June is here, which means the “Amazon Tax” law, as it’s been dubbed, is now in effect. Merchants with affiliates residing in New York state will now have to charge tax on orders of customers in New York. In short, the state of NY has decided that affiliates constitute nexus, i.e. a term used to describe whether a business has sufficient presence or activity in a state or other taxing jurisdiction to become subject to the tax(es) of the state or jurisdiction. So now in NY state online retailers with affiliates residing in that state have to charge tax, regardless of where their corporate headquarters actually are. Some good links that explain this better than I ever could are to TechCrunch’s May 14th post and Scott Jangro’s May 22nd podcast.

So many of the larger online merchants with a large number of affiliates in NY have made the decision to drop their affiliates who reside in NY. The great folks over at ABestWeb.com Affiliate Forums have kept a running list of the merchants who’ve dissed their NY affiliates. So if you’re from NY, be aware that these merchants may not approve your application if you apply in the near future.

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I know in the podcast I say that I’m going to call this EthicsCast, but I’ve decided that CourtesyCast because it’s more appropriate. I’ve been meaning to talk about some common courtesy things to take into consideration when working. Some of these may be common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t think about some of these things.

So here in CourtesyCast 1 we discuss scents at work.

 

 CourtesyCast 01 [5:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

• Beyond the Scent

This podcast, incidentally, is dedicated to Scott Jangro for fixing my podcast plugin issues

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Is there really a “trade show season”? I’ve heard this referred to time & again, but I seem to go year ’round so I don’t know what that season is! Yes, soon it will be time for me to hit the road again and make my rounds of the country in search of truth, justice, and the American Business Way!

Actually, both of the conferences in my future take me to Boston, MA. I’m hoping since it’s on the coast that it won’t be as muggy and terrible as when I visited New Jersey in 2006 for a film festival. That was awful. I’ve never been to Boston, so I’m excited. This next trip is quick and won’t allow for a lot of time to see any sights except in the evenings, but for the second show I’ve worked a day or so in to see some stuff.

First stop, the HOW Design Conference May 18th through 21st. I’m on booth duty the entire time, so no sessions for me. Which makes me sad, but I’m relying on a co-worker that is attending the sessions to take good notes because I’m sure it’ll be interesting. In a geeky designer way. In booking this trip, it was pretty last minute for the company to make up it’s mind in who would be sent, so costs were pretty expensive. I managed to get one hell of a deal on a flight for $380 on Hotwire, a feat which seems to not be repeatable as looking for the flight for my second outing only returned prices in the $420-460 range. Since it was also the last minute and there has GOT to be some other conferences or events going on the same week, almost every decent hotel in the area was booked solid or $500/night. So we’re staying at the Best Western near Longview Medical for $300/night. Never have I stayed in such a poorly valued Best Western – but we’ll see.

Next on my list, the always great Affiliate Summit. I won’t be attending this as a representative of PsPrint. This is on my own dime. I’ll be going as a member of the press, and will be reporting live (hopefully) on the sessions I attend and the different events I go to. I’m stoked, and BIG Shout Out to Missy Ward, one of the co-founders, for helping make this happen for me. I’ve booked my hotel already, luckily getting on on super fair group rate of $189/night at the Seaport Hotel where the event will be happening. As I mentioned above, I tried to get a great deal on a flight booking 3 months in advance, but still only got higher…so I’ll watch the fares for awhile and see what I can do to swing a cheaper flight. I’ve built a day into my schedule out there to HOPEFULLY see some cool Boston stuff…maybe if I win the lottery I can go to a Red Sox game at Fenway! I’m really excited and can’t wait.

And BEST news of all, the wonderful Scott Jangro found out the problem I was having with the RSS feed – Revver & PodPress were just not playing nicely together. It has been fixed so PLEASE remember to subscribe to my RSS feed!

Be sure to share some travel tips with me!

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