As a new internet marketer, I got a lot of value out of Haiko’s “Affiliate Marketing Today” podcast show on the Webmaster Radio network. Credited with having coined the term “Parasitware”, Haiko’s one of the senior statesmen in the industry, having been an advocate for affiliate marketers’ rights for some time.

During our discussion on the Friday Podcast, we talked about:

• How Haiko first got involved with affiliate marketing
• The origins of the ABestWeb forum
• Burning issues that were prevalent about 5 years ago and still rear their head today, especially with parasiteware
• The recent controversy with the OneCause toolbar redirect affiliate links, and it’s possible conflict of interest with holding company Rakuten also own the LinkShare affiliate network
• The New York affiliate tax issue and its implications for the industry
• How and why affiliates need to speak up for their rights and some of Haiko’s initiatives in that direction

Check out the Friday Podcast below:

Resources:

• ABestWeb
• LinkSteal
• AffiliateVoice (Currently redirects to ABW)

Haiko will be moderating the session “Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing” at the Affiliate Summit next month.

During the course of our conversation, the topic of the value added to the affiliate-merchant relationship came up multiple times, and it’s certainly a point worth focusing on, especially if you’re in the affiliate marketing game for the long haul.

Let’s start off with the definition of “value” for affiliates.

As a performance-based affiliate, you’re only paid upon the successful purchase or adoption of a product or service you’re promoting. In the past and also today, value manifests itself in making your affiliate site more visible than the merchants. In some cases, this means having your site show up when someone types “Deel” instead of “Dell” as they had meant to. (Incidentally, I don’t see any organic search results optimized for that term in the search engines…).

While optimizing your sites for typos and mispelled variations of a merchant’s products or services can bring you some traffic, it’s a fairly low value proposition for the internet visitor, the merchant and yourself. It can bring you some sales, but the question is how much (or how little) value it creates. If you take a closer look at how search engines work, high authority sites are ranking for typos that they haven’t optimized for – on the basis of their being ranked as the most closely related site.

On the higher end of “affiliate value”, sites can proactive provide value to visitors by proactively understanding their needs and wants. Did someone typing “Dell Inspiron Mini 12” mean to look for a information on the mini laptop, like it’s specifications? Or are they looking for a comparison against other small form factor laptops? Or having decided to purchase the laptop, were they looking for a price comparison engine or coupon to finalize and complete the purchase.

All the steps above will require more than merely building a list of product keywords and employing search engine marketing, PPC or social media to help your site bubble to the top of the results. Even if the term “most relevant results” isn’t at the top of your visitor’s consciousness, taking a proactive approach to building a comprehensive resource, authority site is one way to establish a brand and lay the foundations for a credible site.

Having an affinity (or passion) for the specific product, whether it’s the Amazon Kindle or the Apple iPhone will help you clearly identify the key burning issues in your niche and create content and develop marketing campaigns specifically addressed to meet those needs. If you’re succeeded in meeting those objectives, you’re more than halfway towards achieving your goals as a successful affiliate.

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Watch for my upcoming interview with Haiko this week on the Friday Podcast.

It’s no surprise that Deborah Carney AKA Loxly has built up significant goodwill through her journey as an affiliate, affiliate manager and currently, affiliate outsourced program manager (OPM).

Loxly is one of my secret resources and I find myself consulting her on business building and marketing strategies. The fact that she posts prodigiously on ABW and is available nearly 24-7 on Skype says a lot about her commitment and work ethic to the affiliate industry.

Besides catching her session at the recent Affiliate Summit West 08 in Vegas at the ABW panel discussion, you can also tune into the latest edition of the Friday Podcast where we discussed:

• Affiliate strategies for new affiliates
• How and when merchants should evaluate and engage outsourced (affiliate) program managers
• The content management system of choice for affiliates

Liberally sprinkled with Loxly wisdom.

Be sure to also check out:

• The Team Loxly OPM agency
• NYFalcon forum
• ABestWeb
• Loxly Gallery

Check out the Friday Podcast or download it for listening later:

In the case of MySpace, it’s become the hotbed of unmoderated bulletin spam and private message spam for ringtones, free ipod/xbox360/nintendo WII email/zip submit offers. I bet it’s going to take some doing to clear all that muck.

With Facebook, they’re taken the opposite tack of placing a cap on the number of private messages you can send out, limiting the ability of popular group owners to communicate with their members – forcing some to set up off-site bulletin boards to send broadcast messages out.

