I won big while in Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit, but not at the tables or slots.  For someone who rarely wins anything, I’ve had great luck lately winning some goodies in the last three weeks, from three different affiliate networks!  I managed to win some cool prizes that will most definitely help me out in my blogging and social endeavors!

So with that, thank you SO MUCH and here’s what I won so far this year and from who.  2009 has turned out pretty awesome so far!  I apologize in advance, dear readers, as this will be a long post!

Flip Mino Video Camera from MarketLeverage

Last month, several bloggers I read hosted a contest by MarketLeverage, the “Share Your Secret” contest.  The rules were simple – share your marketing secret via blog comment and you can only use MarketLeverage as the example network.  I entered on a couple of blogs, and was chosen to be the winner from 11|15 Media’s blog!  So thanks Mike!  Here’s what I shared:

As I said there, my secret isn’t really a secret – work smarter, not harder. I picked up the saying from one of my college roommates and I’m sure some genius generations before me coined the phrase, but I apply that mantra to everything. I try to make things more efficient and do things better so that my time is more effectively used and I can work smart without necessarily making things harder on myself.

To apply that to the affiliate example, I use MaxBannerAds on my blog. When I label the ads, not only do I add the merchant name but I also add the network name, i.e. MarketLeverage, to help me to group them together when I go to look at reporting so I can easily group things for myself. That’s just one small example of how I work smarter, not harder.

There were a lot of great contenders, so I was surprised to have won!  I was given the choice between a 4th generation iPod Nano or a Flip Mino, and since I had just bought an iPod for my husband for Christmas and have my own classic iPod, I chose the Flip.  I have to give MarketLeverage extra thanks for such a good prize because I just realized that my Aiptek HD camera is on it’s way to death.  So yay!  I hope as soon as I receive it and check out the cool content they’re going to preload onto it that I’ll have the guts to video blog more

A new service from marketing master Joel Comm was launched at Affiliate Summit.  The service, called TextCastLive, is a SMS messaging service that texted updates to opt-ins about the conference, like when sessions were starting and other events.  They also peppered in some contests in.  During the tail end of a session, a text went out announcing that the 7th person to show their phone the good folks at the oneNetworkDirect booth would receive $500 in network credit.  So I wandered over and with the good fortune of being with some other people who showed their phones (or, their phones were immediately more visible I might say) I was number 7!  I was actually surprised to see that they have a lot of tech offers on their network, including Lavasoft which makes the awesome anti-spyware program Ad-Aware that I love and swear by!  So thank you to TextCastLive and oneNetworkDirect!

Merchant Bag from buy.at

When you see those bowls on booth tables that say “drop your business card here to win”, DO IT!  This is how I was the lucky recipient of the merchant bag from buy.at.  The bag was a veritable treasure trove of swag, all provided by the merchants on their network.  At face value, it was an awesome Patagonia backpack, designed to comfortably pad a laptop.  It’s nice a slim, which is a benefit since the current backpack case I have is huge and bulky.  They also handed me a $100 Ticketmaster gift card, and said there was a Bonobos gift card designated for me as well.  I shook hands and hugged those I knew, took a picture with the guys decked out for the Affiliate Triathalon (Kim & Ayako – I WANT THAT PIC!)  and wandered off.

I was stoked to get that, and later when I went to open the bag to consolidate some of the other swag I’d received at the show I found that there was even MORE inside!  A cool track jacket, which I unfortunately had to give away since it was much smaller than what I wear, a $5 Starbucks gift card, a nifty gel stress ball, a cool pleather (plastic+leather) & metal USB thumb drive, some nifty ear warmer headphones, and… oh I know I’m forgetting something!  So HUGE thanks to the people I know from buy.at, Kim Salvino, Ayako Bingham, Amy Ely and everyone else there!

So once again, thank you to MarketLeverage, oneNetworkDirect, and buy.at for their awesome generosity and great prizes!

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AdSense:

• An advertising program run by Google enabling website owners to display text and image advertisements.  Revenue is generated on a pay-per-click basis.  Google uses its search technology to serve ads based on website content and users’ geographical location.

AdSense is held as the golden standard of search marketing, above rival search engines Yahoo! and MSN.  There are several gurus out there Joel Comm who write books on how to use AdSense with the highest effectiveness to generate revenue.  I won a copy of his latest eBook AdSense Secrets 4 from blogger & super affiliate Zac Johnson, but I have yet to read it.  Which is probably why my all-time AdSense earnings (ok all time is only the last couple of months) are sitting at a jealousy-inducing $6.56!

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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

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Welcome to May, my darlings. We’re inching closer to summer every day, and it’s starting to get warmer and warmer. Take a few minutes on this lovely Friday to check out my collection of crap from over the week! This edition is slightly longer since I didn’t do a CC last week – shame on me!

• Another satisfied customer! I recently offered some free stickers to Mike Rohde of Web414 & Rhodesign for him to give us a try and he loves them! Always happy to read about another satisfied PsPrint customer
• Zac Johnson, one of the first bloggers to report on how Joel Comm was going to make good for the recent eBook snafu, gave away 5 copies on his blog and I was lucky enough to win one. Thanks again Zac! I’ll most likely be cracking into it later this week when I get a bit more free time, so I’ll be sure to write a review.
• I’m tragically behind on WineLibrary TV. Not that important, but I thought you’d like to know. I was also behind on JangroCast, but I caught up last night. Good stuff!
• Affiliate Marketers are Giving Back! A rather large group of women affiliate marketers are going to be walking and raising money for breast cancer research. They’ve started selling space on their t-shirts in exchange for donations, so go contribute!
• I am AWESOME, and I can prove it! http://trishalyn.isreallyawesome.com/
• Sam Harrelson was disappointed by the Web 2.0 Expo. And thinks I should podcast more.
• Why the eff is eBay suing craigslist? Jordan McCollum at Marketing Pilgrim does a great job explaining it.
• Anne Kadet from Smart Money Magazine apparently received her journalism training from a dog. She wrote a “story” for the May issue quoting all the bad parts of the Jason Calacanis keynote from Affiliate Summit West out of context. Google is clearly her one and only “source”. Missy Ward’s reaction video is awesome.
• Joy O’Hare, a dang good blogger herself, reviewed my blog. Thanks for the great review, Joy!

All in all I’d say it’s been a good week!

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