Nifty!
Go, Disqus…
Disqus Blog » DISQUS and Facebook Connect under the mistletoe: “Facebook Connect is new technology that allows websites and blogs to plug into the Facebook platform. This holiday season, Disqus will enable all websites with Disqus-powered comments to easily integrate with Facebook Connect.”
Eat it, Jangro.
Sad. I really enjoyed the Relevantly Speaking blog. It is not common that an affiliate network is willing to blog about things besides “company news and offer promotion.”
Mediatrust Blog: “First, Relevantly Speaking as you know it today will change drastically. First, the blog portion will cease to exist. As proud as I am of the work we’ve done on it, we just don’t have the resources to continue writing two blogs for our company. That said, all of our blogging will be done here at blog.MediaTrust.com. The focus of that effort will be performance marketing, company news, and offer promotion. The goal is to really concentrate on our brand and make sure our blogging efforts really support our core business of performance based marketing.”
I really don’t see how it costs anymore to keep up a high quality blog rather than one focused on telling a (what will probably be dwindling) reader base about the HOTTEST NEW OFFERS! in a network.
And the interviews from places like the last Affiliate Summit were top-notch.
Oh well. Economy sucks.
Last year Jason Calacanis gave the keynote at Affiliate Summit and made the point (if I may summarize) that affiliate marketers are bright and have lots of potential but think too small…instead they need to make quality platforms that people and VC’s will get behind.
Clearly, that mindset should have changed as the economy continues to dive bomb and the Silicon Valley companies (such as Calacanis’ VC backed Mahalo) that Jason lauded continue to make double digit percentage staff cuts in the name of runway to survive the long recession/depression that we’re in for.
However, I’m listening to the new This Week in Tech from Leo Laporte, which features Jason Calacanis, John C. Dvorak (drink!) and Sarah Lane. Listen to the first 15 or so minutes if you’re interested in how much Jason’s views haven’t changed over the last year regarding affiliate sites being equatable to parked pages and spam.
Look, I hate spam as much, if not more, than the next guy. Just follow me on Twitter if you’d like to see an affiliate marketer filled with self-angst over the spam problem. I recognize that some “affiliates” use tactics that suck and should be looked down upon. But that is not the majority of affiliates considering that “affiliate marketing” itself is mushrooming to encompass a whole range of publishers because of the evolution of the social web.
However, an outsider calling all affiliate sites spam for his own business gain is just lame considering Mahalo itself is an affiliate site. I guess the Valley way to eliminate competition is to call it spam.
Good luck with those runways, Jason. We’ll keep the traffic flowing in the control tower.
My pal Angel Djambazov of ReveNews has a great post on his frustrations with the MyBlogLog platform and its incessant spam problem.
I offer up a few thoughts about why and how this could be resolved in the comments there (basically, the model of MBL is flawed and that’s why Twitter is the winner).
Some from Angel:
MyBlogLog Needs to Wake Up Their Porn Problem | ReveNews: “MyBlogLog has all the elements of a really great tool. Blog owners, especially those whose content is more news orientated, will find the oversight that allows these spammers in as a poor reflection on their community.
Yahoo needs to realize that in certain cases a picture can equal a thousand words of spam. Until then actual readers can get their news and their g-string pictures at the same time.”
And some from me:
“That’s why I think Twitter and the platforms that have been made popular since MBL was sold to Yahoo back in ‘07 have done so well (especially for those of us in the marketing space)… it’s the publisher or user who gets to be the gatekeeper and fend off the spammers as they arise. The follow/no-follow/block paradigm is much better than the wild-west mentality of MBL.”
Good convo going on there… head over to ReveNews and add some of your thoughts.
I’m a power RSS user.
I normally have somewhere around 200-500 feeds that I actively read on a daily basis (yeah, I know).
So, I’m glad to see an update from Google Reader. It’s been the app that has kept me from selling my soul to Google since NetNewsWire kicks its webby butt.
That might change.
Can’t argue much with this assessment from Razorfish:
Razorfish issues last rites for Web 2.0 – iMediaConnection.com: “‘Web 3.0 will be much more focused on business solutions and less on marketing communications,’ he says. ‘We’re at a point now where you take all of these tools — websites, search, mobile, targeted ads — and put them together in an integrated fashion.'”
Although, I’d throw in web3.0 will be all about Track. No, seriously.
