And there’s a good reason for that… it’s essential for web workers (which means all online marketers and/or entrepreneurs) as an end-all-be-all of productivity, project planning, organization, todo lists, whiteboards, etc.
Now, you can add your Basecamp projects to GMail via Periscope via Labs. I’ve tried it… it’s tremendous:
Gmail Gadgets: Add Your Basecamp Projects to Gmail: “To enable this gadget, you’ve got to have a Basecamp account with the API enabled, a Periscope account (which stores your Basecamp login information), and Gmail Labs’ Gadgets by external URL feature enabled. Got all that? Once you’re there, head to the Gadgets tab in Gmail and copy and paste the Periscope Basecamp Gadget URL in, and then your sidebar will display your Basecamp projects as pictured.”
Yes, my GMail tab looks like a crazy narcissist took over the place since I have my Calendar, Docs and Remember The Milk Gadgets going along with the occasional chat (I use GTalk within GMail for AIM and Google chat)…not to mention the steady deluge of email.
Nevertheless, I feel as if I’m getting somethings done with this approach.
Jim Kukral, a veteran of the performance marketing world, MC of Affiliate Summit and serial entrepreneur, has rebranded himself as TheBizWebCoach and is writing a book called Blend This Book! about attention economics.
Hi, I’m Jim Kukral, The Biz Web Coach! I’m doing something different here. It’s revolutionary! I’m offering my 12+ years of experience and expertise in a new way, through Web coaching on a membership program.
Why?
Jim sees this as the future of business web coaching and understandably realizes that coaching is becoming a major niche for individuals with enough social capital and know-how to help businesses (and/or individuals looking to start them) in these troubled economic times.
It’s hard to explain the totality of what Jim is doing, but it is quite interesting. Beyond being a “business coach,” Jim rightly sees that experts are moving into the one-on-one type help situation (instead of ebooks, etc).
So, is membership the next big thing? I think it may be.
Hopefully, I’ll be doing a podcast with Jim in the next few days where we talk about his ideas and goals for the rebrand and where he sees this space going.
As a part-time consultant, I’m interested in hearing his thoughts and you should be too.
I’ve been a long time proponent of “cloud computing” and can’t imagine trading in my GMail or Google Docs on any machine I’m using for Outlook or Office tied to one machine or one OS.
Whether I’m on my Blackberry, Ubuntu laptop, Macbook Pro, Nokia N800, iPod Touch, Mac Mini, my wife’s Vista laptop, etc I can get to every piece of email, every document, every note (through Evernote) every task (through Remember The Milk) that I need.
It is beyond liberating and the type of freedom that any heavy user of computers should seek out. I simply cannot wrap my mind around people that continue to tie themselves to one desktop or laptop or even one operating system.
Firefox is my operating system.
However, the biggest concern I hear (and I have) about using “web apps” like GMail is whether or not they are stable and secure. What happens when their server goes down? What if you can’t get to your GMail because Google is doing maintenance? It’s a very good question and something I consider a cost for having the freedom of mobility.
This morning, Zoho is launching “Zoho Status” which monitors the health and stability of all the Zoho web apps (and they are numerous)…
Zoho-Status: “Today, we are adding a new section to our website - Zoho Status - which displays the health of all Zoho Applications. You can visit http://status.zoho.com to see if our applications are running and responding fine. The site provides you availability & response times for the past week along with downtime, if any. “
I find this highly important and relevant to web workers like affiliate marketers because many of us do use GMail or Google Docs on a daily, if not hourly or minute-ly, basis.
Zoho is, yet again, pushing ahead past Google or other web app providers here just as they have done frequently in the past. If you’ll remember, Zoho was the first to integrate Google Gears with its word processor to allow for offline work that syncs to the server when you are back on the network. Google Docs now offers this. Just recently, Zoho released Zoho Mail. I honestly think it’s a superior product to GMail because it takes the best of GMail and melds it with the functionality of Outlook, all in a web interface, complete with Google Gears for offline mode. GMail doesn’t have Gears integration yet. I’m not switching just yet, but it is tempting given Zoho Mail’s range of functionalities that GMail is just starting to catch up to with its own Lab features.
So, as a web worker, if I’m looking for a stable suite of web apps to use in place of Outlook and Office, I’m looking closer at Zoho today. Much of what I do on the web is mission critical in one way or another, and having the peace of mind that Zoho Status provides (at least in a placebo effect way) is calming.
Sure, you can find most of that ancient medium known as the “music video” on YouTube, but having all those great videos from the 80’s, 90’s and early ’00’s in a neat searchable place is handy.
BTW, here’s a vid for “New York New York” from my favorite singer/songwriter Ryan Adams that was shot just a few days before 9/11. I was living just an hour or so away from the city in Connecticut at the time, so the video had a big impact on me (and still does):
37signals is the company behind such popular web worker products as Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise and Campfire. You’ve probably noticed the BackPack banner over in the sidebar, but now they’ve expanded the affiliate program to include their other productivity products. I’m pretty excited about that.
