Quick Update on Web 2.0 Expo
Yes, that’s where I’ve been Wednesday and Thursday, and will return to on Friday. It’s been a different experience for me; this is my first time attending Web 2.0 Expo and I don’t have a full conference pass, so I’m limited to what’s open for all attendees, namely the expo hall and the sponsored sessions.
My original intention was the live blog the sessions, but with no tables in the session rooms at Moscone and a spotty wifi connection, that’s obviously not been happening. But as always I have my notes and will share them with you next week!
In the meantime I guess, look for my Twitter posts with the hashtag #w2e for my tweets from the conference.
Read MoreRecap of Lobby Day Against CA AB 178
Yesterday I had the privilege of accompanying 9 of my fellow affiliate marketers to the California State Capitol building in Sacramento to help lobby legislators against the passage of California Assembly Bill 178.
I have to say on a personal level, this was my first trip to the Capitol, and the most involved I’ve ever gotten with politics in general. It was a pleasant experience overall. And yes, I got a little “star struck” for lack of a better term walking by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s office. I had to fight the urge to knock on the door and demand court!
Back to business. 10 of us were able to make it up, some coming from Southern California. We had appointments set for almost all day, so we split into two groups so we wouldn’t run the risk of running late or overcrowding offices. Our group had a few lack luster meetings with staff that really didn’t understand what we were talking about or weren’t really familiar enough with the bill to care yet. But we also had some good meetings with other staff members who were incredibly receptive to our message and offered us a lot of advice regarding how to go about the lobbying that we’re doing. Some even went so far as to call other offices we didn’t already have appointments with and help to make us appointments.
It was equal parts optimistic and pessimistic. While it looks like it’s going to be incredibly difficult to outright kill the bill because of the eagerness of the state to collect any income possible. Focusing on the message that it’s best to keep the bill as broad as possible in the definition keeps it as fair as possible. In a perfect situation the Streamlined Sales Tax Project to require the collection of sales tax across every state would make the playing field as fair as possible, but that’s already been in the works for almost a decade and doesn’t look promising to be enacted any time soon. So in the meantime, we do what we can.
You can still do what you can. Now that we’ve taken meetings at the capitol, feel free next week to take meetings in your district in California. The members will be on vacation and potentially available at their district offices. Staff will not be on vacation and will still be in Sacramento working, so if you weren’t able to join us under such short notice, feel free to schedule your own appointments and talk to the Assembly Members on the committee for Revenue and Taxation. The meetings were generally short, 15-20 minutes of a staff members’ time. We were able to leave behind the letter that Linkshare wrote in opposition along with the opposition letter from the Performance Marketing Alliance, co-signed by over 300 affiliates.
If you’d like copies of these documents for your own leave behinds materials and have the intention of taking a meeting either in the district offices or in Sacramento, please leave a comment and I’ll see how we can get those materials to you. Here’s information on the committee members to reach out to. If you live in their district, all the better (they prefer to hear from constituents whenever possible).
- The Committee for Revenue and Taxation: (916) 319-2098
- Charles M. Calderon (Chair) – Dem. 58th District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0058, Phone (916) 319-2058
- District Office: 13181 N. Crossroads Pkwy, Suite 160, City of Industry, CA 91746, Phone (562) 692-5858
- Chuck DeVore (Vice Chair) – Rep. 70th District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol Room #4102, Sacramento, CA 95814, Phone (916) 319-2070
- District Office: 3 Park Plaza, Suite 275, Irvine, CA 92614, Phone (949) 863-7070
- Jim Beall, Jr. – Dem. 24th District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0024, Phone (916) 319-2024
- District Office: 100 Paseo De San Antonio, Suite 300, San Jose, CA 95113, Phone (408) 282-8920
- Joe Coto – Dem. 23rd District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0023, Phone (916) 319-2023
- District Office: 100 Paseo De San Antonio, Suite 319, San Jose, CA 95113, Phone (408) 277-1220
- Diane L. Harkey – Rep. 73rd District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol Room #4177, Sacramento, CA 95814, Phone (916) 319-2073
- District Office #1: 29122 Rancho Viejo Rd., Suite 111, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675, Phone (949) 347-7301
- District Office #2: 300 N. Coast Hwy, Oceanside, CA 92054, Phone (760) 757-8084
- Fiona Ma – Dem. 12th District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0012, Phone (916) 319-2012
- District Office: 455 Golden Gate Ave., Suite 14600, San Francisco, CA 94102, Phone (415) 557-2312
- Jim Nielsen – Rep. 2nd District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol Room #6031, Sacramento, CA 95814, Phone (916) 319-2002
- District Office #1: 280 Hemsted Dr., Suite 110, Redding, CA 96002, Phone (530) 223-6300
- District Office #2: 1527 Starr Dr., Suite U, Yuba City, CA 95993, Phone (530) 751-8351
- Anthony J. Portantino – Dem. 44th District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0044, Phone (916) 319-2044
- District Office: 215 N. Marengo Ave, Suite 115, Pasadena, CA 91101, Phone (626) 577-9944
- Lori Saldaña – Dem. 76th District
- Sacramento Office: State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0076, Phone (916) 319 – 2076
- District Office: 1557 Columbia St., San Diego, CA 92101, Phone (619) 645-3090
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics Episode 4: Listen to your Community
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Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
This week we’re less all over the map, more focused on affiliate conferences, social media and communities, and once again our cherished shout outs. Of course our favorite topic of all time, Twitter, makes an appearance as they were in the news this week. The show comes in and just under 40 minutes for your listening pleasure.
