AffiliateBrand.com by Gene Kavner

AffiliateBrand.com is live again!

As you may have noticed, there has been a service interruption on AffiliateBrand.com over the last few days. I would like to explain this interruption and apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused you. The popularity of AffiliateBrand services such as the Amazon Associates Report Notification and the brand new Blog Window widget have caused an enormous load on the AffiliateBrand database which I was using. It's a great story of growing much faster than I anticipated! As Murphy's Law would have it, just before this problem developed, I left for an overseas trip where I had very limited Internet service. With the Internet connection that I had, I was able to make a post about these problems on my blog: Working through some technical issues with the AffiliateBrand.com site. Unfortunately, I did not have enough bandwidth to fix this problem right away. I just returned back to the US last night and have had the opportunity to not only make some key architectural changes to the AffiliateBrand site but also move to a more robust, much better loaded system which will withstand several orders of magnitude more load. If you have been a subscriber of my Amazon Associates Report Notification service, you should have received a notification of Amazon Associates report for yesterday. If you have been using the Blog Window widget, I know that you may have removed it during the service outage. It is ready to go live again. If you have tried it, you already know that it is a fabulous, 100%-customizable, widget which lets your readers know what posts are popular on your site. The widget has received excellent coverage in the blogosphere, so please feel free to place it back on your blog. I hope you continue to enjoy AffiliateBrand services and apologize for the down-time you may have experienced. Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates, 2005-2006

Great Feedback on the Blog Window Widget

Since I launched the Blog Window widget 3 days ago, it is getting excellent adoption among the bloggers with some very good feedback.

Here's some coverage it has received (with more coming daily):

	This widget allows you to display links to some of your most popular posts in an attractive, fully customizable widget. ... I can already see the value of such an addition to this blog. ... This widget will stay on Widgets Lab ! -- The Widgets Lab
	The Blog Window widget enables bloggers to display the titles of the most popular posts on your blog or pages of your site. Great to see these community building tools, and I look forward to whatever is next. -- Shawn Collins
	I just put [The Blog Window] up only now, but I'm already very impressed with it. It loads quickly and it's highly configurable: you can change a number of attributes at the AffiliateBrands site, and if you want to you can configure further using your own stylesheet. It's just downright elegant... -- Debra Hamel
	Over the last few months I’ve been seeing more and more widgets in the wild. You can check out my sidebar to see some of my favorites. My most recent edition was one from Gene at AffiliateBrand. It is helping me learn what my most popular posts/pages are. Oddly enough, my About Me page seems to be performing quite well. Apparently all of you are wondering who the heck I am! Perhaps I should monetize it -- Robyn Tippins

My "Blog Window" Widget is Ready - Easily Display Popular Posts

As many of you have noticed, I've been away from posting on my blog over the last couple of weeks.  I have focused on finishing the latest of my tools:  The Blog Window widget.  If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am a great believer in widgets and I am planning on developing many more.  Here is my recent post about the future of widgets titled Widgets - The Future of Affiliate Marketing.  I have also discussed widgets in an interview with Shawn Collins.

I'm happy to say that the Blog Window widget is finally done.  It is a 100%-customizable widget that allows any blog or web site to display the most popular posts or pages of their site. 

I have seen some WordPress plug-ins that do the same job but they seem too complex and are limited to a single blogging platform.  Not the Blog Window widget.  It takes literally seconds to install and works on any site. 

The biggest value proposition from the Blog Window widget is that I have observed a 25% boost in page views, just from the widget.  It looks like when a reader is done with a page, Blog Window offers him/her a compelling next page to read on your site.  They would typically leave the site at that point.

Because the Blog Window widget is customizable, you can make it look exactly like your site and it is quick and easy to do this.  You can see my own Blog Window is customized in its look-and-feel to this blog.  My AffiliateBrand.com widget has the look-and-feel of my AffiliateBrand.com site:

I'd love to see your comments on how easy it was to integrate the Blog Window widget with your site. The widget is completely free.  In a few days I will do a post highlighting unique and interesting implementations of the Blog Window widget, so get yours today.

Discuss in BumpZee! community

Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.

I am addicted to Google Alerts. Are you?

I have been using Google Alerts for quite a while now but only recently have realized that I am truly addicted to them. 

For those of you who do not know, Google Alerts allow you to specify any term and will send you an email notification as soon as any web site publishes new content with that term.   You can set up to receive these notifications weekly, daily, or as soon as they happen.

As an Internet marketer, I must stay on top of what is happening on the Internet and especially any discussion about me, my site, or topics I cover. 

With Google alerts, I do not have to sit and press the refresh button on my browser 50 times a day to see if any new content I care about has appeared on the Internet.  I get notified, fairly quickly, about this content via email by Google. 

