Courtesy of iJustine AKA Justine Ezarik (Tasty Blog Snack)

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 haven’t inculcated the habit of accessing the Internet while I’m away.

I guess I could Twitter while I’m in a bookstore or just walking around the mall, but it’s just not been a priority.

Maybe if I was a lifecaster (a la Truman Show) like Justin “iJustine” Ezarik, ubiquitious internet access would be a boom (Sam Harrelson AKA “Minister of Social Media” and I had a great discussion about the “cloud” for this week’s upcoming Friday Podcast).

But I’m not, so you might not see as many twits or the 4-5 blog posts you’d notice from the “ProBloggers” out there.

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Audio: Given that I’m primarily a visual person, the audio channel is something relatively new to me because I find I don’t process information as easily when it’s audio-based, rather than visual-based and printed in a book or can be viewed on-screen.

I have started listening to audio though, like the Shawn Collins-Jim Kukral-Sam Harrelson-Lisa Picarille Geekcasts (thanks for the mentions of “WhoIsAndrewWee” on the show, guys!).

But audio is not a “dedicated” medium for me – I’m usually clearing email, sort out files, cleaning my desk, checking my snail mail, sorting out paperwork while the audio is playing in the background.

I guess I have developed my awareness to the extent of being able to note down URLs, copy them onto a piece of paper and checking them out later.

The one great thing about audio is that it’s very much tied to a portable device – whether it’s an iPod, an iPhone, a smartphone or PDA with MP3 playback capability.

If you aren’t maximizing your downtime, by loading up on your knowledge -  you could very well be idling yourself into irrelevance.

Whether you’re driving, working out, or just walking to the store, I think that downtime could be easily translated into some productive “uptime”

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Video: Probably the next best thing to physically being at an event or spending time with someone is being able to catch them on video.

The affiliate blogosphere has been abuzz with why more marketers aren’t already using more video in their marketing efforts.

In my opinion, it takes time to put out a frequently updated product like Jim Kukral’s The Daily Flip. – At least an hour goes into the conceptualization, shooting, editing and posting of your video (even if it’s a 5-10 minute segment).

Figuring the “video stuff” out poses a technology-based barrier to entry from having master software that isn’t the most user friendly, to being able to work out the mechanics of streaming.

The other barrier in my mind is that the search engines are still at the rudimentary level of indexing such videos. So if you were there at the early days of meta tag and keyword tag stuffing to get ranked in the search engines, you could try out similar shenanigans with tag stuffing with videos too. (I don’t think you’d do much good for your reputation though…).

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What will it take for the Internet to go boldly beyond text to embrace audio and eventually video?

If we progress beyond DSL and cable modem-based broadband technologies to Fiber-to-the-Home where 1000 mbps speeds are a very real possibility.

Is 2008 going to be the year that video kills the tv star?

It’ll be interesting to see, but one thing’s for certain, if you aren’t already going to where your leads and prospect are, you could very well be left in the dust.

Remember…

• LonelyGirl15? (answer)
• Ricky Martin? (answer)

Just the other night, I got the answer…Ricky who?

Exactly!

If you’re using the social web, or mass media (the bigger subset which social media is a part of), you’re subject to constantly being in the spotlight and branding and promoting yourself to stay in the spotlight and create mindshare and ultimately marketshare.

I was reading Ricky’s wiki entry and his life seems to stop in 2006 with an 8 month concert tour ending abruptly due to a lack of advertising.

So in lieu of constantly paying for advertising costs if you’re using Pay-Per-Click traffic, social marketers will instead be banking in their social cachet.

There’s a thread going Stephanie Agresta’s blog, that after “Video killed the radio star” that the “YouTube will kill the Video star“.

Which is one of the phenoms you’ll see going around that Internet stars like Winelibrary TV (guru is a bad word in my book) expert Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk! and iJustine AKA Justine Ezarik and Lisa Nova (Lisa parlayed a series of spoofs on YouTube into appearing on MadTV)

The buzz exists as long as you continue to build your brand and social momentum, else you could end up as the next LonelyGirl or LonelyGuy.

In the meantime, enjoy Lisa Nova’s re-enactment of 300!

Here’re some of my favourites:

With the ShareResult affiliate network affiliate manager Julia Steat at the Great Affiliate Road Rally

With Notebook Forums‘ Laura Alter (yes, she is 6’ and wearing heels…)

After talking to him for about a year, I finally got to meet B5 blog network’s training manager Tris Hussey

At the social media session with Justine Ezarik and Tris Hussey

Zac Johnson and Amit Mehta at the Super Affiliate session

At the “Engaging the Media” panel session with Lisa Picarille, Anik Singal, Valerie Stevens and Jim Kukral

I don’t know about you, but I think Jim Kukral deserves some type of award for being the most photographed!

Be sure to check out the other pictures at the ASW photo collection.

Affiliate Summit as always was a blast (I still have about 500 of my own pictures to put up somewhere…).

If you’re keen to bring your affiliate business to the next level, be sure to check out Affiliate Summit East from Aug 10-12 in Boston, MA.

With the change, MyBlogLog has moved from being a blog aggregator to being a Web 2.0 content aggregator of sorts. It’s supposed to be able to pull in updates from twitter, myspace, jaiku, flikr, linkedin, etc (a total of 43 services) and present them in a “New With Me” tab.

Oh yeah…where all the information used to be presented in a simple screen with all content visible above the fold:

(An old MyBlogLog screen), the new interface means you’ll need to scroll down to look at the content…

There’s a chorus of “I hate it, can I switch to the classic (ie original) interface” and that reasonates with me somewhat.

