It’s always good, crucial I think, to read what other people think about your panel.  I usually think it has gone well, but always hard to know if you’ve hit the mark.  In my wrap up post, I focused on us not being able to give the “magic formula” for people.  Joe Tech got some good stuff out of the talk:

This panel helped me to think not only about what I should be doing as a blogger, but perhaps a couple things I should not be doing (maybe I should stumble my posts less, eh, Tris?). It was a rewarding use of my time and it turned me on to some new promotional opportunities. Source: Joe Tech » Affiliate Summit - Day Three : Super Affiliates, Social Media, Experts, XY7, and the Segway

But, like any session, someone won’t like it and that’s okay:

One panelist, who will remain nameless, even commented that Twitter is the next big thing! I almost fell out of my seat. Now I am not a fan of Twitter. I don’t care that someone on my list is stuck in traffic. My ego is not so large that I think that people care what I am doing at this particular moment in time. As for it being the next best thing, in order for that to happen, Twitter would need to get broad acceptance by the Internet community. Can you imagine your mother or grandmother using Twitter? I didn’t think so and that is why Twitter is not the next big thing.

One of panelists also remarked that they use Delcious, Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic back to their web site (blog). Did they not read the definition of social media optimization? It is about making your content portable so that people can read and interact with it on one of these different social networks across the net. If you are only engaging in conversation on your blog you are missing out on a lot of opportunities to interact with your target audience. Source: » Social Media Session at Affiliate Summit - Social Media Optimization

Sam made that comment, and I agree with him.  I use Twitter, email, and IM (various ones) all day, every day.  Why?  Because each serves its own specific communications niche (yes, that’s neesh).  Justine commented that one of the best ways to reach her was DM through Twitter (assuming it’s working, of course).  Like Deb say as well, she’s as much a “blogger” (or twitter-er) as she is a “phone-er”.  There are many ways to use any communications tool.

Content portability?  We only touched on RSS, which is the ultimate in data portability.  I get RSS feeds via a client, sometimes through email, on my Blackberry, and the web if I so choose.  And my feeds are synced up too.

David had a great piece of advice, and one that none of us on the panel, to the best of my knowledge, have done-making a Facebook app:

But what other marketing strategies could an affiliate use to make money? Well one of the biggest opportunities in the social networking space today are Facebook applications. As an affiliate I would have loved to hear from someone who has successfully built a Facebook app, and how they used it. What did they learn from it, how did they do it and do Facebook apps work in every vertical? Source: » What the Affiliate Summit Session on Social Media Should Have Contained - Social Media Optimization

That said, Facebook is on my watch list for 2008.  Has it jumped the shark?  I’m not sure about that, and being a well-known Facebook curmudgeon I am biased, but I see it heading for a slow-down in the near future.  I think people have gotten sick of all the silly apps. 

The hard part about social media is that it is so diverse.  That said, blogging is still the best known and highest profile of the social media tools.  A lot of the other bits tie into it … so I’m happy with what we did on the panel.  Sure was fun too.

For more good bits from the conference check out Jim Kukral’s video footage.

Until this week I had never ridden a Segway.  Well, thanks to Shawn, now I have.  They are cool, but getting on them the first time is a little tough.  Shawn’s video doesn’t have me doing turns in reverse, but man it was fun:

Now, I wonder if could get one here in Victoria.  Man would that be fun…

Back home now from Affiliate Summit and I’m still processing what I learned.  Some of our pre-conceived notions are correct.  There are some affiliate marketers who are just out for the quick buck and don’t care about how it’s done, however I feel that they are in the minority of folks.

I also know now that we of the social media/Web 2.0 crowd can learn a lot from affiliate marketers, and they from us.  In many ways we’re after some of the same things (traffic and a living), and like Jason said in his keynote these folks are smart and creative. They could do some amazing things if they tried.

The social media panel I was on with Sam, Steph, Justine, and Deb went really well I thought.  All predictions for fun and humour were bang on the mark.  I often forget how freakin’ smart these folks are.  Man.  I love Deb’s 10,000 foot level stuff and Justine’s tech perspective (remember she hand-coded her first site in sixth grade).  Sam and Steph bring that bridging between the affiliate world and social media that was key to our panel.

There weren’t as many questions as I would have liked.  I think folks might have been a little skittish.  Not knowing us, I don’t think people knew that we love to be asked the tough questions.

I also got the feeling that people were disappointed that we couldn’t give folks that “magic formula” for social media success.

Before you start thinking “oh they just want to game the system”, remember all the business who wanted the same thing when business blogging started?

They wanted the secret sauce to success.  While there aren’t shortcuts, people want a solution and they want it now.

