Vote for the Podcasting 101 Panel for Affiliate Summit East 2010
Affiliate Summit is making a lot of changes to this years’ eastern version of the conference. In addition to changing the Mentor Program to the Newcomer Program and offering an Affiliate Scholarship Program, they are now allowing the public to vote for Affiliate Summit East 2010 Sessions. In the past, panel selection has been a closed process, with the members of the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board discussing and voting on which panels they want to see on the agenda. For this year’s Eastern show, they have decided to open up the process to help narrow down the choices before the advisory board makes their ultimate decisions. Anyone who registers with Slinkset will have the chance to vote for as many of the panels as they want by clicking on the arrow to the left of the panel descriptions. Voting is open until May 14, 2010.
There are a lot of great potential panels, and later this week I’ll tell you all about which ones I voted for and why. In the meantime, you have the opportunity to vote for the panel I hope to be a part of, Podcasting 101! There have been live podcast related panels in the past, however they seem to have been less structured and more about current events than the business of affiliate podcasting. We want to give attendees a chance to get a really basic primer on starting a podcast.
What’s Podcasting 101 Going to Cover?
Podcasting 101 will be a panel for beginners talking about how to begin a podcast and monetize. In this era of self-publishing, anyone – including you – can produce a podcast (and make money doing it!) Come learn the basics of producing, monetizing, hosting and promoting your very own podcast. It’s much easier and cheaper than some people think, so we’re going to go over the various tools available for recording, mixing, and promoting a podcast. We’ll also touch on some of the more basic ways to monetize the podcast beyond text affiliate links in your show notes.
Who’s On The Panel?
Should we be selected, the panel will consist of myself, Daniel M. Clark and Tricia Meyer. Daniel is a co-host for the Geek Dads Weekly podcast, a podcast for parents raising kids in a digital age, along side Joe Magennis and Drew Bennett. Daniel will be able to talk about the production aspects of a podcast using a Mac, as well as monetizing the podcast. Tricia is the owner of MeyerTech, which runs the popular rewards site Sunshine Rewards. Along with Cindy Ballard and Angie Meeks, Tricia co-hosts the She Shops Around podcast, featuring seasonal merchants in the affiliate space. In case you’ve already forgotten (for shame!) I co-host Affiliate Marketing Fanatics with Mike Buechele. All of these podcasts, and more, are available at GeekCast.fm.
Sound Like a Winner?
Does this sound like a session you’d want to go to? Great! If so, please take a moment to register and vote for the Podcasting 101 panel! Remember that Affiliate Summit East 2010 is taking place August 15 – 17, 2010 in New York City at the New York Hilton. The early bird registration has already passed, but you still have time to register before they sell out!
Read MoreGeek Dads At Home Podcast
A few geeky stay at home dad’s I know decided to convene during their daddy day care days for a new podcast, aptly titled Geek Dads @ Home.
Happy Birthday Ian Clark | Geek Dads @Home: “The premise of our podcast revolves around three dads working from home while we provide day care for our kids. We will share our insights on the tools that allow us to function in this set up, but more importantly the podcast gives us a record in our own voices of the experiences of raising our children. The hope is that some time in the future, when they can best appreciate it, our kids will subscribe to this RSS feed and hear their dad’s perspectives on their lives growing up ….”
Joe did a guest post here last week, Tales of a Home Office Worker Dad, so I’m stoked to listen to this. I’m sure it will be good stuff! Take a listen if you’re interested in dad’s doteing on their daughters and talking marketing and working from home!
Read MoreTo Continue This Blog Or Not?
I’m considering whether or not I want to continue with this blog. I’m not sure that many people really read it consistently, and I’m beginning to doubt if there’s room in this space for another marketing blog from someone who didn’t even go to school for marketing. Is my perspective that unique? Not sure… so, I’m at a precipice I guess.
