Note to self: Do not keep the bulk of tax filing till the last month before taxes are due.
In the midst of shuffling paper around for hours and hours in my office (a real joy), I’ve been listening to episodes of Geekcast.
What I like about Geekcast’s easygoing, conversational banter between Shawn Collins, Lisa Picarille, Jim Kukral and Sam Harrelson is that it’s pretty stream-of-consciousness and more shoot-from-the-hip compared to a more produced program like Lisa and Shawn’s Affiliate Thing or Linda Woods’ Affiliate Marketing Insider.
It’s like talk radio for the internet marketer, and goes beyond the affiliate marketing/affiliate management/blogging/social media borders to cover all things “geeky”.
In the latest episode Web 2.0 is the Devil, (yes, it’s still a dirty word) – it’s interesting to hear about the dirty word beyond it’s traffic and monetization implications to get into the guts of the zeitgeist or spirit of social media.
I’ve been listening to an increasing number of audio podcasts and video posts in the last 12 months, branching beyond the books, magazines and printed PDFs (and occasional PDF I read on my screen) and a thought came to mind:
If you are a marketer are not going to where your leads/prospects/customers are coming from or going to, you could be putting yourself out of their traffic loop, and ultimately the monetization loop.
If you are a merchant or affiliate and primarily using the text channel – articles, blogs, social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and even text ads on Google AdWords, MSN Adcenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing, are you leaving yourself out of the traffic loop if your best prospects are walking around consuming their media on iPods?
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Here’s a brief rundown of my media consumption:
Text: – newspaper, magazines, books, PDFs, text blogs, email - I am usually sitting in front of my desk, in front of my computer when consuming text-based information. A large part of it has to do with being tethered to my computer.
Even though I have a laptop (actually 2 now…) and there’re a number of Wi-Fi zones around, and even though I have an Apple Touch, I (more…)
It’s always a pleasure talking to affiliate marketing veteran Rachel Honoway who’s one of the pioneers at affiliate marketing service agency Kowabunga (later acquired by Think Partnership), having started in 1997.
She’s not only friendly, but highly knowledgeable about prevailing issues in the affiliate marketplace.
However, you cut it and define it, there’re marketers out there who do their best to make use of Twitter, Squidoo, Hubpages, MySpace, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, Metacafe, Youtube, Revver, forums and other social networking site (of the “Web 2.0” ilk) to generate adsense or affiliate income.
Some of them are spectacularly successful, while others just flame up and die, and have their accounts deleted en-masse.
So is Web 2.0 a “dead” technology for marketers?
Are Web 2.0 site destined to become a dead graveyard populated by “internet polluters“?
I don’t think so.
This issue came up during the taping of a Friday Podcast session with Affiliate Classroom’s Marketing VP and affiliate marketing industry veteran Rachel Honoway.
I was pretty impressed that Web 2.0-based affiliates ranked alongside SEO, PPC, Coupon, shopping comparison and other types of profiled affiliates in Affiliate Classroom’s new AC Certified program for Affiliate Managers.
If you recall, Jim Kukral presented a session on “Bloggers as the Next Generation of Super Affiliates” at Affiliate Summit West 2007.
And it’s great to see these new generation of affiliate marketers being profiled in the new program, and even better, there’re tips for new and experienced affiliate managers to reach out to these marketers.
But back to “Web 2.0” for a second.
If you’ve been reading this blog over the last couple of weeks, you’d pick up the thread that this (more…)
His relative new foray into group podcasting at Geekcast.fm together with partners-in-crime Sam Harrelson and Jim Kukral. (Jim did a video interview with me in the midst of the recent Affiliate Summit West)
If you like Shawn’s Road Trip/American Pie-ish style of humor, you’d want to check out this Easter bunny video broadcast:
Also, check out this Facebook thread where we’re aiming to hit 500 comments. Every little comment helps!
