Web 2.0 Expo: Darwinism on the Web- Surviving and Thriving in a Web 2.0 World

Posted on Apr 8, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: Keeping up with what’s new is enough of a challenge, learning what to embrace and adopt, and how to do so cost effectively is the key to leading the pack. Learn how to prepare your organization up to keep pace with the new speed of innovation. Sponsored by CoreMedia.

This session took place Wednesday, April 1, 2009. The speaker:

• Sören Stamer, CoreMedia

This was one of my favorite sessions.  Sören was a wonderful, engaging speaker, and his accent was not a hindrance in the least.  While the other sponsored sessions were often big commercials for the sponsored company, I really appreciated that Sören left the CoreMedia plug for the end and kept it relatively short.  I enjoyed sitting through this session!

Bullet Point Review!

• You need to remain agile in this environment.
• Example: RateMyCop.com
• Cirsis is much bigger.  Some say we get collectively smarter, but we probably get collectively dumber.
• Web 2.0 is fundamental change.
• 10 patterns that might be useful:
  • Websites Evolve: Content used to be king but it’s all about engaging people
    • Harley Davidson did a good job of creating a tribe.
    • The feedback loops rule.
  • Engage in Conversations
  • Be Personal
  • Make Your Ideas More Contagious
    • Personal resonance counts
    • iPhone is an example – you touch what you like
  • Use Established Paradigms
    • Open & focused wins (Amazon)
  • Open Up and Do Less
    • Evolution is hard to predict
  • Let It Go
    • People pay for attention
  • Provide Ways to Earn Attention
    • Yelp is a good example.
    • The web withough websites
  • Enable Multiple Touch Points for your Service
    • Making money because of… (because of search, not with search)
    • As soon as you start charging, it’s a barrier of entry and people will go to a free verion
  • Find Smart Ways to Offer a Great Service for Free
    • Skype
    • Don’t be surprised that some things change dramatically

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Video will be the next big thing.

All in all this was great.  Rather high level, and left some people questioning at the end, but I really enjoyed it.  It was almost more of an entertainment piece than an educational piece.  Bravo.

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 5: Staring Down the Governator

Posted on Apr 7, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Marketing Fanatics |

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!

We are a touch late with delivering last week’s show to you. I was out of my office away lobbying against California AB 178 on Tuesday and then at Web 2.0 Expo the rest of the week, so Mike and I took today to catch up on a few things. We start all business and devolve into my rant on the etiquette of booth staff at trade shows. So be sure to heed my words and stop, collaborate, and listen!

A few things we mention this week:

1. My second job as a California lobbyist against AB 178
2. Affiliate Voice: The Voice of the Affiliate Industry launched this week. Their president is Melanie Seery of NYAffiliateVoice.com
3. Twitter dropped their auto-follow service, so we took a look at 3rd party apps like Tweet Later.
4. Mike explored Max Banner Ads as an adserver for his blogs.
5. A brief recap of the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and the tools I found potentially useful: StartForce, Safari Books Online, and GooseGrade
6. Another tech blog by our pals Sam Harrelson and Scott Jangro called Cloud39.com
7. Shout outs: Stephanie Lichtenstein’s awesome work on the #advertisingtax organization and Facebook group, and Daniel M. Clark’s great help via Twitter.

This episode comes in at a mouth watering 52 minutes.

Web 2.0 Expo: Transforming IT with Cloud Computing

Posted on Apr 7, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: Running your business in the Cloud is becoming mainstream and offers enormous advantages. Hear how companies are taking advantage of the Cloud to increase IT output while simultaneously reducing infrastructure, application development and deployment costs. Learn how this new approach is enabling IT to do more with less by focusing on innovation, not infrastructure.

This session took place Wednesday, April 1, 2009.  The speaker:

• Trae Chancellor, CIO,  Salesforce.com

Unfortunately a lot of this kind of went over my head.  I guess the term IT in the title didn’t signal to me that this might not be the best session for me to attend.  The notes are kind of short since I didn’t really get a lot of value myself out of this.  Sorry!

Bullet Point Review!

• This transformation will touch the entire organization; everything has to be rethought.
• Gives you a competitive advantage.
• Cloud computing is able to deliver true innovation.
• Goals: improve productivity and innovation, improve efficiency, reduce costs.
• Implement CRM>customize>extend>commit>iterate
• Created their own dashboard and integrated that into their client offerings.
• Gets the whole business involved.
• Leverage the cloud.

There wasn’t really any useful Q&A time, and in reality most of this session was an advertisement for Salesforce, which is to be expected considering it was a sponsored session.  The presentation was more tailored towards being a case study rather than a how-to.

They didn’t share the presentation on SlideShare.net so I can embed it, but you can download it here: Transforming IT with Cloud Computing (PPT).

Amazon Puts the Kybosh on PPC

Posted on Apr 6, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Marketing |

All Amazon Associates in North American programs today received an email in which Amazon has notified us of program changes.  As of May 1, Amazon will no longer allow associates to drive traffic via pay-per-click ad campaigns.

As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or Canada via paid search.

This change applies only to the Associates programs in North America. If you are conducting paid search activities in connection with one of Amazon’s Associates Programs outside of the US and Canada, please refer to the applicable country’s Associates Program Operating Agreement for relevant terms and conditions.

Many programs know that PPC is essential for some affiliates, so it’s interesting that Amazon would chose to alienate these affiliates from their program.  I wonder if this is related in any way to the #advertisingtax California AB 178 that we’re working on killing.  Only time (or an Amazon insider) will tell!