If you’re a small business doing online markeitng and not using Basecamp, you’re really missing out. It’s the hub of my online business life and people like Scott Jangro are also big fans.
I want to reiterate how reliant I am on Basecamp and Backpack for organizing my personal and business (and academic) lives, and also how you should be promoting these products if you’re in the B2B affiliate field.
37signals Affiliate Program: “The 37signals Affiliate Program pays you once after a customer’s first monthly payment, plus 5% of that customer’s future monthly fees for as long as their account remains open. “
Of course, if you’d like to sign up for any of their programs, feel free to do so with the affiliate links in this post (b/c CPN always needs and appreciates your support!).
Must read from Scott on why some affiliate networks “get” social media (or just social participation on the web) and some fail every time:
Affiliate Networks and Social Media | Jangro.com: “Commission Junction is, again, the only one missing from the party. Surely if Todd Crawford, Lisa Riolo, and Brian Caldwell were still there this would be a different story. Or me, for that matter.
It seems to me that the basic pre-requisite to a company attaining a successful social media presence is that they’ve got at least one person who is (a) interested and already heavily involved in social media, and (b) in a position that the company trusts them to represent.
How does that not happen at a company like CJ? This is not to judge (though I’m sure somebody will), but to ask the purely academic question, seriously, why?”
CPA Empire has been rebranded into the choice domain affiliate.com.
This move reminds me of how Pepperjam has successfully rebranded itself as a “next-gen” network in the mindset of many affiliates. It will be interesting to see if affiliate.com can do the same for CPA Empire, which hasn’t always had the sunniest of reputations on the affiliate forums, etc.
Here are some excerpts from the press release…
“affiliate.com provides us with a premier name to go along with our leadership position in the affiliate marketing industry,” said Steven Richter, President and General Counsel for Media Breakaway. “However, we are doing more than simply changing the name of our affiliate marketing division. Our goal is for affiliate.com to become the next generation of affiliate networks.”
The company also announced that it will be undertaking a number of key initiatives as a part of the name change. These initiatives include the development of a proprietary tracking system that will provide affiliates and advertisers with accurate, real-time reporting and an easy to use interface to access performance data on all their campaigns. In addition, business development efforts are being focused on bringing in more top performing international offers, as the company continues to increase its presence in the global market. The company will also be expanding its affiliate management and advertiser support teams and enhancing the affiliate manager training program to ensure that the team is providing the highest level of support in the industry.
“Through each of these initiatives and others we will put in place in 2009, we plan to take affiliate marketing to the next level in technology, services, and support,” said Richter. “We are dedicated to helping our affiliates and advertisers grow their businesses and become more profitable.”
Sounds like there may be some competition in store for Affiliate Classroom as well (”enhancing the affiliate manager training program to ensure that the team is providing the highest level of support in the industry”).
The affiliate.com team also has a blog up and running as well.
Affiliate Marketing Legend and all-around geek Todd Crawford and I are back with episode six of our weekly podcast, GeekTo.Me.
We had a ton of fun doing the show and it’s (in my opinion) our best show yet. We definitely keep getting better and better (and geekier and geekier) every week.
So, if you’ve got the stomach for some heavy geek lifting, give it a shot.
Show Notes:
Freemium vs Premium
Google with OpenID
Google Notebook, Evernote or BackPack?
Netbooks vs iPhones
Mac Adoption with the Kids
iPhone App Restrictions
Android
Windows 7: Will It Save Microsoft?
Linux Desktops and New Ubuntu
Google Maps on iPhone
Hulu
Mint.com and Stupid web2.0 names
eCommerce is Big in Japan
Todd’s Picks: Fring, Panolab, Classic eBook Reader
Sam’s Picks: Everest, VoteReport
One of the keys to success in affiliate marketing is getting your site or link in front of the people who are looking for the info, services, etc you are representing.
Google has helped create the affiliate marketing landscape by becoming the world’s database of information as well as being fairly transparent on what it takes to rank well in the search result pages organically (not to mention the ability to pay for positions on relevant keywords).
So, this new move by Google to ramp it up on the recognition and indexing of PDF’s is promising for smart affiliates given that history. Why? Because PDF’s are a great way to produce quality content on specific topics. Instead of having to invest the time, effort or money into OCR efforts themselves, affiliates can let Google do the heavy hauling and have the info indexed. Nifty.
Google Search Indexes Scanned Documents - AppScout: “Google today, however, announced a new technology that lets the search engine perform Optical Character Recognition on scanned documents saved in Adobe PDF format. OCR converts the picture of words into actual words. “
[...] Hiring Outsourced Affiliate Manage...- Said
Hiring Outsourced Affiliate Management For Linkshare – CostPerNews – Performance-Based Affiliate Marketing Blog | New Biz Tips.com
on 2010-06-27 12:10:26