- Social Media: Facebook caves into community pressure again, YouTube adds a Twitter Button
- Jermey Palmer uses surveys to make his affiliate marketing education products better.
- Twitter: Salesforce.com creates Twitter brand management service for companies and sells it for 1K/month, Twitter will have paid pro accounts
- Conferences: Jim Kukral organizing the monetization track for Blog World Expo Oct. 15-17, CJU dates announced Sept. 15-17, Big Omaha tech conference for midwesterners announced. Trisha will be attending Web 2.0 Expo and ad:tech SF next month.
- Shout outs: Sam Harrelson who called us Aff Marketing Maniacs, Brook Schaaf & Karen Garcia for their efforts with the Lobby Day against CA AB 178, Tim Robinson and shameless plug for Comic Book Fury
So please, go check it out and comment and let us know what you think!
Read MoreCalifornia Assembly Bill 178
Many in the affiliate marketing industry are aware of what happened last summer with the New York State affiliate tax, also known as the Amazon Tax. The state laws were amended to include affiliates as agents of the merchant, requiring the merchant to charge sales tax for purchases made to New York residents. As a result, many merchants took the easy way out and decided to drop all NY state affiliates from their programs. This resulted in an immense loss of revenue for several affiliates.
Unfortunately, several other states are following suit, most notably California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Connecticut. The most pressing of which is California, looking to enact the new bill ASAP with a hearing scheduled for April 13th in Sacramento.
In layman’s terms, AB 178 changes the definition of a “retailer engaging in business in this state” to include any retailer that works with affiliates in this state where the gross receipts or sales prices is over $10,000 per year. Feel free to read the entire bill online here.
Being a California resident myself, I can tell you that this will have a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry. One of the major affiliate networks, Commission Junction, is located in Santa Barabara. Several super affiliates are also based in California. As well, Amazon, one of the largest affiliate merchant programs out there, has already testified that they will drop all Hawaii affiliates if Hawaii’s legislation passes, so that can’t be good news for California or the other states.
This bill is short sighted and ill conceived, and we need the help of everyone in the affiliate marketing industry to fight it. A legislative day has been planned for next Tuesday, March 31st, where several of us are going to Sacramento to speak with legislators and their staff about the ill effects this bill will have. If you are interested in also participating, please feel free to email me at trisha [at] newedgemedia.com and I will gladly pass the information to the organizers.
Read MoreAffiliate Marketing Fanatics Episode 3: Twitter in a Tumblr with a splash of Gary Vaynerchuk
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
We’ve finally determined that the audio problems were due to my headset this week as I stole the stand alone boom mic from my husband’s computer and the sound is excellent. Third time’s the charm! So now you won’t have to listen to a bad recording for our quality content!
We jumped around a bit today and covered a lot, so this episode is longer than the last two clocking in at about 40 minutes. We talk a lot about Twitter and decided that we live most of our lives through Twitter. We also give some shout outs at the end, as I promised last week.
Show Links:
- TweepMe and the creator’s account being suspended.
- Still getting used to the new Facebook.
- A few more words about Gary Vaynerchuk and his SXSW video.
- WeFollow, a survey about Twitter, and the Twouble with Twitters (careful, the video is on autoplay).
- Sony made a deal with Google to enhance their Sony Reader line up (watch out, Kindle!)
For the sake of driving the point home, I talked more about the grass roots fight going on against California Assembly Bill 178, which is looking to do in California what the so-called Amazon Tax did in New York. Here are some links I mentioned and some from the March 3rd episode of Affiliate Thing:
- CAaffiliates.com ABestWeb forum
- Read the entire bill (Number AB 178)
- How to contact your California state law makers
- Comment on AB 178
- See the calendar for the California state legislature
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics Episode 2: Sweet Success
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Success! After some trials and tribulations with Skype, wookies, Call Graph, Pamela, and a totally un-listenable recording from earlier in the week, we finally have a decent episode! HUGE shout out and thanks to Joe Magennis of Geek Dads @ Home for some great step-by-step instructions to help a couple of fledgling podcasters out! We still had some issues with sound quality but I think I got most of those out in the edit. So, without further ado take a listen.
Yes, I’m late on sharing this, but I also have a feeling that most the people apt to listen already pay attention to the GeekCast.fm network 🙂
In in this episode we discuss:
- WordPress Theme Wars between DIY Themes/Thesis, Woo Themes, and WP-Unlimited
- Affiliate Classroom Rebrands to Lurn, Inc.
- Using Posterous to consolidate my personal blogs.
- Gary Vaynerchuk on Tumblr.
So please, go check it out and comment and let us know what you think! You can listen here or at our wonderful hosts GeekCast.fm!
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