With MyBlogLog, the platform has a built a good userbase with its blog widget (though guys like Shoemoney had showed that it was pretty easy to abuse the “recent visitors” feature of it). The major sticking point is that Yahoo! doesn’t seem to have a concrete social media strategy (or at least an integrated one in place). I’m still hoping to see some of its community features like it’s Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Shopping, Mash social platform and MyBlogLog properties come together. And in my book, come together means more than a single unified Yahoo! login to tie the pieces together.

Even a 1-2 page weekly or bi-weekly updates or “What’s Hawt!” newsletter would serve to bring some of the pieces together…

So what’s the deal with Twitter’s sputtering and throttling down the flow of data?

With Twitter, I suspect it’s the “Twitter gamers” – the guys who follow 5,000 others and have like 50 followers who are contributing to the overhead. Somewhere out there, someone had the genius idea that if you followed 10,000 people and 100 followed you back, you would have built up a community of 100 followers, the resource overhead resulting from the other 9,900 other members pinging you their updates be damned.

So assuming 10% of twitter users are using this social gaming tactic and 90% of their updates are coming from users who don’t follow them back, they could be contributing 50% of the resource load on Twitter’s server farm. In my book, no amount of distributed computing or load balancing is going to protect you from this.

The net effect is that Twitter has scaled down features like private messages and pagination (keeping logs of twitter conversations beyond the first page. How’s that for shutting down your social platform?

If platform developers were to create two parallel platforms – one dedicated to IM-like one-to-one communication, and another community-like BBS type infrastructure, perhaps some of the resource could be balanced.

But the issue is more systemic and a rule-based social fix is in order.

With most established community sites, there is the concept of ratios, or advancing through the hierarchy to earn your social due.

On a popular forum like ABestWeb, you need to log in 200 posts before you gain the ability to private message other members. With other forums like Digital Point, you need to clock in a number of quality posts before you earn the right to post a forum signature.

I’m not sure about the guys who follow 10,000 other twitter users, but I’m guessing that unless they’re chained to their computer 24-7, they’re not likely to be reading more than 10% of the updates from people they’re following. And if you’re not doing that, what’s the point?

The bedrock of community-based interaction (or if you prefer the buzzword social media) is the concept of conversations – you talk, they reply, you reply back. If the system breaks down, then “the internets iz broken”…

What if you were to introduce a basic rule like a 10:1 ratio of “followed twitter users” vs “followers” in your posse? That would significantly up the signal-to-noise ratio wouldn’t it?

…and I would actually be able to use twitter again…

While I was huffing and puffing on Sunday manhandling my heavy desk and moving the computer, monitors and bunches of cables around, I was listening to the huge backlog of MP3s I had downloaded over the past couple of weeks.

I probably listened to about 10 hours of audio over the weekend and was more active than usual in my twitter stream too.

I think it’s important to use your “downtime” well, especially if you’re working on your taxes, cleaning the desk, clearing your inbox (snail mail and email), or sorting out your baseball card collection (or samurai katana collection if that’s up your alley).

Here’s my list of favorite podcasts at the moment:

#1: Geekcast (the podcast, not the network…) -  A collaboration between Shawn Collins, Sam Harrelson, Lisa Picarille and Jim Kukral, I’d classify it as a industry banter session. I can identify with Lisa’s sentiment that it seems unstructured at times, but I think it’s part of the fun, especially as the show hosts go off on each other.

There was some drama recently as Shawn and Sam had a spat with Jim, but all seems well now, and we should have the 4 musketeers back in the seat. The show is recorded every Tues and Sam usually has the podcast up within 24 hours.

Be sure to check out the “Sorry, Jangro” drinking game that accompanies the podcast.

#2: Affiliate Summit Sessions Podcast: If you missed the recent Affiliate Summit West, or even if you attended, you probably wouldn’t have had an opportunity to attend every session as there were 4 simultaneous sessions with many great sessions in the same time slot. I enjoyed listening to the “How To Futureproof Your SEO Efforts” by Wil Reynolds, the video innovation panel chaired by Buy.TV’s Melissa Salas, the social media panel chaired by Sam, the super affiliate panel with Kris Jones, Zac Johnson, Amit Mehta and John Chow, the ABestWeb panel….I haven’t had a chance to listen to all the sessions yet, but there’s quite a hoard of great content there.