This is the "Push" technology from the 1990's done right.  If any of you link to this story, mention my name or my site, I will be notified.  I will visit your site and read your post.  I am quite likely to  leave you a "thank you" comment.  You will also be on my radar screen and I may subscribe to your feed. 

As many of you know, I launched a new service recently by which I will notify any of you who are customers of Amazon Associates affiliate program the moment Amazon posts a new earnings report for the day.  Because of the unpredictable timing of when these reports would be made available, you have previously had to go to Amazon Associates Central  and keep hitting the refresh key while waiting for the reports to post ... every day.  With my new service, you no longer need to.

Connection between my new service and Google Alerts became obvious to me in the last couple of days.  Both are simple notification services of information you care about and these notifications alleviate you from the need to poll for that information.  So the next question that I started to think about is... what else can be automated the same way?

I check Alexa data frequently to see the latest traffic volume to my site.  I know Alexa's data is not live because I frequently visit Alexa to see no changes.  Wouldn't it be nice to get an automated notification when Alexa data does change?  What about receiving the Technorati blog rank rating changes with the information as to what new blogs are linking to my site?  What about getting an alert any time my Google PageRank changes so that I don't need to go back and check it frequently?  What about getting notification if my site's relative Google search result position changes for a particular search term?  What about my blog's subscription counts from Feedburner?  A friend of mine mentioned that he would love to get a notification when he receives a new bid on his eBay auction,  a service not currently available.

Suddenly, there seem to be dozens of new and interesting notifications that could be developed.  What do you think may be a valuable notification service to you? 

Cat and Mouse Games With Search Engines - Part 2 of 2

Read Part 1 of 2: Cat and Mouse Games With Search Engines

In my post yesterday, I outlined the ongoing battle between Internet marketers and the search engines, namely Google.  In summary, while Google is trying to provide what it considers to be the most relevant search results to consumers based on search queries they type, Internet marketers hope to offer web sites that may or may not be considered as relevant by Google, to appear high in front of the consumers in search result listings.

The problem for the marketers is that Google has taken away all the “easy” ways to game the search ranking algorithms, such as stuffing of keywords in the body of the page and setting up link farms to artificially gain popularity.  The most important ways to gain in the page rank index within the Google algorithm today are:

1. Get high quantity of back links from other “important” sites,
2. Generate unique content not available elsewhere on the Internet,
3. Change / update / add to content frequently,
4. Do the 1-3 above for a long time, consistently.

While marketers clearly understand what they need to do for #2 and #3, accomplishing #1 is not easy.  Somehow, they have to “convince” other popular / important sites to link to them.  Without additional incentives, this becomes long and unpredictable process for marketers, something that their investors will clearly not be patient with.

And thus, PayPerPost and most recently, ReviewMe were born.  Both services provide means by which marketers are able to pay popular / important publishers to provide back links to them, embedded in the middle of other content that search engines will find and process. 

Interestingly, both PayPerPost and ReviewMe have advertised a different business model with some subtle differences between them.  They have both touted the value of using bloggers to generate the buzz for the advertising sites.  While PayPerPost allows marketers a way to solicit mostly positive reviews, ReviewMe offers bloggers an opportunity to be more impartial in their reviews and get paid for any review, whether positive or negative. 

However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the battle is not about traffic that marketers would generate from the reviews of their sites / products / services.  If it was about the traffic, different compensation mechanisms would prevail, such as cost-per-click (CPC) or even cost-per-impression (CPM) business models.  Furthermore, there would be no need to restrict blogs to a certain size – any blog should then be able to generate traffic and receive proportionate compensation for it.  Witness Google AdSense or Amazon Associates which allow almost any publisher into their programs, tracking payments as low as $0.22 for clicks or sales they provide. 

My opinion is that PayPerPost and ReviewMe are really in the business of gaming the Google algorithm much more so than they are in the business of generating the marketing buzz.  Having reviewed various advertising offers on these networks, it is clear to me that advertisers are primarily interested in direct links than they are about publicity.  All require bloggers to link to certain pages on their sites.  And all prohibit small blogs from receiving any compensation, even though this long tail of blogs could conceivably represent 50%+ of their traffic.  The main issue with small blogs is that their links are worth nothing in the algorithm of Google and thus are dismissed. 

For a very similar perspective, check out  Deep Jive Interests post titled How Advertisers REALLY Benefit from the ReviewMe “Revolution”.
Another good analysis from Greg Yardley titled Optimizing Your ReviewMe Purchase.

