Free Affiliate Summit Passes Today

FAE3B0A0-B0D4-44B3-AD51-BD23184B86A8.jpgI turn 30 just a few days after this year’s Affiliate Summit East. Helping me ring in my third decade is good enough reason to come to Boston, right? Well, even if you haven’t gotten a ticket yet, there’s a very good offer on the table for today.

For today only, Affiliate Summit is running a special promotion where anyone who hasn’t already registered for the Affiliate Summit East in Boston (August 10-12) can get a free exhibit hall pass…

Free Affiliate Summit Passes on June 11, 2008 | Affiliate Summit Blog: “We’ve got a special Affiliate Summit deal that’s only good for 24 hours – the day of June 11, 2008 EDT.

Everybody that is currently registered for Affiliate Summit 2008 East, taking place August 10-12 in Boston, is welcome to share the following coupon code with their friends and colleagues who are not yet registered:

ASE08JUNE11

This code is good for a free exhibit hall only pass (value $199).”

So, if you haven’t registered to come, you definitely should today. I can’t recommend the show enough (not just because I’m the “Minister of Social Media” this time) but because it really is the premier event for learning, networking and recruiting affiliates in the performance marketing space.

The speaker list is quite varied this year and the Affiliate Summit team has really mixed things up (in a good way) to keep the East show fresh.

Plus, you can buy me a drink for my 30th.

See you in Boston!

FeedFront Issue 1 Shipping Soon

Missy Ward and Shawn Collins of the https://www.fusionquest.com/cgi-bin/main/hotlinks.cgi?aflt=afc1&client=affsumAffiliate Summit have put together an “offline” publication that looks like it’s going to be a great read based on the talent assembled for the articles.

I contributed a piece describing the best ways to get things done in affiliate marketing using web2.0 tools:

FeedFront Articles in Issue 1 : FeedFront: “Issues will be mailed in June 2008. Here are the articles in the first issue:

* Editors Note: Missy Ward & Shawn Collins
* Five Ways to Evaluate a Merchant’s Landing Page: Dan Murray
* Pros & Cons of Utilizing Multiple Networks: Brian Littleton
* Twitter Grabs Attention: Lisa Picarille
* GTD in Affiliate Marketing with Web 2.0: Sam Harrelson
* Affiliate Marketers Give Back: Missy Ward
* Online Video Advertising: Tim Carter
* Nobody Would Use a Search Engine with Paid Results: Dan Gray
* Building Profitable Customer Relationships by Following These Simple Email Axioms: Tom Kulzer
* Are You the Next Super Affiliate Blogger?: Zac Johnson
* Ad Networks, Vertical Ad Networks, and Affiliate Networks: Peter Figueredo
* Affiliate Manager Compensation: Shawn Collins
* My 3 Favorite Blogs You May Not Visit: Wil Reynolds
* My 3 Favorite Tools You May Not be Using: Wil Reynolds
* Get Off Your Butt and Start Making Videos: Jim Kukral “

You can get a subscription to FeedFront here.

New Affiliate Summit Social Network Could Actually Be Useful

If you have followed me for any length of time, you know that I’m a chronic social networker. I jump on things like Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, FriendFeed, Seesmic, etc and often call them the “next big thing.”

I know it’s annoying, but sometimes I do get it right (like with Twitter).

So, I’m particularly excited to see the new Affiliate Summit network being moved to Ning…

New Affiliate Summit Social Network | Affiliate Summit Blog: “Affiliate Summit has launched a new social network for conference attendees on Ning.

Based on a poll, as well as feedback on Twitter and directly to us, Ning was the clear favorite over the previous social network technology from Confabb.”

If you’ve never played with Ning, you really should. It beats forum software like phpBB etc hands down and offers a number of options for integration with things like your blog feed or Twitter or Flickr.

And I’m especially excited about the Summit’s move to Ning because the previous Confabb system was atrocious from a usability standpoint.

This time around for the ASE Boston show, I really think we can derive some benefits from this iteration of the social network.

Head over and sign up. You just might like it (and find it profitable).

Anne Kadet’s Analysis Falls Very Short

Affiliate marketing is not about quick profits, sleazy promotions or fly-by-night operations.

Rather, affiliate marketing offers people the opportunity to make a living by producing web content. That content can be determined by a person’s passion, interest or savvy, but at the end of the day it’s a very democratic way to do marketing.

Instead of having to build a website that has the arbitrary watermark of being taken seriously (one million viewers), affiliate marketing offers anybody with enough passion and voice the opportunity to support their work and eventually grow that into a full time business.

So, I was frankly astonished when I read a piece by Anne Kadet about the last Affiliate Summit West and affiliate marketing in general in SmartMoney Magazine. It is a poorly written piece of journalism or opinion and is comparable to an 8th grade history report on the French Revoluition (having taught 8th grade, I think I can make that comparison).

Shawn Collins summed it up Kadet’s piece in video form better than I can in text:

Kadet‘s surface appraisal of the entire affiliate industry falls short of many of the criticisms or questions she could have raised about affiliate marketing had she dug a little deeper.