Head over to iMedia to get the full discussion.
sweet…
The Affiliate Summit team has put together a neat little Google Gadget for those of use who are always wondering how much longer we have to wait to fly out to Vegas for the show (come on, guys… how about San Fran or Phoenix or Denver one year??).
Regardless of location, Affiliate Summit is a can’t miss show if you’re in the performance marketing world or even the tech space and interested in how the web is being monetized.
Affiliate Summit 2009 West Countdown Google Gadget | Affiliate Summit Blog: “If you’re using iGoogle (Google’s personalized version of the Google homepage), you can add this gadget to it, to remind you just how fast the conference is approaching!”
Nice work, team Affiliate Summit.
Joe Magennis of Fluid Media has set up a FriendFeed room for podcast sharing and discovery (and has a good podcast of his own with Cameron Watson called Overflow).
I listen to podcasts on a daily basis and it definitely gets difficult to find quality shows that focus on the geek marketing realm where I live (and you probably do as well if you’re reading this).
So, I’m hoping this takes off as a place of sharing and discovery:
Podcast Place – FriendFeed: “A group of people who enjoy the amazing content being produced on the web & want to discover and share it with others.”
Head over and start sharing your favs so I’ll be able to keep the iPod full.
Nice work, Joe.
I don’t have the new “Themes” feature in my GMail yet (and probably won’t use them when I do), but my GMail interface just changed over to a new theme without me doing anything (pic above).
Is this one of the new themes or is there a new default GMail theme all together?
Anyone else seeing this?
I logged into my AIM mail account today. That’s not something I do frequently. However, if these new widgets I found waiting for me are any indication of future development, I may be giving AIM (how about AOL Mail?) a second look.
AOL is famous for having been a walled-garden portal in the past. However, as I wrote last week, AOL is really on the ball with the whole spirit of the open web by introducing ways to bring in content from such places (competitors?) as Yahoo Mail, GMail, Twitter, Facebook, etc on the main AOL homepage, which does millions of impressions every month.
And the results from this newfound embracing of openness are more engagement, more pageviews and more attention. AOL is on to something.
With these new widgets in AIM mail, you can integrate Yahoo Mail, contacts, AIM, AOL Finance, Mapquest, etc within your inbox. GMail has this same feature with its Labs platform, so it’s good to see competition there. The trick with AIM is that they are bringing in properties from outside the AOL universe (unless the AIM Mail team knows something about a Yahoo/AOL deal that we don’t). Nifty.
However, my main question is if this is a sign of the future? Will you eventually be able to update Twitter or your Facebook status (or send Facebook messages) within AIM or AOL mail as you can on the AOL home page? If so, that will be very compelling. Will I ditch GMail for AIM even if that happens? Perhaps not, but I will definitely take a second look at my AOL/AIM mail.
It’s time for web-based email clients to grow up and become platforms instead of proprietary gardens of in-house developers. I’m glad to see AOL is helping to make that happen.
Comics were a huge part of my dorky teen years (but I only read the cool comics that you had to ask for from behind the counter). I still have soft spot in my heart for all things Marvel, DC, Image, Darkhorse, etc.
So, I was excited to see that Pepperjam now has the Marvel affiliate program in their network. Pepperjam also has the Star Trek affiliate program, making it a nostalgic choice for fanboi’s and geeks who, like myself, appreciate the finer things from Jim Lee or Frank Miller. Come to think of it, they also have MGM (Stargate) and Warner Bro’s (DC merchandise, Batman, Harry Potter and 300). Lots of geek cred there.
The Marvel program has 45 day cookies and starts at 7% and works up to 10% with volume. There is supposedly a datafeed on the way as well.
I’ll definitely be checking that one out for Christmas since Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk were such big hits this year and there is always a crowd hungry for X Men and Spiderman goodness (plus there’s the upcoming Wolverine and Avengers movies in the works).
Good stuff.
I frequently mention Loa Power Tools on podcasts, but I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about it.
I’ve been a subscriber for the last six months or so and I can’t tell you how frequently Loa saves my rear when trying to send an email from a wifi hotspot, airport, university building, etc that doesn’t want to work well with my email client.
Or if you have an AT&T DSL line at your office space like I do, you know the frustration of trying to send out through an SMTP other than AT&T’s designated one. Loa solves that.