What we are seeing are the new players in the old Internet marketing / findability game.  History is repeating itself and Google may already be hard at work to figure out how to defeat the new challenge to its algorithm.   In the end, I am very low on the business model of ReviewMe (see my previous detailed analysis titled ReviewMe.com, a Business Model With Nowhere to Go). While I think that the PayPerPost model is slightly better, I am not sure I would endorse it as a long-term success, especially if Google figures out how to “punish” sites using these networks the same way they have done with the link farms.

Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.
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ReviewMe.com, a Business Model With Nowhere to Go

A brand new business, ReviewMe was launched yesterday with a model to help bloggers monetize their blogs by reviewing various advertisers' products and services.  This model is quite similar to the controversial model recently introduced by PayPerPost which is also promising to monetize bloggers' posts.  However, there are several significant differences between the two models.

The main reason for controversy behind PayPerPost's model is that PayPerPost:

1.  Allows advertisers to reject paying for bloggers' posts based on what they write.  This effectively encourages bloggers to only write positive reviews or risk that they will not be paid.

2.  Does not require bloggers to disclose that they are being compensated.  PayPerPost recently launched DisclosurePolicy.org, an organization devoted to setting industry-wide guidelines for disclosing how bloggers are being compensated for their posts.  However, no requirement to disclose is required by PayPerPost, thus potentially leading blog readers to not be aware that the writer's bias may be based on compensation rather than by genuine, impartial motives.

On the other hand, ReviewMe has taken a vastly different approach to compensating bloggers.  Namely, ReviewMe requires that:

1.  Advertisers pay for product reviews ahead of time, with no guarantees that review will be positive, but only that it contain 200+ words, and   

2.  Bloggers explicitly disclose that they are being compensated for their posts.  While this condition is widely talked about on various blogs (see below) and even mentioned on the ReviewMe's own blog, I could not find this requirement anywhere in ReviewMe's Terms and Conditions.  Not sure that being mentioned in a blog entry is good enough to make it policy; however, I'm sure this is just an oversight and ReviewMe will address this in their T&C's asap.

On the surface, ReviewMe has addressed all of the controversial aspects of PayPerPost and has received a warm welcome from a number of influential pundits in the blogging community, some of whom have been quite critical of PayPerPost:

• ReviewMe Launches: A Better PayPerPost by Michael Arrington / TechCrunch
• ReviewMe.com Launches With A Model That Makes Sense by Jim Kukral / ReveNews
• ReviewMe Launches by Darren Rowse / ProBlogger

Despite the welcome ReviewMe has received, I see significant and critical problems with their business model that makes ReviewMe effectively dead on arrival.  Let me analyze all of the reasons for my conclusion:   

1.  What advertiser is willing to pay for a product whose quality they cannot review ahead of time?  While PayPerPost gives advertisers ability to review the final product before agreeing to pay, ReviewMe takes this critical component away from the advertiser.  Besides, the fact that advertisers do not want to pay for negative reviews, ReviewMe does not offer any guidelines as to the quality of the review the blogger needs to provide (only the quantity of words).  What happens if the blogger only casually mentions the advertiser's product while discussing something else?  What if the advertiser's product is not even mentioned? While this lack of advertiser oversight is touted as a "feature" by ReviewMe and is certainly to keep it out of the controversy, this lack of "customer (advertiser in this case) is right" attitude will cost it in the eyes of the very group it needs to recruit to be successful.

2.  Forcing bloggers to disclose in each ReviewMe post that they are compensated for making the post will automatically minimize the buzz behind any positive mention of the advertiser's product.  In the eyes of readers, any disclosure of a writer being compensated for the post will automatically discredit the review due to perception of bias, even if no such bias exists.  Besides building scepticism behind the product being advertised (umm, reviewed), this disclosure will also discredit the blogger, raise bias allegations, and potentially affect overall trust placed on him/her by the readers.  No reputable blogger will risk losing his audience by even remote appearance of impropriety.  For example of this, see comments Darren Rowse made in his post I mentioned above regarding him not willing to accept payment from ReviewMe.

3.  By forcing advertisers to pay whether review is positive or not, ReviewMe addresses perception of bias on paper without eliminating any actual effect on bias that exists with bloggers using the PayPerPost model.  When advertisers review potential blogs from which to solicit a review, of course, they will read through history of that blogger's posts.  If the blogger has history of negative reviews, advertisers will automatically shy away.  Thus, bloggers will clearly recognize that while they will get paid for the current review, whether positive or negative, their ability to get paid for future reviews will be greatly impacted if they write negative reviews.  Thus, they will tend to stay on the positive, exactly the same way they would be with PayPerPost.

