Cribbed Content for May 29th
At first glance when starting to compile this week’s Cribbed Content, it didn’t look like much was going on. My Google Reader was kind of light, as were the other scoops and news coming across my desk. But then when I really started to dig, I found some cool stuff! Including a really easy Twitter Contest from DIY SEO to win a Kindle!
- Last week I reported that Affiliate Summit East 2009 was all sold out of booths. They’re now all sold out of Meet Market tables as well, the first time for them that they’ve sold out of exhibitor space before Early Bird pricing was done. Congrats to the ASE09 team!
- Speaking of Affiliate Summit, co-founders Missy Ward and Shawn Collins were in Dallas at the Inbound Marketing Summit speaking about monetizing blogs. Missy was kind enough to share their slides from the presentation.
- Affiliate network ShareASale is toying with an Affiliate API and has released the initial sections for use.
- Google recently changed their trademarks policy in regards to AdWords paid search ads. Search Engine Land wrote an article on how to protect your brand under Google’s new trademark policy, and Geno Prussakov also wrote an article on how this applies to affiliate marketing.
- Apparently Google mucked around with PageRank… AGAIN… and devalued Twitter profiles. Which is fine with me since I realized awhile back my twitter page was PR9 when this here blog was only PR2 (currently my twitter page is a PR3). What really irritated me was that, out of nowhere, this blog went down to PR0 out of nowhere with no real changes other than a redesign (that, if anything, should have HELPED SEO). So in my opinion Google can shove with with their PageRank racket anyway. Anyway, Andy Beard explains a few things about the change.
- I’ve seen a certain someone from a certain CPA network tweeting a lot in the last two days about making money from Twitter with CPA ads. That seems to be ALL this person is tweeting about and it’s getting on my anti-spam nerves. So instead of calling this person out, I’ll be passive-aggressive and just pass on this article for everyone: 10 Irritating Mistakes that People Make with Twitter. Thanks Nikki Pilkington for a good article right when I was thinking about it!
- I’m a big fan of to-do lists. There’s been some talk about different apps recently (I was turned onto Toodledoo and love its integration with iGoogle homepage). Nate Moller wrote a great article on why to-do lists are key to entrepreneur success that any slightly unmotivated or scattered entrepreneur should read!
Cribbed Content for May 22nd
It’s been a slow week for news coming across my desk. Then again, it’s been a slow week for me in general. We’re doing Affiliate Marketing Fanatics about every other week now when news is slow. Hopefully with the upcoming LinkShare Symposium in New York, Affiliate Convention in Denver, and a smattering of other events we should have more to talk about soon! In the meantime, check this stuff out.
- Geno Prussakov posted some pretty great articles on his blog this week, 7 Common Problems with Affiliate Data Feeds and Common Mistakes of New Affiliate Program Managers. I have to give Geno kudos for some great articles!
- Andy Beard wrote an insightful entry on his blog about his Product Launch Affiliate Strategy, and what checklist he uses to determine if he’ll support a new affiliate launch or not. It’s definitely a good read for any affiliate starting out, and any merchant who wants to optimize their launches to make them attractive to affiliates.
- FeedFront Magazine has issued a call for entries for their 7th issue, which will also serve as the conference guide for Affiliate Summit East 2009 in NYC, at which I’ll be speaking!
- Speaking of Affiliate Summit East 2009, they’re all sold out of booths! You snooze, you lose!
- More interesting posts about whether or not you should disclose affiliate links with Shawn Collins’ Affiliate Link Disclosure Manifesto. Good stuff.
Cribbed Content for March 6th
I haven’t had the chance to do very many of these during February… the month was filled with birthday celebrations, a vacation, and a lot of Wii in the evening since I’ve been strangely obsessed with Guitar Hero and Animal Crossing: City Folk. But since I’ve been back from vacation I’ve seen some great stuff, so I want to share.
Forgive me, some of it will be a bit out of date.
- Geno Prussakov put together a great list of affiliate marketing events in 2009.