Yes, I do love and use GMail, but there’s the whole business aspect of not looking professional when you have the “sent from GMail on behalf of CostPerNews.com” in the header. Sure, I could go with Google Apps, but I’ve got 4 years of mail archived in my personal GMail account. Loa solves a huge problem there as well (and there’s a special plan for GMail users).
And that’s why I like Loa Power Tools. It’s a problem solving application for power email users that you don’t notice running in the background because it does what it needs to do quietly.
Just thought I’d plug the service (no, this is not a paid advertisement, I’m just a fan) because it’s an unsung hero of my daily work flow. Go read more and give it a shot if you need this sort of a solution (and who doesn’t with the ubiquity of wifi hotspots these days?)…
Tell me more about Loa PowerTools: “Loa PowerTools is a tiny utility that lets you send email from any internet connection anywhere. Once it is installed, you don’t have to change your life at all. You can use whatever email software you prefer: Outlook, Mac Mail, Thunderbird … it doesn’t matter, but Loa PowerTools will send your mail out through the Internet in a way that can’t be stopped by any but the most aggressive firewalls. And by ‘aggressive’ we mean firewalls in secure places where you wouldn’t expect to be able to have much Internet contact with the outside world.
It’s particularly useful for laptops. Without Loa PowerTools, when you travel from connection to connection, you never know what mail server to use to send mail. You often have to spend a lot of time fumbling around to find the address of an SMTP server that will let you connect. Even if you can find one that would let you connect, more and more often these days the network you use won’t allow any mail at all. The provider of the connection deliberately blocks all outward-bound mail. The detective work you have to do is exhausting and often fruitless! You never know from one trip to the next whether you will be able to send email when you are at your destination hotel, in a conference room or an airport lounge or using some other publicly available network. And as the number of malicious exploits around the Web increases, the problem is only getting worse: network operators are being forced to become more and more protective of their networks.”
Plus, they take PayPal. Can’t beat that. Tell ’em uncle Sam sent ya.
Not only did Jim Kukral rebrand today, he proved me wrong.
Curse you, Kukral.
Welcome to Sponsored Videos – YouTube Advertising Programs: “Create video promotions right now! Your promotions can run live on YouTube once you have signed up for an account and created your campaign.”
Episode Seven: Macbook's Kill Switch, Token iPhone Discussions and Essential Geek Skills (about an hour)
Show Notes:
– Tethering
– More on iPhones and Blackberries
– Macbook Self Destruct Mode
– 50 Essential Geek Skills
In all honesty, this is the best GTM yet. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Brian Littleton, head of ShareASale, was in NYC for Ad:Tech and sat down with Shawn Collins, Missy Ward and Connie Berg to discuss a few topics including the network’s interesting “3 Strikes” PPC policy on AffiliateThing…
ShareASale Blog » Blog Archive » Ad-Tech NYC, the Affiliate Thing Podcast, and the PPC “3 Strikes” policy: “I was also lucky to have the opportunity to speak with Shawn Collins on his ‘Affiliate Thing’ podcast at the Affiliate Summit booth. Also on board were co-Affiliate Summitter Missy Ward, and Connie Berg. We had a good time talking about some industry news, issues, and it gave me an opportunity to talk about our PPC ‘3 Strikes’ policy as well. Since September 1st when the policy became active, we’ve received a great amount of feedback and reports. I would also like to thank all of the affiliates who have really stepped up their efforts to make sure that they are in compliance with the rules at hand. I know how difficult it is to keep up with so many policies, and your effort is very much appreciated. We know there will always be mistakes, hiccups, etc… and will continue to do our best to determine the difference between an honest mistake and a continued violation. So thank you…. “
The show really is a good listen.
Here’s the mp3 or head over to GeekCast.fm for the streaming version.
Gary Vaynerchuk uses Howard Stern’s bitterness to make a great point about cost-of-entry and the new paradigm on the web.
In other words, don’t be that guy when you make it to the top and web7.0 or whatever comes out 20 years from now…
There are a number of tools (some free and some paid) that perform the same function as Backlink Watch, but if you need a quick and easy checker to see who is linking to you and with what anchor text, it’s not a bad little tool.
Regardless, you should be keeping an eye on these sorts of things for SEO purposes as well as reputation management. And if you’re running an affiliate site that is composed of more than just affiliate links, it’s always a good idea to see if anyone else is including you in their posts or blogrolls.
Backlink Watch with something like Google Alerts should get you to 99% of what you need in this realm.
