Epic Fail for me lately!  I’ve been overwhelmed and started a list of things I wanted to share last week and never got around to posting it!  I’m behind on my feed reader and my podcasts, but ahead with work!  At least you know that whenever posts get slow here, it’s because I’m working my booty off! And I didn’t even remember to post this yesterday on the actual 12th!   So, lots going on this past couple of weeks!

• A4U Awards Winners for 2009 were announced after the ceremony in New York on Tuesday.  Congrats to all the winners!
• James Martell wrote a good post on Affiliate Summit with some great tips for attendees.
• Twitter is on the cover of Time Magazine.  Sigh.
• Huge shout out to StickerGiant.com and their CEO John Fischer for his help with some nifty stickers to give away to our audience of the Getting Noticed FAST panel at Affiliate Summit this coming August!

I know, this doesn’t even scratch the surface, but before some of this gets TOO outdated, I wanted to share!

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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!

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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.

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I gave the Cribbed Content feature a rest for awhile because, admittedly, I wasn’t really keeping up with much around me.  I’ve put myself into a little corner of existence and did what I had to do.  I’ve got to say, on a personal note, that being continually employed for the last five years and then having a lull in work for three weeks waiting for some things to fall into place has been a bit difficult to handle.  I’m back on track now, back to keeping tabs on what’s going on around me, back to our weekly Affiliate Marketing Fanatics podcast on GeekCast.fm, and ready to kick some serious booty!  I’ve seen some cool stuff that I’m compelled to share!

• Link Cloaking, What is it? – Scott Jangro addresses the ways you can cloak affiliate links.  Also see where I discussed PHP redirects.
• The only coding I really know well is HTML, and I was passed this great article on 10 Rare HTML Tags You Really Should Know through StumbleUpon.  I’m definitely going to be putting some of these into immediate use!
• Did you see the ShareASale Photo Booth at Affiliate Summit West 2009?  I don’t think I did… but that’s okay, because they’re sharing the photos online and I don’t need more goofy photos of myself on the net.  Go check them out and rate them!  And if you’re disappointed you missed it, don’t worry… they plan on bringing it back for Affiliate Summit East this summer in New York!
• A new conference for affiliates, Affiliate Convention, is taking place next month.  I won’t be able to attend, but PMG will be represented as Heather Paulson will be speaking about super affiliate marketing techniques.
• There’s been a lot of rallying together lately with the tax nexus issues in several states affecting affiliate marketers.  Ed Byerly from one fledgling organization Affilaite Trust posted his thoughts on the surge of affiliate organizations attempting to unify a rather rag-tag group of people who make up this industry.
• For those email marketers out there, don’t worry I haven’t turned my back on you!  Check out this cool free tool to make sure your reverse DNS is set up right!

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So last week I was knee-deep in lobbying in Sacramento against CA AB 178 and then spent the rest of the week in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Expo.  So I didn’t have a lot of time to read my RSS feed.  So some of this stuff is a bit old, but don’t shoot the messenger.  If you were on top of your game you wouldn’t rely on this, so just remember that beggars can’t be choosers!

• Another guest post by me at Marketing Pilgrim on a new Social Media masters program being offered in the UK.
• You can save 5% when flying JetBlue to Affiliate Summit East in August.  I took them up on this discount for ASE last year in Boston and it totally turned JetBlue into my favorite airline!
• The face of Ebates.com, Paul Nichols, has left them to start his own consulting company.  Good luck Paul!
• Scott Jangro asks us all:  Is there room for two affiliate marketing organizations?
• Of course he asks because Affiliate Voice officially launched.  President Melanie Seery announced it on her blog.
• ShareResults came out with the BAMroll last week (The Big Affiliate Marketing roll).  Very cool idea.
• I wrote up my recap of the Web 2.0 Expo last week for the New Edge Media blog.
• Speaking of NEM, I’m no longer of their employ.  Wanna hire me?  Of course you do…  Email me!

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The troops are mobilizing and the fight against CA AB 178 is on it’s way.  I’ll be doing my part next week, going up to the Capitol in Sacramento to help put a face to the problem for our legislators.  This week has just flown by.  I can’t believe all the news that’s gone on!

• Last summer I wrote an article about PHP affiliate link masking.  This week I was turned on to a more concise way using a jump script.
• Brian Littleton of ShareASale wrote a great post on how you can help re: the #advertisingtax facing California and several other states.
• Jamie Birch said it best on why you should hire an outsourced program manager.  So follow his advice and hire me and  New Edge Media
• Marketing Pilgrim announced a free webinar on the 31st about social selling and sales in web 2.0.  I won’t be able to attend (sad for me) but it’s free so you can totally sit in.
• Speaking of webinars, Commission Junction is webinar happy and just finished up a webinar on coupons yesterday.  Evan Weber posted a recap at CostPerNews. They’re hosting another webinar on brand hijacking on April 14th.
• Salesforce.com integrated Twitter results into their data.  Very cool.
• Join the Facebook group to help advocate against tax laws affecting your state.

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Some regional goings on this week that are important and affect your life as an affiliate marketer!  Or, if you’re a different kind of marketer, well, I don’t have much for you this week

• Live in NYC?  Become a Big Brother or Big Sister and get a free pass to Affiliate Summit East in NYC this August.
• Live in California?  We need to fight against California Assembly Bill 178, which is proposing online taxation very similar to the New York law from last summer.  The Performance Marketing Alliance and Beth Kirsch are leading this grass-roots effort to squash the bill and I’ll be as involved as I possibly can.
• Help a Marketing Pilgrim out and take this twitter survey.  Paul Bennett is trying to see attitudes relating to branded corporate Twitter accounts.
• TweetDeck, my favorite Twitter application, is now integrated with Facebook.  You have to go download the beta release though, it won’t be pushed to you automatically just yet.

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Happy Friday The 13th!  I personally like this day just for the weird television programming you get, so you should remember to check your local listings on channels like Discovery, TLC, and History for some possibly cool stuff.  That is, if they didn’t jump the shark with those types of programs last month!

Some varied things going on this week… some of which I covered!

• Google Calendar is Available Offline.  I reported on the story for Marketing Pilgrim.
• We finally got Episode 2 of Affiliate Marketing Fanatics up after some problems with recording.  Luckily editing was long but not bad.
• Commission Junction is webinar crazy!  They hosted one on Thursday for businesses considering affiliate marketing, and whether or not the channel is really right for them.  Next week on the agenda is The Consumer Cries, “Coupon!” How Will You Answer?.  This should be a good one to listen in on to see their stance.

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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.

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There wasn’t a large amount of stuff going on this week, but what did go on was big news and somewhat exciting.  There’s some important issues going on and some dates to remember.

• Not one, but two keynote speakers have been announced for Affiliate Summit East 2009, August 9-11 in New York City.  Social media rockstar Chris Brogan will take the keynote torch during the traditional Monday slot, then Help a Reporter creator Peter Shankman will fill a new keynote spot Tuesday morning.  Very cool!
• I haven’t yet had a chance to write a recap myself, so here’s the recap of LinkShare Symposium West from the official LinkShare blog.
• Speaking of LinkShare’s Symposium, they’ve announced the dates for LinkShare Symposium East, including the Golden Link Awards.  For some reason it was not announced on their blog or website, but widely reported by other affiliate bloggers like Missy Ward.
• Speaking of affiliate networks, ShareASale has decided to lead a roundtable discussion on toolbars and setting standards to keep them within the ideals and ethics ShareASale has set forth.  There’s a lot of backlash about it on ABW, but I think people are jumping the gun – let’s see how the first discussion goes before making a solid judgment.

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