In the panel we all repeated the mantra of learn, listen, connect, participate, and contribute, but this isn’t satisfying to folks.  Answering the question “how long does it take…” with … “it depends…” isn’t satisfying, but I don’t think we have better answers right now.

Really I think we’re only now getting to the point where we can say something is a “best practice”.  Deb has started working with Proctor & Gamble developing a social media lab, her job has been made so much easier by all the things we’ve tried over the last three years of business blogging.

As a final note, I’d like to thank Shawn and Missy for hosting such a great conference and being awesome hosts.

Media coverage on the Internet, and print, is always a hot topic.  How do you handle an advertiser who wants coverage after buying a full-page ad?

Some of the comments so far are great.  Send us a case study, make sure it’s of value to my readers, is it newsworthy.

Andrew Wee mentioned that in smaller publications there is the blurred boundary between editorial and ad sales.

Jim Kukral … bloggers and journalists need content just a press release is the incorrect way to do it.  Giving us more content (images, charts, quotes, etc) and we’re more likely to write/blog about it.  Taking the easy way out?  Nope.  The more I get to work with the easier it is to get your info into my workflow.

Google searches–Journalists, of course, use Google to start researching a topic.  So by getting your name into articles, etc you raise your profile as an expert in the area and therefore more likely to seek you out as a source.

Sidebar: Sam Harrelson and Justine Ezarik are sitting with me.  Sam is on his Asus Eee, I’m on my laptop and Justine is on her iPhone.  Talk about a cross-section of the evolution of tech!

How do folks like to be contacted.  Standard range of things.  Connections with friends, introductions, etc.  I don’t mind email, but I really like it if I get an email first that is more of an “are you interested in x…” instead of “hi I’m so-and-so and here is our latest release…”.

Oh here’s a revelation … we’re people too!  “I just want my muffin dude…” Just jumping into a pitch right off, nope.  Get to know us.  Chat a bit.  Here’s a thing … maybe read up on me first.  Fight out what I’m into.  For bloggers it’s pretty easy since a lot of our public lives are online.

“If you just throw stuff out to see if it sticks…it won’t”

We all do have our secret black list (yep me too) of folks who we would give the time of day to, on the other hand the folks who are my friends and have been giving good stuff…well if they need a Digg or Stumble, or a little link love, no problem.

Deadlines … embargoes … I completely respect embargoes.  Know the timelines on how things work.

Jim Kukral “Bloggers are vain…” in terms of we love getting a scoop and knowing that something will go live so we like getting that.  Appeal to our desire to get a scoop.  Jim also doesn’t think that bloggers are journalists–I agree and disagree.  Bloggers aren’t pure journalists, but I think they are a new breed of journalists.

Andrew has a great point.  As bloggers, when we write about something, our credibility is tied to that post.  So if you’re product isn’t solid, if it isn’t something that I would recommend, I’m not going to cover it.  Or I’m not going to say … “try this it’s great” … I’d be more likely to say “this launched, I think it looks interesting for these reasons, but…”.

Interesting fact for our panel coming up: Justine, Deb, and I are all left handed.

Yeah you’re not going to see the story until it comes out.  I’m not going to send you the story first.  If I have questions, I’ll ask.  If I make a mistake (it happens), I’ll post an update.

PR, hire or in house–doesn’t really matter just don’t let the interns said out the “Hey we saw that you’re coming to Affiliate Summit, if you’d like to meet our CEO…” [delete, block].  I got several of those emails last week.  My question is always…why?  Who are you?  Did you read what I cover and what my niche is (Canadian tech, Web 2.0, and photography, in general)?

Nobody reads press releases, nobody cares.  Why?  Most press releases suck.  Maybe if people wrote better press releases …

Halfway through the day here and I’m in my post-lunch glaze.  I haven’t attended any sessions since Jason’s keynote.  Why?  Well unlike my usual conference fare, I’m not into these sessions.  Wandering through the exhibits I was just struck by how we just don’t see this whole, huge side of Internet marketing.  Sure we talk about advertising, but not to the level these folks do.  Deb Schultz and I have been talking about it in the b5media-sponsored Bloghaus (which is nice and quiet with lots of key tapping going on), it’s almost like it gives us the creeps.

But should it?

Are we just being high and mighty?  Oh we’re Web 2.0, we really “get” the Internet.  I’m not so sure.  I think Jason is on the mark that these folks are really savvy,  but just not aiming high enough.  What if affiliate marketers put the energy towards more of the social media aspects of the Net?