You might also like to check out the editorial panel I appeared on.

#3: Affiliate Fortune Cookies: A 5-day a week podcast from Sam, it’s his take on Lost, science fiction, social media, affiliate marketing and whatever else comes to mind. As Sam mentions, it’s intended to be a personal podcast and you can kind of hear his existential angst, especially when it comes to affiliate marketing/internet marketing in recent episodes.

Those are my top 3 podcasts at the moment, given the limited time I spend sitting and listening to podcasts.

You might also like to check out Shawn and Lisa’s Affiliate Thing podcast on Webmaster Radio, Linda Woods’ Affiliate Marketing Insider also on WMR. They’re other podcasts on the Geekcast network.

Another resource I highly recommend are the past episodes of Affiliate Marketing Today, especially the episodes hosted by AbestWeb owner Haiko De Poel and the later season hosted by Jeremy Palmer. These sessions provide a great foundation in affiliate marketing for new marketers.

I keep hearing that GarageBand is a great software suite for podcasting on the Mac, and I might fire up my new MacBook to test it out soon.

Also on the cards is a live podcast via Skype’s SkypeCast service one of these days when I have a little more time on my hands.

Shawn Collins (left) with new Affiliate Summit intern Jack Collins

Shawn is one of the most experienced and friendliest contacts I have made since getting involved in affiliate marketing and I appreciate the fact that he’s a friend whom I consult over IM and through the email.

It was great to hear how Shawn got started in affiliate marketing in 1997 as an affiliate for Amazon, and how he’s progressed to founding the Affiliate Summit seminar/tradeshow with Missy Ward, manages the Affiliate Tip blog, Authored “Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants”, his annual AffStat report, the weekly Affiliate Thing weekly podcast co-hosted with Revenue magazine editor Lisa Picarille, an Affiliate Manager forum and probably 100 other projects, including one which will be launched soon.

Here’re some of the topics we discussed:

• How to get value out of attending seminars and events (as opposed to staying home and reading blogs and forums)
• Important things you should do BEFORE and AFTER attending an event
• How to catch all the conferences free
• How to gain an unfair networking advantage at ASW
• How to get free consulting from industry veterans and experts at the event

The podcast can be accessed below:

46 mins 36 secs : 22 mb

Affiliate Summit West is from Feb 24-26 at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Last year the tickets ran out and scalpers were having a field day on eBay.

And Shawn has given a special Affiliate Summit coupon code for my blog readers “ANDREW10” which will give you a 10% discount off your tickets.

Here’s the registration link: Affiliate Summit West.

Get your tickets early to avoid disappointment, and if you’re headed for ASW, I look forward to seeing you there.

Unlike the past Affiliate Summit where I found myself hiking from Harrah’s (which has great prime rib) to Bally’s every morning, I was determined to get lodging at the Rio where the summit will be held.

Having said that, here’s some summit survival tips:

• Take the bus if you have time and like to see the city. It costs about $6 for a 1-way ticket and stops at most of the major hotels. It does take a little time to get around though because it stops at quite a number of hotels.
• Wear comfortable walking shoes as you’ll be pounding the show floor if you’re diligent about meeting merchants and networks (I only got through about 25% of the booths the last time round because I was talking to and got waylaid by people as I was walking around).
• Carry a backpack if you don’t want to be lugging your schwag all over the place. Especially if there’re booths giving out Plasma TVs, Xbox360s and Nintendo WIIs (I think most of us can go out and buy one, it’s just the ultra competitive streaks in every motivated affiliates that comes out when it comes to competitions…)

With that out of the way, and a 15 hour plane ride (I’m taking a direct Singapore-Los Angeles flight on a brand spanking new Airbus A380 this time) ahead, what’s in store at Affiliate Summit?

The fun begins before the event starts.

Anik Singal and his Affiliate Classroom team have organized Affiliate Classroom Live, a 1-day workshop for affiliate managers on Saturday 23 Feb. What’s more it’s free…Places are very limited though, so check out:

–> Anik Singal’s Affiliate Classroom Live

Chase the workshop with Brook Schaaf’s Affiliate Dinner. Expect to see a guest of honor. Expect to see the guest of honor roasted…What fun!

Is Affiliate Dinner a ponzi scheme? Here’s the answer…

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So day 1 of the summit kicks off with the “Affiliate Meet Market” from noon to 6pm. I missed this the last time because of a delayed flight, but I’m arriving a day early to make sure I am able to take part in the meet-and-greet and associated networking.

