I’d Rather Not Re-Kindle This Flame.  I was at a bookstore this weekend picking up miscellaneous books (some reference guides for our new tech associate, including PHP references, XHTML, and CSS guides).  The first thing I thought is how relaxing it would be to go relax on the beach with a new book.  This reminded me of Amazon’s new plaything, the Kindle.

For me, this new device would inherently steal the ‘good feeling’ that reading a real book provides.  The development of, and huge advertising campaigns associated with this device, are pushing us one step closer to creating a 100% clinical life experience.  Sure, this may be a bit of an overstatement, but I just like the feel of a book in my hand.

In any case, at over 1/3 of an inch, this device does provide a remarkably small alternative to holding a real book.  I simply don’t agree with Amazon’s statement, “Reads like real paper.”  Yes, they actually said that.

I have this theory- it’s called The Fishbowl Mentality.

Think back when you were young, certain memories stand out more so than others as profound moments in your life.

One unusually cold October in Florida, I was at a state fair about to leave, we had some remaining game tickets so my friend pulled me over to play this game where you throw a ping pong ball into a fish bowl and you win the fish if you make one in. I made one in on my very last shot.

I gave it to my friend and this fish lived in her tank for 4-5 years, until her parents built a small pond in their back yard which became its new home. The next time I came back to visit this fish grew to a foot long!

It not only seemed absurd for a fish, one that I won at a carnival, had the capability to live to be 4 years old… But then adapted to its new surroundings to become this large magnificent thriving and growing to its full potential.

In reflection I somehow relate to this fish, feeling grateful that I did not have concept of a fish bowl… that I was immune to whatever glass was attempting to build around me.. formed by society, doubt, fear or people close to me, that wanted comfort within the bowl they had created. Lesson learned is: The only fishbowl is truly created by yourself, not outside forces.

In our industry, the most successful know no boundaries - they are innovators, entrepreneurs and straight go-getters.

This mentality has lent me the capability to understand a business model in one conversation, see angles of optimization that are apparent to one’s core focus, and the ability to thrive and capitalize as the environment changes.

In the spirit of Tony Robins.. pass it along…

Things getting you down? Economy down? Clients behind payment? Dogs in your office? Some days are diamonds. Most days are rough. So what’s a super affiliate (network) to do to help turn that frown upside down?

1. Pull the Abe Lincoln. Write the nastiest email you can think of, and put them in a special “do not send” file of your inbox. Then, if you ever get fired, just before you go you can right click that box and select, “send all.”

2. Brew the morning’s coffee with the decaf bag. But not just any morning. The really important business meeting morning, the morning after a late-night industry mixer. Then see who really has the skillz to pay the billz….

3. Once you’ve downed the real caffeinated coffee you stashed for yourself has washed down your Friday bagel, call a personal staff meeting. You, a copy of DM Confidential or Revenue Magazine, and 20 minutes of undisturbed “me time.” Don’t be late, but stay as long as you need.

4. Did “me time” not scratch that itch? Time for some vengeance. Hum songs that will remain lodged in co-workers brains, such as “Feliz Navidad”, but arrange the words to fit in affiliate marketing (to the tune of el famouso Feliz Navidad)

“The list don’t respond …The list don’t respond”If only I had an acai traffic magic wand. I really really want to wish me traffic. I really want to wish me traffic.I really really want to get the traffic and then go hit the baaaaaaar!”

5. Finish the day strong. Before you get up to leave, realize get to wear jeans to work all five days of the week in a thriving, hip industry. Crush, Dominate, and Full Throttle the force. And get ready for an hour or two of peaceful bliss…before you start blowing dem’s blackberry (or iphone for the quitters) up again.

TGIF!

The one who wakes up at 4 am every morning for her five-mile blog…slackers.

Link building is a key element in SEO, many experts would describe it a “trump card for higher rankings”. I’ve read multiple opinion blogs where SEO gurus have pontificated that link building will in time become less of a weight in Google’s algorithms or even become obsolete as it becomes more and more a “trick” to increase rankings and not solely for the users benefit.

Arguably I do not see in the near future less weight put on link building as site popularity is such a major decipher in natural search rankings. The trend that is occurring, is google is putting more value upon trusted links opposed to the sheer number of links. The trust factor is verified by elements such as user data, domain age, and other hard to ‘spoof’ factors.

Some examples of trusted backlinking sites are news, charities, yahoo directories and .org’s. One can find a lot of good link building selections from http://www.dmoz.org/. Yahoo’s directory cost $299/yr to be reviewed and included, many suggest this is a key directory well worth paying for. Wikipedia.org is also seen as a trusted site and is a good place to mine for community websites.

The first thing I would do is take a look at your competitors sites that have good rankings and recording their backlinks. It is important to keep an excel doc, not only to stay organized, but also you are building a link map of your entire industry. Pretty soon you will have a large list of sites for link prospects.

