Many of you know that I live just outside of New Orleans and was impacted last year by Hurricane Katrina. I was fortunate in that I had a place to evacuate to, although I wasn’t expecting a three month stay away from my home. But I did have a home to return to after those three months. There was some damage, but my home still stood.

On this one year anniversay date of Katrina, I feel the need to offer remembrance to my friends, family, neighbors and fellow citizens who were impacted by the devasation of Katrina and to those who were not as fortunate as myself. As those in the entire region continue to struggle with rebuilding and survival, may you find strength, courage, hope and peace as you move through to each day. (more…)

If you have gone to the SurfSideKick web site over the last few days, a blank page will greet you. As you can see from the screen shot to the right, you are greeted with a blank page. Viewing the source code (bottom right), there is not any type of redirect to another web site. One might assume that SurfSideKick is another adware company to go by the wayside. This is new as SurfSideKick was up and running at least on August 17th when I was capturing videos for Andy Rodriguez’s course in Chicago. When I fired up my SurfSideKick testing computer yesterday, things had changed. (more…)

A couple of days ago, I started receiving some emails asking about a new install put out by Tim Storm of FatWallet. It seems Tim had just released the FatWallet Now! Bookmark as beta on his site and some were curious as to what this actually installed, how it behaved and when the FatWallet affiliate tracking code would be set. Since Tim has a large loyal following on his site, I can see why some would be interested in how the bookmark behaved, especially fellow coupon affiliates. I have installed his new product and performed some quick testing. (more…)

The third AMC Affiliate Manager Certification Seminar (ARC Seminar) has come to a close. What a whirlwind three days put on by Andy Rodriquez! I thought I would share my perspectives on the event….

I have been fortunate to present and attend all three of Andy’s ARC Seminars. The ARC Seminar is different from any other industry event out there. The seminar is held to a small number (30 or so) attendees intentionally. And while it is an Affiliate Manager Certification course, there is a growing number of affiliates who are finding benefit from the information presented and attending. It is three full days of fast-paced, practical and intensive information targeted (pun intended) at increasing the profitability (that’s real profitability without the numbers games) of affiliate programs. When you step into the ARC Seminar room, you are stepping into a completely spin-free zone for running and managing an affiliate marketing program. (more…)

AFP presented it’s first Fair Practice Award today at the Affiliate Manager Certification Seminar III currently being held in Chicago. The AFP Fair Practice Award is a unique award within Affiliate Marketing recognizing a company or individual who has consistently engaged in activities which embody the principles of fair trade and competitive practices in affiliate marketing. The recipient of the award may be an affiliate, merchant, network, manager, industry expert, consultant or provider of services/products related to affiliate marketing. (more…)

In a recent press release, it was announced that Linkshare will be partnering with AdGooroo. AdGooroo provides a Trademark Monitoring Service. This is a real-time service with daily email reports which monitors Google and Yahoo for bidding on trademarks. Under the announced parntership, select Linkshare Merchants will have access to AdGooroo’s Trademark Monitoring Service as a value-added service. These Linkshare Merchants will be able to monitor search engine activity on their trademark.

If you are a Linkshare affiliate and bidding on merchant trademarks, you probably should take note of this development.