ReveNews is Back Up, Lots of Tweaks and Relaunch Soon
Apologies for the low posting rate lately… ReveNews has been taking up most of my days and sleepless nights.
However, I’m happy to say that we’re relaunching ReveNews next week. If you haven’t seen the new site, it’s resolving all over the planet as we speak, so head over and check out the new design. There are still tons of bugs and little tweaks we have to make, but I’ve decided to leave the shutters off the windows so that you can follow along if you’re so inclined and watch the fixes as they happen.
I’m so excited that we’re finally on the new server, host, and platform (MovableType 4). I even have a new email addy (sam@revenews.com) for all of your rants, raves and v1@gra spams.
So, do check out the site and let me know what you think.
I’ve also got an incredible developer named David Larsen (who has been instrumental in getting this thing going) who is going to be looking for something to fill his time after we’re done with the relaunch. If you need a developer, he’s your man. Get in touch if you’d like his contact info.
More updates over the weekend as they happen…
Engagement - Not Numbers
We could all learn a thing or two by paying attention to the marketing metrics and measurements that Facebook is sculpting…
As we indicated earlier, today we are introducing new guidelines that will change how applications are ranked in the application directory. Currently, the focus is on total number of users, but going forward it will be based on user engagement. This is an important step in the evolution of Facebook Platform which will help drive the growth and distribution of applications that focus on user engagement and utility.
Facebook Developers | Facebook Developers News
Affiliate Fridge Game
Fun link for time wasting (via Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog)
Twitter Groups Application
If you’re looking for a way to group your Twitter contacts, this could be quite helpful.
This one is for Trust…
Twitter Groups allows you to tag your followers into different groups. Then you can send a message to those groups without needing to send the message to each person one at a time!
New Boing Boing: Month of Revisions for Old Group Blogs
Seems like August is the month of the revision for old group blogs!
Along with the impending revision of my beloved 10 year old ReveNews (as soon as the site resolves on the new host… LivingDot… we are good to go!), my favorite blog, Boing Boing, has just undergone a pretty major overhaul that points towards the future.
I’m writing this from Boulder, Colorado, which seems like a good place to make this announcement — it was in this town that Carla Sinclair and I launched bOING bOING as a print zine in 1988. During the past 19 years we’ve gone through many changes — from zine to webzine to directory to blog. Today, Boing Boing is changing again, in three exciting new ways: a redesign, the return of user comments, and a blog about personal technology.
Great job goes to Cory, Davis, Xeni, and Mark!
Welcome to the new Boing Boing! - Boing Boing
Chitikia’s Affiliate Facebook App is Disappointing and Lame
I’m not one to shy away from early adoption (to a fault many times), but I don’t see the point in Chitika’s new Facebook app. In fact, it’s pretty disappointing to me on a couple of fronts.
I read about this on Jim Kukral’s blog where he’s linked to the Chitika application (give Jim a buck by installing it if you’d like to see what I’m talking about).
So, aesthetically speaking, did they just pull this image (and idea) from an old email campaign?? Sure reeks of 2003 email marketing to me. Great stock art guys. The kids are sure to love the enthusiastic thumbs up…
Let me see if I get this right… I tell people what I bought and encourage others to do so (by installing the app) in order to get a $1 commission?
Not only is this lame in terms of application standards on Facebook (where I manage my calendar, Twitter, play old NES games, upload videos, share music, even share my favorite LOL Cats), but it’s clearly not a feasible and longterm service for actually providing anyone with a profit. It looks to be (and I hope it is) an experiment to see “how viable” the Facebook channel is for Chitika. Actually, I hope that’s not the case because this is going to return some paltry results compared to what can be done within Facebook with a smart affiliate app or campaign.
Honestly, this app just reinforces the stereotype that many people (especially savvy geeks and early adopters on Facebook) have about affiliate marketing… that we’re all looking for a quick buck with no long term thinking.
I’m sure there will be ways for performance and affiliate marketing to grow and thrive on Facebook, but this isn’t it.
Back to the drawing board…
Google’s Holy Grail
Vinny Lingham has put together a nice post on how Clicks2Customers and other companies in our space have been doing the sorts of things with CPA and paid search that Google VP Marissa Meyer has labeled ”the Holy Grail.”
It’s always fascinating that smaller teams with more built in flexibility and focus can accomplish what large companies stacked with PhD’s and Stanford grads can’t.
Nice post… head over to Vinny’s blog for the whole thing:
What Google realises, but often overlooks, is that affiliates have been successfully arbitraging CPC to CPA for longer than Google even begain doing paid search. We started Clicks2Customers in 2003 and that business quickly grew on the back of the fact there was considerably margin between CPC & CPA - and even today, there are still a number of affiliates out there that still do this very successfully. Clicks2Customers have since evolved the business to a CPA / Performance Marketing Agency, and are working more closely with clients than the traditional affiliate marketers. Our technology was built on the back of ROI creation from marketing campaigns based on CPC costs and therefore is far better aligned to what Google is trying to do, than many of our competitors.
Vinny Lingham?s Blog » Blog Archive » Google vindicates CPA (Cost Per Action) / Affiliate model
Blog Business Summit Cancelled
One more sign that blogging is but one facet of a smart and wise online marketing program that should include social networks (Facebook) and presence platforms (Twitter)…
After much consideration we?ve decided not to host the Blog Business Summit in Chicago this year…
On the Web Community Forum site, we?ll cover how people, businesses, and political campaigns are using technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and, of course, blogs to reach out to core constituencies and build communities. We?ll talk about best practices and great technologies - from WordPress plugins to Facebook applications - that enable community engagement.
Blog Business Summit » Blog Business Summit Chicago: Important Update
Scoble on Why Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook will Beat Google
It’s all about quality and the dilution of relevancy due to SEO according to Robert Scoble. Search and discovery will continue to evolve, just as the web itself. The main question for marketers and those interested in these issues is whether or not platforms such as Google will continue to maintain its position as a network hub or whether other platforms with more relevancy will replace the Google hegemoy.
Scoble has some great points scattered throughout these videos, so watch with an open mind…
I explain how SEO-resistant technologies like Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are about to upend the search industry.
Part I of Social Graph Based Search. 14:41 minutes.
Part II of Social Graph Based Search. 15 minutes.
And a bonus round III. 6 minutes.
Why Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google?s butt in four years « Scobleizer
Twitter Adds GMail Contacts Import
I’m not sure Andy Beard will be a fan (had to slip that in there, Andy!), but you can now import your GMail contacts into Twitter to see who else has an account. There’s also a recently implemented search feature for finding friends and contacts…
Twitter has finally added the feature they?ve needed from day one: the ability to import your contacts from another service. For now it is limited to just Gmail, which should apply to a large proportion of the service?s early adopter user base. Enter your email address and password to see which of your contacts are on Twitter, or manually invite people to join.