Be sure in your letters to the webmasters you wish to be backlinked on that you inform them of your site and what you have to offer them in return for listing their link.

Although there is software available to aide in link building I think one obtain more effective links by looking for more trusted sites and sending personal emails.

Happy hunting!

Apparently Louis Vuitton is familiar to the rooms of the court systems abroad and on shore.  Now they’re in the Eurpean Court of Justice haggling over whether or not  the competition should be able to bid on branded keywords.  Google’s argument is of course that, “The decision to click or not to click belongs to who — clearly to the Internet user.”

The final decision probably won’t hit the public until the end of the year. We’ll see how it pans out - this could perhaps cause some large-scale changes in regard to foreign trademarked-bidding policies.

There are two different ways of looking at it in my opinion:

- If you’re running an offer from the company you’ll be placing bids for, you should without a doubt adhere to all search restrictions and guidelines of that client, as you are being privileged with partnered sales/commission.  You’re also riding on the coattails of the client’s brand, so compliance is (as always) in your best interest.

- If you have a similar product to promote, should you be able to bid on the competitor’s branded terms or permutations thereof in order to provide the consumer with other options as long as you’re not promotion ‘fakes’ of the competitions product?

We’d love to hear your thoughts!

I remember not more than five years back when my future husband and I used to make impersonations of an old college chum. He had a particular cadence and inflection when speaking that just begged to be mimicked. Awww Garland, if you’re reading this know that we heart you.

Specifically, this friend was the first person who I knew to use the term “google it” to mean search for a particular item. At the time, I thought it was hilarious, albeit geeky. This was five years ago mind you. Obviously now, Webster and the Oxford dictionary both validate that “google” is now synonymous with the word “search.”

And to be fair, I personally feel that Google is by far the best and fastest search engine and wholly deserving of it’s place as search King.That said, change is good. And in the spirit of adventure, I thought I would highlight some other search engines that you should try for the day that other industry leaders are bringing to our attention (thank you!).

1. Cuil - www.cuil.com
Touts itself as the world’s largest search engine (3xs bigger than google). Keeps your search history private and ranks pages by their coherency (so you aren’t tricked into a jammed

2. Kosmix - www.kosmix.com
Kosmix is a very cool and useful search engine that searches your query across different sites like Wikipedia, Google Image Search, Flickr, Youtube, CNN and different categories like audio, video, news, blogs, pictures and displays all the results nicely organized in different boxes on a single page.

3. Download Any Stuff - downloadanystuff.org
Download Any Stuff helps you to, well, download anything really pro bono, from free mp3 songs, ebooks, software, torrents, games..almost anything which can be downloaded for free and is listed in Google. Very cool.

4. VideoSurf - www.videosurf.com/
Why youtube when you can view lots of popular video sharing sites in one easy-to-use website? Has some very cool features (targeted browsing, face recognition in videos, very neat).

5. Docjax - www.docjax.com
DocJax searches documents in doc, pdf, xls and ppt format and uses Google and Yahoo in the background to show the results.

6. Pipl - pipl.com/Pipl is a people search engine. Search your name….it’s creepy how much info pops up.

7. Dooblet - /www.dooblet.com
Dooblet helps you find alternatives for just about anything. I typed in Starbucks and got about five or six alternatives. Fun to play with, but may need more work to make it a tad more relevant.

8. Feeds 2.0 - www.feeds2.com
Feeds 2.0 is a Web 2.0 personalized RSS aggregator. It incorporates a learning engine so that it does much more than show posts as they come in. Instead, it prioritizes incoming information according to the user’s interests.

Try a few more by googling, er searching “alternatives to google.”Or by checking out this site here, which helped me with my research: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alternative_search_engines.phpWhat are some of your favorite alternatives?

Signing off,

Reformed Googler Goober

A report published earlier this week by Nielsen Online indicated that social networks and blogs are now the fourth most popular online activity.

The report, titled “Global Faces and Networked Places,” showed that “Member Communities,” which comprises social networks and blogs, is a sector attracted 66.8 percent of the global online population, putting it ahead of the “E-mail” sector, which drew 65.1 percent of the global online population.

In December 2007, these two sectors were reversed. Member communities drew 61.4 percent of the global audience, while e-mail drew 62.5 percent.

Search remained the most popular online activity, with 85.9 percent of the global online population taking part, while general interest portals and communities finished second with 85.2 percent.

“While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing,” said John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. “Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large.”

The world’s most popular social network is Facebook, which is visited by three in every 10 people each month in the nine markets where Nielsen tracks social networking use.

Orkut, property of Google, has the largest domestic reach of any online social network in these nine markets with 70 percent, according to Nielsen.

Just think just a couple of years ago no one really knew how social networking worked. It was new different, people didn’t quite know if power and accessibility. With technology , people’s internet IQ drastically improving and the rise in popularity in social networking sites. It has become a powerhouse for affiliate marketers to advertise and make a ton of money. 

Where do you think it will be in 2, 3 or 5 years?