I think this is going to be the focus of our panel tomorrow.  We’re seeing how more and more how affiliate marketers now only need to talk with your customers but among your customers (Deb Schultz just said that in the Bloghaus).

Unfortunately Chris Brogan isn’t going to be able to make it tomorrow and I haven’t seen Justine yet.

Ah, but now … the famous domain auction!

Even though there is no WiFi in the conference hall, I could not pass up live blogging Jason’s keynote.  Sam Harrelson is also live blogging…he has WiFi cause he’s staying here at the Rio.

We’re second row centre in the “blogger row” … sweet eh?  Steph Agresta is the “hostess with the mostest” and keeping us all organized.

As I said earlier this morning, Jim Kukral is opening for Jason Calacanis…

Jason is a lightning rod in tech… ya think?

Playing Bad to the bone fitting, eh?

“Affiliate marketing is bullsh*t… thank you.  Just kidding.”

Spam and overzealous marketers ruined the Internet back in the day.  Now malware and “affiliate spam” are polluting the Internet.  Content scraping, page view crack, are killing what we love and need about the Internet.

Love Jason’s keynotes … Seth Godin, smart.  David Sifry, Ev Williams smart, but Technorati and Blogger are now hijacked by spam.  Ted Murphy, smart but misguided.

PayperPost is pissing in the well.

What is the responsibility of affiliate companies for making the infrastructure to allow affiliate spam blogs?  Shouldn’t they police their affiliates?  Yes.  I agree with Jason on this.  If you want to make money through affiliates … things have to fix

Curation is coming.  CitySearch to Angie’s List the evolution of the recommendation sites.  You have to be a real person.  MySpace fake profiles.  Facebook, harder to do.  LinkedIn almost impossible.

High work, high reward — that’s the American (and Canadian) dream.  Pride, satisfaction, honour.  Low work, high reward — Criminal, thrill, satisfaction.

Building, publishing high quality sites takes time.  It isn’t an overnight success (hear, hear).

Jason’s SEO is bullsh*t quote came out of being asked what he did to get Engadget to rank well.  Answer: don’t know write good content everyday and be credible.

Arguments against gaming … pretty much people can’t be gamed … but

Those who game, are getting better and better.  Social networks are covert gaming systems.

Holding up the six figure cheque is sad and embarrassing, but seo and affiliate marketers are smart and work damn hard.

Love Jason’s irony and sarcastic wit … what should affiliate marketers do?  Stay the course … keep gaming better and better … really think of new ways to scam people (this is the selfish version).

The real advice:

• Fight from the bottom of the food chain
• Create long-term relations with users
• Give up a life of crime and get cheques with more zeros
• You’re smarter than the folks at most Internet companies

Think big! Change your wiring from the quick buck, fear of failing and seek the quick buck.

If you fail, who cares … that’s just one more way not to do things.

Love him or hate him, Jason Calacanis gives a great keynote.

Question from the audience, what about Jason’s responsibility?  LinkedIn spam, Facebook spam.  But he started Weblogs Inc. (number one blog in each of their verticals), brought in moderation at Netscape and now Digg is doing it, and Mahalo … human powered search.

I haven’t used Mahalo much and every time I hear about it I think I should try it.

Ah the how does Mahalo scale question…interesting work part time for something cool and earn decent money.  The Mahalo Greenhouse.  It scales as a distributed workforce.

Before he gets slammed for affiliate marketing is spam … well …

Well pretty much Jason, and I, thinks that links (and ads) should be disclosed.  If it’s an ad, call it an ad.  Now, does advertising colour content?  Well I don’t really know what ads are going to show up here, so I just write what I know.

Who is Mahalo targeting?  Not power surfers, but peoples grandmother’s and parents … the people who haven’t really had the time and experience to know where to got first.

Mahalo for power users … that I’d like to see.

It’s quality sites, with good content, and know SEO, they will eat the affiliate marketers lunch, unless they use their smarts to do better.

Be better to users … Jason, love this, but if you want to keep polluting the lake that’s fine, better for me.

Building your personal brand.  Jason never has a PR person?  Really?  Never could have guessed ;-).  The Mark Cuban school of personal brand building.  Hmm.

• Be honest, be yourself
• Engage other people, create a dialog, talk with people.  Being a part of the conversation.  Like at a dinner party, first you sit and listen.  Then you speak.

How does Mahalo make money … When it makes money I’ll let you know…

Search marketing is great for adverting rates and inventory.

Is more crap coming to the web?  Yes.  As more areas come online, more crap.  Then the curated web will be more important.  Be patient.  Take risks.

I didn’t know that Jason’s first gig was fixing laser printers!  Dude, gotta love a guy who comes from the trenches!