Here’s the floorplan for the Affiliate Meet Market. (PDF format)

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Day 2 kicks off with Jason Calacanis’ keynote.

With Jason recently refering to “Affiliate Spam” “polluting” the search engines at the Paris Le Web seminar, you can expect some fireworks during the keynote.

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One note about the presentations that follow. An overwhelming number of presentation proposals were submitted, with the result that about 4 presentations are simultaneously ongoing during each time slot. In many cases, you have great sessions going on at the same time.

I checked with Shawn and he mentioned that the sessions will be recorded and available for viewing later.

I’d suggest prioritizing your favorite sessions and making a beeline for them. In some cases I can see the majority of the crowd gravitating towards ONE session…

Forewarned is forearmed…

I’ve listed some of the sessions I personally am interested in attending:

As I’ve been doing a number of podcast and vlogging (video blogging) lately, I’m keen to check this session out.

I met Buy.com’s Melissa Salas last Feb at ASW, and she present a pretty great show for Buy.com over at Buy.Tv.
(As of last October, on the BuyTV MySpace page it’s mentioned that “BuyTV was just informed that it has been picked up for local programming via Time Warner, Cox, Charter, DirecTV, Echostar, Dish Network and others – Sunday mornings at 11:30am PST”)

And you have a panel of other video marketing/video blogging folks on the panel.

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Seer Interactive’s Wil Reynolds is always a popular presenter, and I’m looking forward to checking out his presentation ahead of his session.

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Day 3 kicks off with an “Ask the Experts” session:

I’m keen to talk to Heather Paulson about her new Paulson Management Group company.

A little later in the day, be sure to check out:

A media panel chaired by Revenue Magazine’s Lisa Picarille. Besides myself, you’ll also see Jim Kukral, Anik Singal and Valerie Stevens on the panel.

In parallel with the media panel is the Super Affiliate panel:

With the likes of Pepperjam’s Kris Jones, John Chow, Zac Johnson and Amit Mehta in attendance.

And if you’re not already torn between two or more sessions, consider that later in the afternoon, you’ll have the ABestWeb panel:

With AbestWeb’s Haiko De Poel, AffiliateCrew’s Chuck Hamrick and Team Loxly’s Loxly AKA Deb Carney in attendance.

In the same time slot you have the social marketing panel:

With a Who’s Who of the blogosphere/social media space, like Sam Harrelson, Tris Hussey, Stephanie Agresta among others.

I would point out more highlights, but my fingers are worn-out from all that typing, so you might like to check out:

–> Affiliate Summit West 2008

It’s natural to measure your achievements by how much you have earned, but I think a more important measure is how much you have learned this year.

Even a salaried employee can go through the year, earning a steady paycheck, with a fat bonus on top of it, and not learn much or be very much improved over the past year…not to mention an internet marketer or entrepreneur who spent all year reading, “finding their direction” and still not be much closer to their goal.

Look into the psychological mirror and take a hard look at the reflection, is the “You” on December 31, 2007, very different from the “You” on January 1, 2007?

What are 3 achievements you have made this year, and what are 3 achievements you plan to achieve next year.

In his book “The Magic of Thinking Big” author David Schwartz says if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person because it will get done. If you give it to someone with lots of free time on their hands, it’s likely they won’t get it done because they aren’t able to prioritize and take action. And action is where it counts, because ideas and thoughts are not active till acted upon.

In January, I’ll be:

• Developing and launching a membership site as part of the Super Affiliate Accelerator project I’m working on with PPC Super Affiliate Amit Mehta.
• Interviewing Seer Interactive’s Wil Reynolds (one of the best speakers addressing issues in SEO).
• Launching a guerilla style PPC campaign which I’ve adapted from tactics my buddy Ruck has blogged about over at CashTactics.
• Developing a series of content creation tutorials over at Haiko De Poel’s ABestWeb affiliate marketing forum.
• Launching a contest on this blog with attractive prizes. (I have a $250 prize in the bag now and will aiming to get $1,000 worth by the launch).

And a number of assorted administrative and tax issues for a new Internet Marketing company which Amit and I formed about a month ago.

I can’t really say I’ll get the 8+ hours sleep per day that I’ve enjoyed over the last 2 weeks…

But it’s going to be one heck of a wild ride!

See you in 2008!