The blog isn’t even a year old yet, but I find myself questioning whether or not the blog is adding any value to the space or am I yet another jackass sharing their opinion with people who didn’t ask for it? According to Google Analytics, which longtime readers will see that I couldn’t even keep THAT working, I get about 61 visitors per day. 10,072 since January 1. But how accurate is this since my reporting has had fails a couple times? And does this even matter?
Unless I receive a boom of entries for the contest by Sunday, the contest has been a complete failure with not one single entry as of this moment. I thought the prizes were pretty sweet… hell I’d love to win them myself. What did I do wrong? Not put WIN A VADO! in the title? Rely too heavily on promoting it through Twitter?
Of course, this first year is a total learning curve. Find what works, what doesn’t. I can’t expect to just jump in and be the bomb. Am I being too rash? Not patient enough?
Confusing whether I’m representing my employer or myself is also weighing heavy. Am I forsaking my employer by endorsing my personal brand within my web presence?
These things weigh heavily on my mind as more and more work seems to pile on me – both at my place of employment and at home. Sure it’s building my “personal brand”, and I’ve gotten some cool opportunities from it like co-hosting the Affiliate Thing podcast and an upcoming opportunity that I’m not quite ready to announce yet, but…is it ultimately worth it?
Read MoreMerchants to NY Affiliates: Hit the Road!
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.
CourtesyCast #2: Clean Livin’
Welcome back to reality! I trust everyone had a pleasant Memorial Day Weekend… I know I did. Here to kick you into the second half of 2008, I’ve returned with another edition of CourtesyCast – Clean Livin’! I discuss the importance of not relying on a janitorial service to clean up after you at work and making the effort to keep things neat & clean.
Take a listen, and as always if you have any suggestions, hit me up in the comments!
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Show Notes:
- Bay Area Janitors Union Authorizes Strike
Affiliate Thing Post-Show
On Tuesday I had the pleasure of co-hosting the Affiliate Thing podcast with Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit. Let me start by saying that I was unaware that it’s a live show since I always listen to it on iTunes or GeekCast.fm. I listened to the recording last night that’s up over at GeekCast.fm and I have some criticism for myself.
First though, the experience. Monday night I spent nearly an hour fussing with Skype. The test call was choppy and I couldn’t understand all of what it was saying. But all my settings seemed fine. I determined at last that it had to be my internet connection, which has a tendency to be not so good in the evenings sometimes. I must have called the test call in the neighborhood of 30 times. I also called my husband’s cell phone to see if it was any better – nope. He could hear me pretty well but I could barely hear him. I finally give up and hope that it works in the morning or that there’s another option for me to call in or something if all else fails.
I can’t sleep (of course) because I’m nervous about the show. I finally get to sleep and surprisingly have no trouble waking up early the next day for the show. I’m on the West Coast and I usually work 10 am to 7 pm at PsPrint, so I had to get up around 8:30 am to wake up enough to tape the show at 9 am. I fire up my home computer and get Skype up and running, calling the test call about 10 more times with only slightly better results than the night before.
I let Shawn know over the messenger portion of Skype that I’m having issues and he suggests we start anyway and if it’s too bad I can drop off. Luckily when WebmasterRadio.fm called, it was much clearer. Which begs the question – shouldn’t the test caller be the best quality possible? I digress…
The call itself went great in the moment… there weren’t any points where I was sitting there silently banging my head. I fumbled the intro to myself, which is ironic because that’s what was keeping me up the night before – how to whip in PsPrint AND this blog. I figured that was the only part I could rehearse, and coming from a theatrical background I’m a fan of rehearsal.
Now, for my “notes to self”.
- Be more conscious of how close my mic is to my keyboard and how loud I’m typing.
- Do more research about what’s going on so I can suggest more topics instead of being a ‘yes’ woman.
- Don’t laugh – it doesn’t come across well over the phone/skype.
- Attempt to fix the skype thing because in the recording I do hear myself cut out sometimes.
I think, all in all, this was a good exercise for me in giving up control of my image and gives me some things to work on. Please, go listen, and add on to my notes so I can work on my presence, public relations and such! In advance, I truly appreciate it.
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