Shoot for the stars and get the moon.  Work hard.

Jason would like to buy the Knicks … uh huh, but doesn’t want to sell Mahalo.  Seems that it’s his passion for sure.

Why not post cheques?  Because it ropes people into a get-rich-quick scheme.

Isn’t it inspiring to see the cheques?  Writing great content is inspiring.

Silicon Valley thinks about making great products, affiliates think about making great profits.  Make the next Twitter or Skype.  Look at the long term.  Shoot for the 10, 20, 30% growth curve.

If everyone is cheating, how do you succeed if you don’t?

And that’s a wrap folks.

Good morning from Vegas.  I posted some things I wrote on the plane last night, but now, blogging starts in earnest.

Jason Calacanis is doing the keynote this morning, and Jim Kukral is intro-ing him.  Jim did an awesome job intro-ing Mark Cuban, so I’m expecting great things!

Now the one thing not to expect is live blogging.  I’ve been told that there is only WiFi here in the Bloghaus (refreshments provided by b5media, btw) and in the lunch room.  I guess there have been problems with people live streaming the sessions.  Pity, because I was going to use CoverItLive to live blog the session.  On the good side, maybe that means I don’t have to lug my laptop around.

Last night I did my usual wander through Vegas at night taking pics (like above):

All my pics are going to be in my Affiliate Summit West Flickr set.

Now, time to mix and mingle and eat!

Like Marshall did with his coverage of DEMO recently, I’ve used aideRSS to make a “best of” feed for Affiliate Summit West 2008.  Right now it just has my feed, some general searches are coming soon (they are queued right now).  As I find bloggers who are covering ASW08 I’ll add them directly (yes Steph, I’m adding you in a moment).

Steph is already in Vegas, I however am still in Vancouver. Hmm, looking like boarding might get going soon….

But you have to see these pics I took today.  Yes, they really were on the ferry to the Mainland…

Next week I’ll be at the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas.  Yeah, no I won’t be gambling.  I would like to ride that roller coaster on the top of the building though.  Regardless I’m on what is going to be a kick-butt panel talking about social media to affiliate marketers.

How kick butt?  Check out who is on it from Steph’s post yesterday:

In other news…it’s time for Affiliate Summit! I’ll be arriving in Vegas this Saturday, and excited about the Social Media Panel, which I will be on with the following Twitterati: Sam Harrelson (moderator), Deborah Schultz, Chris Brogan, Tris Hussey, and iJustine. Don’t forget to follow @AffiliateSummit and @asw08 (group account) on Twitter.

InternetGeekGirl will also be the hostess with the most-ess in the blog lounge, so we’ll pass them out there as well.Refreshments provided by B5 Media. Source: InternetGeekGirl gets ready for Affiliate Summit in Vegas, Feb 24 - 26

Justine Ezarik is a new member of the panel, which means we are even more kick butt than we were before and we have gender parity.  You might not think gender parity is a big deal, but it is especially at tech conferences.

As a bit of fun for the panel, like we weren’t going to have fun anyway, we’re all going to wear at least one of our favourite Web 2.0 t-shirts.  I think I’ll have on two or three so I can peel one off at a time (I think geekyfantastic will be first, last being b5media).  That’s not all … we want to toss out shirts to the audience during the panel, but not our shirts or shirts from our companies (okay I will have a bunch of b5 shirts), but your shirts.  Specifically I would like some Canadian start up/Web 2.0 shirts to toss out.

You can send shirts to Steph at her hotel (the info is in her post) or to me at mine:

Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino
3667 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109 United States

The panel is Tuesday, late afternoon, but I’m not staying at the Rio where the conference is so if you want to send them to me they have to be there Monday night.

I am looking forward to this panel more than any other that I’ve been on.  Heck I’ve been excited about it since I was asked to be on it after BlogWorld.  Not only do we have six of the brightest social media folks around, but we have six (okay maybe five if you leave me out) of the funniest and most engaging speakers around.  I don’t know if Sam is going to be able to keep us all in check (I see Brogan, Deb, and I being real troublemakers).

I had the chance to hear Justine speak, but only briefly, at BlogWorld so I am looking forward to hearing more of her thoughts and insights.

Pictures?  Oh you can bet on that.  Video?  Maybe.  I’m told that if I want to video in the casino I need a shadow/handler at $75/hr.  Now outside, that’s a horse of a different colour.

I’ll have a press pass as well and b5 is sponsoring the refreshments in the blogger lounge so count on some coverage, yes even live, from the event.

Boy good thing I just got new glasses/sunglasses…

All pictures by Brian Solis.