- California is looking into a tax for online sales. Scott Jangro has written an open letter to the California outlining why it’s a bad idea. I am going to take his advice and grab the letter to send myself as a resident of California.
- Read the full California Assembly Bill 178 and contact your representatives to explain why this is a bad idea for affiliate marketers in California!
- 20/20 contacted the Performance Marketing Alliance for some background on affiliate marketing for a series they’re doing on the proliferation of work-at-home schemes. It’s good to see that they’re able to do some positive PR for the industry already… very promising since they’re off to a slow start.
- I wrote another guest post for Marketing Pilgrim, this time on The Search Engine Known as Twitter.
- If you’re at all interested in reading about my rambles about my Caribbean cruise vacation, check out my Posterous blog.
Goals for 2009
There seems to be a rule in blogging that on January 1st, any self-respecting blogger will take a few minutes to wax poetic on one of two topics – a recap of their year previous, or an outlook on their goals of the new year ahead. All the cool kids are doing it, so I’ve decided to jump into the mix. I’m not doing anything better today, so why not? :p
I’m going to opt for the latter, and set forth some goals for my 2009. Some more important than others, but listed in no particular order.
- Work out the technical kinks on my blog. I’ve got some issues with the CSS on this theme regarding spacing in lists, so Id like to either learn enough about CSS to fix this or find a new theme that I like as much as this one. I also had a problem upgrading to WordPress 2.7 and had to revert back, so I’ll figure out what the heck was causing that & upgrade.
- Post every day. Even if it’s just a quick note about how work is going or something interesting I saw online that day. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to post crap, but just a bit more current things than necessarily waiting until the end of the week to mention some things in my Cribbed Content post.
- Get back to doing the Free Toolsday and Saturday Shopper features. I enjoy doing them, I’ve just been slacking.
- Write more guest posts & accept more guest posts. I’ve been given the opportunity, so I should collaborate with fellow bloggers more than I do.
That’s really it. If I set a lot of lofty goals, I’ll never finish them all. So these few are here. Keep me honest on this and we’ll friends. Check back here in a year to see if I succeeded!
Read MoreCribbed Content for December 22nd
The holidays are upon us finally! I suck and forgot to post this shorter version last week! Hanukkah started on the 21st, and Christmas is around the bend this week! Do you have sugar plum fairies dancing in your head yet? Here’s a few interesting things from this past week to keep your feet on the ground until you’re off for the holiday officially!
- Are you an affiliate? Take the AffStat Survey Here and let your voice be known in the industry. This coming year the results will be made available through FeedFront Magazine rather than by purchase.
- Speaking of FeedFront, publishers Shawn Collins & Missy Ward of Affiliate Summit have put together a compilation cover complimenting their story about the women of affiliate marketing. Yours truly is on the cover in the lower right hand portion, sharing space with some truly awesome and amazing women that I both adore and admire!
- ShareASale hosts a great party at every Affiliate Summit, and this coming January for Affiliate Summit West 2009, they’re hosting an 80s prom themed “Under the Stars” party. Righteous, dude.
Cribbed Content for November 7th
Welcome to November! I can hardly believe we’re in November already… it seems like it was September just yesterday! Do me a favor and remember that there’s Thanksgiving to think about before Christmas and stall on decking everything out in red and green for a month, will ya?
- Recently I wrote an article for the New Edge Media blog, Top 14 Tips for Affiliate Success. Check it out and be sure to follow New Edge Media on Twitter!
- Scott Jangro wrote a good post on Affiliate Marketing Network Blog Scorecards. The comments are interesting as well, so be sure to read the whole thing.
- Affiliate Summit now has a Fan Page on Facebook. Join up for updates.
- 37Signals now offers an affiliate program for their super awesome products, one of which is Basecamp, a great project management system that we proudly use at New Edge Media. Sign up for their affiliate program at http://affiliate.37signals.com.
- An interesting note about branding and your personal brand, Jim Kukral is going to re-brand himself next week. I’m very interested to see what he does and how this is executed, so stay tuned.