What are your thoughts?

Talk to me,

Chris Mello

Online advertising has to date been a bright spot in the struggling economy. When forecasts of overall spending on advertising continues to show a decline. Those monitoring the Internet keep predicting gains. Take a look at 2008: remember when the credit crisis in early 08 became clearer and mounting of big corporate losses, along with the fall of the stock market is Oct 08, Internet advertising still looked promising. 

Why do you think that is? 

Maybe its because we can switch gears at the click of the mouse. Moving from marketing as seen on TV offers to debt consolidations offers in a couple days.

Maybe its because we are such innovators and we can watch the trends and make a move before the bad economy happens. Finding opportunities within a crisis is a BIG deal in marketing. It is marketing.

I am not going to doom and gloom you with all the ugly stats of the last year the economy shed 3.4 million jobs and its looking like more will happen this year. I’m going to talk about all the opportunity this situation brings. Companies are now even more open to online advertising because of the the performance based model. There is a golden rule for the millionaire mindset, there is always a window of opportunity when a major crisis hits those who find the opportunity catapult their businesses to reach a level they never have before. So think about thriving not just surviving. 

Any Thoughts?

Talk to me,

Chris Mello 

Last week I pushed myself a little thin. I stayed up late working. Well, surfing more than working. And I skipped a few meals and opted for Starbucks. Or Pinkberry bliss (hey, the fruit counts doesn’t it?).

So it was no surprise that I got sick over the weekend. Real sick. Fall-asleep-on-Friday-don’t-wake-up-until-Monday sick. And alas, it’s the end of the week and I still have a sniffle. And why? Because I didn’t sleep properly, eat properly or take my daily Flintstone chewable. I didn’t set myself up for success, and my health suffered. Chicago charm can take you so far I suppose.

How does this apply to your marketing campaign health? Are you actively working to keep steady, healthy traffic instead of spikes? Searchateers, are you bidding smartly so your quality score stays high? Are you constantly separating high quality keywords from low quality keywords?

Mailing Mamasitas and muchachos, are you staying on top of email protocols and delivery restrictions? Just as that six pack won’t last forever without continual crunches and healthy habits (unless of course you try this fabulous Acai XM I hear so much about…), deliverability won’t last forever without constant updating and tweaking because delivery restrictions change weekly.

To my banner bombinos, you need to cut out the fat and optimize your media base; cut the non performing campaigns right away. (You can always purchase an ad serving system that optimizes volume - let us know if you would like suggestions). Update your banner creatives regularly to keep the creative fresh and the clicks a clicking.

So as they say in the motherland, Na Zdarovya, or “To Your Health!”

Blog Mama

Adtech NY last November, Affiliate Summit in January, Leads Con just passed and now another Adtech in San Fran is just around the corner - trade shows are quite abundant in our growing industry. If you plan on purchasing a booth for one of these shows there are several things to consider if you want to give the best impression possible and gain the most from your investment!

Location. Location. Location.
Make sure you booth is in a high traffic area, close to the front entrance preferably. In front of the bathroom does not count as high traffic as people typically have an agenda on their way to and from so they are not stopping to chat on the way.

Dress sharp and comfortable.
Remember first impressions are lasting so you want to look nice, at the same time remember you will be in that attire on your feet for 8 hours at least. If you are uncomfortable and in pain, how can you be at your 100% when talking with potential prospects, surely it will hinder your enthusiasm and demeanure.

Manners!
Gum chewing is a no-no. Yes you want to hide your coffee breath, so keep mints on hand. Also avoid use of cell phone in booth. If you are speaking to someone, do not cut them off to speak to another booth-comer who is desperately trying to get your attention. I typically let the person waiting know that I acknowledge them with eye contact and a smile, then quickly return to the person I am speaking with and find a stopping point in the conversation. Remember the goal is to talk to as many people as possible while giving them a lasting impression.

Smile! Your on Booth Duty.
Who wants to walk up and talk to a bunch of grumps? Make sure the people chosen to man the booth are positive, friendly and approachable. If you are getting tired or hungry take a break and return refreshed and ready to hammer!

Know the drill.
You also want to make sure your employees are well trained to answer random questions thrown at them on the spot. The seasoned trade show veterans should coach the newbies on what questions are typically asked and how to answer the commonly asked questions that don’t fall into your knowledge base. For example - a publisher rep should be able to confidently speak to an advertiser and understand their objective and goals.

Tidy up.
With all the traffic that passes through your booth, you wil find in no-tim the area will become quite disheveled. It helps to have a podium or place to store your giveaways, note pads, water and gum so to keep the area clean and free for your guests to rest their things and take notes. Also keep the floor free of bags, laptop cases, jackets and swag. these items can quickly create a hazard zone where someone can trip and fall.

Take note! I always find a couple quick jotted notes on business cards makes followups so much easier as you remember who they are and what the follow up email should entail. It also helps you weed through the urgent followups with the not so urgent ones.