paul (so therefore all Twitter users are as well!).
Seen on the main page of TinyURL today (look in the top right):