Granted, MyBlogLog’s Ian Kennedy and the MBL development team have spent some time working on this, but I’m wondering if MBL users had been sufficiently polled to the changes…

Is it a case of Yahoo! developing what it THINKS its users want, or are the changes what MBL users have been clamoring for?

As one of the earlier MBL users, I’d looked at the service as a blogging service. I ignored the other add on stuff and the most useful elements were the “recent visitors” widget I’d put on my blog and the Pro Stats (a sort of lite analytics package for your blog).

So here is my wishlist:

• Let me fix my own space!: Give MBL users the ability to customize their profile, have it like a Squidoo lens where you can drag-and-drop modules.  If the Web 2.0 widgets are not popular, just drop them. I hate digital clutter as much as the next users…
• Evangelize Before Conversion: This is something that Steve Jobs has done a smashing job with the iPods and iPhones. If you want to get something out there, go beyond just a mandatory install on the user’s interface, it will just p*ss people off… Why not do a series of tutorials, do an online launch, recruit internet celebs like iJustine AKA Justine Ezarik to promote the thing?
• Solicit Feedback: Although it’s great to have a corporate MyBlogLog blog, I don’t think a blog comments section is the best way to conduct a dialogue with your users, especially since Web 2.0 services live and die by their consumers (it’s social marketing, isn’t it?) Put up a vBulletin forum somewhere, conduct a focus group, make active use of your existing advisory group or set up a new one…

When I was interviewing dotcoms earlier in my journalism career, I was pretty shocked at the amount of navel gazing that many of these dotcoms were engaged in, their eyes weren’t on the road ahead at all. So while, it’s great to want to change the world with the latest and greatest…sometimes users just want something simple (like an easy to use spam reporting system, MyBlogLog, without having to go through the hoops of logging in and filling in multiple forms… A web usability study or focus group would take care of this…) and they’d be happy.

Yahoo! was and is one of the web’s pioneers in my eyes and part of their existing predicament has to do with failing to listen to it’s users feedback and a slowdown in innovation in the last couple of years.

I’ve switched to using facebook since late last year, but I think MBL still has a chance to capture mindshare if it takes active efforts to put it’s ears to the ground and move in the same direction as its users.

With that, here are the women of the Affiliate Summit:

Justine Ezarik is a lifecasting star who vlogs over at iJustine.tv. She spoke at the social marketing session with Sam Harrelson, Stephanie Agresta, Debbie Schultz and Tris Hussey sitting on the panel.

Schaaf Consulting’s Stephanie Harris spoke at the Anik Singal’s AC Certified workshop the day before Affiliate Summit.

Buy.com‘s Melissa Salas chaired the video marketing panel and also received the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award for Affiliate Manager of the Year award. She’s done some great work with Buy.tv.

Irene Rojas is an affiliate manager with the OfferHive affiliate network based out of florida. Met her at the Affiliate Bash and she is friendly.

Carolyn Tang: I’ve talked to her on ABW and on Facebook and it was great to meet her at the summit. Carolyn’s probably the second most public face of ShareASale after ski fanatic and founder Brian Littleton. Although we didn’t have a chance to talk a whole lot, it was great to meet Carolyn and a number of the SAS merchants at the Affiliate Meet Market and the trade show.

Laura Alter, Lauren and Andrea Schoemaker

WickedFire regulars Laura Alter of Notebook Forums, Lauren AKA Turbolapp and my homie Andrea from PlanetAndrea…who’s been one of my buddies and supporters since I began.

Samantha Brachat: Sam over at NeverBlueAds has been a great affiliate manager and we did a podcast on seasonality and getting started in affiliate marketing. (Samantha Brachat Friday Podcast)

Heather Paulson:
We’ve exchanged emails and talked on the forums. I caught her presentation at the Affiliate Classroom Live workshop and it was a great opportunity to meet and talk to an experienced OPM and PPC manager like Heather at SAS’ Party Under the Stars. Check out the Paulson Management Group.

Danielle Nagami AKA MsDanielle
It’s always a great opportunity to meet people behind the blogs and meeting MsDanielle was no different. We were talking at the John Chow BBQ pig out the last day of the conference and I even got to carry her box around…

Robyn Jones
The former Ms Robyn Martin and now Mrs Kris Jones, always looking fab. Check out the PepperjamNetwork.

Rachel Honoway: Affiliate marketing veteran Rachel (who’s driving the AC Certified program) and I had some fun with the moving bed in the suite during the ShareASale party…but it’s really not what you think! If you haven’t yet, check out this edition of the Friday Podcast we did earlier. (Rachel Honoway Friday Podcast)

Julia Stead: We’ve talked on Linda Buquet’s 5Star Affiliate Marketing forum and I was surprised at how short she was.

Well, actually she’s like over 6′ and used to play basketball. We actually had got some footage of her and fellow ShareResults affiliate manager Jamie Fortunaso dancing on the couches at Tao during the Affiliate Bash, but the footage didn’t come out…

Ah well…ASE Boston I guess.

Debby Banning: Building trust and credibility is important in building your network and I first “met” Debby when she added me as a friend on Facebook. I checked out the link and saw that Mark Wielgus of 45n5.com was a common friend. Debby’s with Market Leverage.

Note: This is a snippet from the 300+ photos I took at the seminar. More to come, including some commentary and analysis of the topics covered during the show.

Check out details on the next Affiliate Summit