4.  ReviewMe pays bloggers based on popularity of the blog.  For some reason that was not documented on the ReviewMe site, ReviewMe will automatically reject bloggers if they do not meet certain criteria.  They are told to "come back in a couple of months". However, no specific reason is given to the blogger and the blogger does not in fact know what criteria he/she did not satisfy. This approach makes no sense.  ReviewMe again takes decision out of the hands of the advertiser and imposes its own constraints, potentially eliminating opportunities for advertisers and bloggers to interact.  Instead, ReviewMe should allow any blogger in and let advertiser decide whether to request a review from them.

By focusing on addressing the perceived controversy surrounding PayPerPost, ReviewMe has forgotten to address some elimentary business model issues that any company has to have in its business plan.  On the other hand, I clearly see value proposition in the PayPerPost model to both sides, advertisers and bloggers and see it as a better business proposition. 

As far as all the controversy behind PayPerPost encouraging bloggers to "lie" in their posts, I refer to my previous post, Should Bloggers Disclose That They Are Compensated?.     Bias always exists, whether disclosed or not.  Being compensated for the post does not in any way mean that a blogger is not honestly recommending a product they have evaluated and found useful.  Just as not disclosing compensation does not automatically     dupe the reader, disclosing does not automatically mean the writer is biased.     Credibility of the blogger is built on consistent, interesting, thought-provoking perspective, based on months if not years of publishing.  If I respect a blogger, I will not mind if he is compensated.  And he doesn't need to tell me.  I will trust that this blogger will not want to ruin his reputation which had taken years to build over building bogus positive reviews based solely on getting token compensation paid him by the advertiser.

Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.

Should Bloggers Disclose That They Are Compensated?

There is a substantial amount of debate that spread through the blogosphere recently about how much disclosure blog writers should provide to their readers about compensation bloggers receive and who they receive it from.  All this disclosure would serve a presumed goal of allowing readers to make an independent decision as to whether this compensation may in a way influence the blogger to be biased in his or her post.

This debate was sparked by PayPerPost.com, an Internet startup that has developed a broker network between marketers who want to grow sales of their product/service and bloggers who would like to monetize their blogs.  Certainly, many other networks give bloggers an ability to monetize their inventory, but what makes P3 unique is that they may be implicitly encouraging bloggers to offer positive commentary in their posts because they are being compensated for their writing.

Michael Arringon of TechCrunch expressed in strongest terms that P3 is a "virus" in his post titled PayPerPost Is Now Officially Absurd.  In his perspective,

PayPerPost bloggers should also be disclosing the fact that they are being paid for their post prominently within the post...

Another post by a notable Internet analyst, Dave Taylor, titled PayPerPost creates DisclosurePolicy, TechCrunch calls it absurd?, questions Arrington's tough stand:

Exactly where is this a problem? The fact is, PayPerPost has no responsibility to enforce any sort of disclosure policy nor is there any requirement that bloggers be transparent.

This pretty much sums up the current Internet controversy.  This is just the latest bout between Internet puritans and Internet marketers and that their conflict will not be solved any time soon.  I see this as another evolution of the same old debate between Open Source backers and Microsoft backers as to whether companies should charge for software and enforce their intellectual property rights.

I will be upfront in disclosing my bias here: if someone believes that it is possible for someone's commentary in an Internet posting to be absent of bias, this someone was probably born yesterday.  We all have our biases and everything we do in our lives and say in our blog posts reflects those biases.  I have little doubt that Arrington, Taylor, and I have our biases, whether financially motivated or not, for our perspectives.

In the offline world, there is little expectation on our part that NBC's Apprentice will disclose that their episode where contestants market Domino's pizza is actually sponsored by Domino's.  One rarely expects that your financial planner who offers you a life insurance policy to disclose that he is being paid by the policy provider.  A writer in New York Times writing a story on the race for Congress is certainly not going to disclose his personal voting record.

In the online world, on the other hand, somehow there is this tendency to assume that we are living in a more refined world where "public trust" as Arrington describes it rules. There is no more public trust in the online world than there is in the offline world and expecting the online world to somehow take the high road is unrealistic.  We should all take everything we hear on the Internet and cross that information with the credibility value we implicitly assign to the source of the information.  Basically, it's the eBay seller model applied to the blogger -- we observe the credibility value assigned to the blogger by other bloggers and readers and if the value is high, we can assign more trust to their posts.  If the blogger is fairly new, we take their message with a bit more grain of salt.  If a blogger pushes a "broken" product or service simply because he or she is being sponsored, blogger's credibility will permanently suffer.  On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing wrong for a blogger to comment on a product he or she believes in, despite being compensated for it.  At the end of the day, we have to trust those we read and follow regardless of whether they are or aren't being paid for their communication.  Considering how easily and irreparably trust can be broken, no reputable blogger will be quick to alter his or her perspective on an issue solely based on the value of compensation they receive.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.