Quick Update on Web 2.0 Expo

Posted on Apr 2, 2009 in Conferences & Networking, Social Media |

Yes, that’s where I’ve been Wednesday and Thursday, and will return to on Friday. It’s been a different experience for me; this is my first time attending Web 2.0 Expo and I don’t have a full conference pass, so I’m limited to what’s open for all attendees, namely the expo hall and the sponsored sessions.

My original intention was the live blog the sessions, but with no tables in the session rooms at Moscone and a spotty wifi connection, that’s obviously not been happening. But as always I have my notes and will share them with you next week!

In the meantime I guess, look for my Twitter posts with the hashtag #w2e for my tweets from the conference.

Recap of Lobby Day Against CA AB 178

Posted on Apr 1, 2009 in Career, Rambles | 2 comments

Yesterday I had the privilege of accompanying 9 of my fellow affiliate marketers to the California State Capitol building in Sacramento to help lobby legislators against the passage of California Assembly Bill 178.

I have to say on a personal level, this was my first trip to the Capitol, and the most involved I’ve ever gotten with politics in general.  It was a pleasant experience overall.  And yes, I got a little “star struck” for lack of a better term walking by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s office.  I had to fight the urge to knock on the door and demand court!

Back to business.  10 of us were able to make it up, some coming from Southern California.  We had appointments set for almost all day, so we split into two groups so we wouldn’t run the risk of running late or overcrowding offices.  Our group had a few lack luster meetings with staff that really didn’t understand what we were talking about or weren’t really familiar enough with the bill to care yet.  But we also had some good meetings with other staff members who were incredibly receptive to our message and offered us a lot of advice regarding how to go about the lobbying that we’re doing.  Some even went so far as to call other offices we didn’t already have appointments with and help to make us appointments.

It was equal parts optimistic and pessimistic.  While it looks like it’s going to be incredibly difficult to outright kill the bill because of the eagerness of the state to collect any income possible.  Focusing on the message that it’s best to keep the bill as broad as possible in the definition keeps it as fair as possible.  In a perfect situation the Streamlined Sales Tax Project to require the collection of sales tax across every state would make the playing field as fair as possible, but that’s already been in the works for almost a decade and doesn’t look promising to be enacted any time soon.  So in the meantime, we do what we can.

You can still do what you can.  Now that we’ve taken meetings at the capitol, feel free next week to take meetings in your district in California.  The members will be on vacation and potentially available at their district offices.  Staff will not be on vacation and will still be in Sacramento working, so if you weren’t able to join us under such short notice, feel free to schedule your own appointments and talk to the Assembly Members on the committee for Revenue and Taxation.  The meetings were generally short, 15-20 minutes of a staff members’ time.  We were able to leave behind the letter that Linkshare wrote in opposition along with the opposition letter from the Performance Marketing Alliance, co-signed by over 300 affiliates.

If you’d like copies of these documents for your own leave behinds materials and have the intention of taking a meeting either in the district offices or in Sacramento, please leave a comment and I’ll see  how we can get those materials to you.  Here’s information on the committee members to reach out to.  If you live in their district, all the better (they prefer to hear from constituents whenever possible).

• The Committee for Revenue and Taxation: (916) 319-2098

• Charles M. Calderon (Chair) – Dem. 58th District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0058, Phone (916) 319-2058
  • District Office: 13181 N. Crossroads Pkwy, Suite 160, City of Industry, CA 91746, Phone (562) 692-5858
• Chuck DeVore (Vice Chair) – Rep. 70th District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol Room #4102, Sacramento, CA 95814, Phone (916) 319-2070
  • District Office: 3 Park Plaza, Suite 275, Irvine, CA 92614, Phone (949) 863-7070
• Jim Beall, Jr. – Dem. 24th District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0024, Phone (916) 319-2024
  • District Office: 100 Paseo De San Antonio, Suite 300, San Jose, CA 95113, Phone (408) 282-8920
• Joe Coto – Dem. 23rd District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0023, Phone (916) 319-2023
  • District Office: 100 Paseo De San Antonio, Suite 319, San Jose, CA 95113, Phone (408) 277-1220
• Diane L. Harkey – Rep. 73rd District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol Room #4177, Sacramento, CA 95814, Phone (916) 319-2073
  • District Office #1: 29122 Rancho Viejo Rd., Suite 111, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675, Phone (949) 347-7301
  • District Office #2: 300 N. Coast Hwy, Oceanside, CA 92054, Phone (760) 757-8084
• Fiona Ma – Dem. 12th District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0012, Phone (916) 319-2012
  • District Office: 455 Golden Gate Ave., Suite 14600, San Francisco, CA  94102, Phone (415) 557-2312
• Jim Nielsen – Rep. 2nd District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol Room #6031, Sacramento, CA 95814, Phone (916) 319-2002
  • District Office #1: 280 Hemsted Dr., Suite 110, Redding, CA 96002, Phone (530) 223-6300
  • District Office #2: 1527 Starr Dr., Suite U, Yuba City, CA 95993, Phone (530) 751-8351
• Anthony J. Portantino – Dem. 44th District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0044, Phone (916) 319-2044
  • District Office: 215 N. Marengo Ave, Suite 115, Pasadena, CA 91101, Phone (626) 577-9944
• Lori Saldaña – Dem. 76th District
  • Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0076, Phone (916) 319 – 2076
  • District Office: 1557 Columbia St., San Diego, CA 92101, Phone (619) 645-3090