Internet News
New York Screws Affiliate Businesses
As a lot of people know, selling products and earning affiliate commissions is one of the leading ways to generate an income online. I, myself, have made quite a bit of money by selling products as an affiliate.
We also know that government typically has a reverse midas touch – everything they touch turns to shit. And now New York state is taking that shit and smearing it in the face of affiliate business in the state of New York.
According to Domain Name Wire, New York has decided that any business which runs an affiliate program and has affiliates in New York then has a business presence in the state of New York. Of course that means they’re trying to collect sales taxes on the sale. So, for example, if I run an affiliate program and I have affiliates in New York, I then have to pay state sales taxes in New York for any shipments I send to New York – even though I am based in Florida.
As a result, we are sure to see a host of affilliate programs out there kick out all of the New York affiliates. Internet Retailer is reporting that Amazon.com and Overstock.com is filing a lawsuit against the state of New York. As the story says:
But Amazon, charging New York’s new tax law is “invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional,” filed a lawsuit against New York in early May seeking to have the law thrown out. Overstock followed by telling its more than 3,400 New York-based affiliates that, as of the law’s June 1 effective date, Overstock would no longer place ads on their sites for customer leads unless New York changes the law or the courts declare it unenforceable.
One thing is super clear: government doesn’t understand business. These people in Albany want to raise more taxes to pay for all their pet projects. As a result of this act, they’re just going to kill the income of any good affiliate marketers in New York and this is going to result in LESS taxes.
Idiots. But, this is the kind of crap you get when you elect tax-and-spend politicians to government.
Yahoo Strokes Google, Puts on Show for Microsoft
Yahoo is in a pickle. Microsoft is setting up for a hostile takeover of Yahoo and Yahoo is doing everything it possibly can to puff it’s chest and look valuable.
Part of this strategy is apparently to woo Google. Yahoo was to run a 2-week trial of running Google Adsense ads on the Yahoo properties. Yahoo, for it’s part, said it was a limited trial and only running on with a 3% coverage cap on Yahoo.com. Then, what WAS to be a 14 day trial all of a sudden turns into 8 days, with Yahoo and Google then announcing they might get married. Yahoo is announcing that a deal with Google is much closer.
Well, that’s about the shortest engagement in the history of search.
This sudden change just makes this trial period look like a big show with Microsoft being in the audience. It is certainly in Yahoo’s interest to look extremely valuable and thwart Microsoft’s plans. For it’s part, it is certainly in Google’s interest to have this story out there, too.
As Rob Hof says over at Tech Beat:
But we’re supposed to believe that after Yahoo spent years battling Google to little avail, after having multiple chances and much Wall Street encouragement to outsource its search ads to the leader, suddenly Yahoo and Google are now going to be best buddies? After a couple of days of ad tests?
This is a show. Yahoo is courting Google and wanting to make babies. They also adopt another little baby, IndexTools, in order to bring on an analytics package (the holy grail when it comes to a good advertising package).
Only thing is, I’m not sure any of this is going to stop Microsoft from stealing the bride.
China To Bypass U.S. As Leading Internet Market?
Techcrunch has posted a story about how China is close to becoming the world’s largest Internet market. According to the story, China is now only 5 million users shy of breaking past the United States as the leading country online.
Here’s the catch, though, that Techcrunch doesn’t really talk about. This information is put out by the Chinese government. Does it strike anybody else that they just might be exercising a little of Al Gore’s "fuzzy math"? China pulls no punches in it’s mission to surpass the United States. They would like to use the power of economy to take us down. Is it beyond reason that they might exaggerate a bit to make themselves look good? After all, this is a VERY censored country, where the government controls all information.
I’m just saying.
I think Paul Kedrosky has a point.
Google Adjusts Click Spots on Adsense – Lowers CTR
Google has made a change to the clickable spots on their Adsense ads. The change might be good for the quality of their ad network, but it is not working out well for web publishers. In fact, Google is sacrificing revenue on their own to make this change.
Usually, almost the entire space of an Adsense ad (including the white space) was clickable. As it sits now, the only clickable areas of the ad are the headline of the ad or the URL. Any clicks on the accompanying text for the ad or the white space don’t do anything. Here is a graphic (courtesy of Blogoscoped.com ) that illustrates this better than I could:
In the long run, I think this is actually a good move. Unfortunately, on the short term, it is resulting in a lot of web publishers seeing pretty noticeable drops in their click-through ratio. And a reduced CTR means you make less money from Google.
I myself am noticing the change. My CTR has dropped by an average of around 0.3%. Not exactly huge compared to some, but the overall effect is a definite decrease in revenue. Yesterday I made about $30 less than usual. It was about a 30% drop. I will be watching today to see how the trend continues.
Yet more proof that depending on any one income source (including Google) is a bad move. One small change can have definite effects on your income.
Last Week In Short, OpenSocial, Google Mobile Alliance
Well, I did it again. It has been over a week since I posted here at WebbyOnline. Other than being extremely busy, you can head on over to PC Mechanic for the long story. The short version is that I began using a Mac last week. The conversion to Mac has not exactly been hassle free. The system is working fine, however it is a near total environment change from what I am used to. Various work tasks therefore take longer to complete. It will be temporary and I am already able to speed up my work flow considerably under the new OS. But, it is still a work in progress.
OS X Leopard is a good operating system. I don’t have much to compare it to in the Apple world simply because I have never used a Mac before now. Some people are complaining about the new OS, other say it crashes and/or blue screens. I can tell you from experience that OS X is not crash proof. Anybody who says OS X never crashes and Windows does needs to grow a clue. Perhaps it is blamed on Leopard, but either way my Mac has crashed more than once here.
But, aside from my switch to the Mac, some interesting items have hit the news in the last week.
For those of you Mac users who like Twitter, Twitterific 3 was released. It offers a few improvements, but my experience is that it still crashes once it downloads several tweets (around 40). I tried out Snitter as well and I actually do like it better. Snitter is based on Adobe AIR, but the interface is a little better and it, so far, does not seem to crash.
The social networking arena has been abuzz over Google’s announcement of OpenSocial. OpenSocial is the new API which Google has created to allow companies to create applications for social networking sites. Sound familiar? Yes if you know about Facebook (and who doesn’t). Facebook sent a tidal wave through social networking it released it’s own platform for developing third-party applications to run inside of Facebook. It was revolutionary. Well, Google, as usual, likes to be the big elephant in the room. Google’s own social network (Orkut) isn’t exactly making any waves, so Google created this new API and got a bunch of other social networks on board. The effect is that any application designed for the OpenSocial API will be able to work on any participating social network (and site which uses the OpenSocial API).
The effect is that this pits Facebook up against many of the other social networks out there, including Myspace, Orkut, LinkedIn and others. Its a big gang up on the big man – Facebook. Is this going to result in a shake up? Too early to tell. There are no indications that any end users are changing anything as a result of OpenSocial. It might make the developers excited, but end users don’t care too much yet.
And in more proof that Google controls the tech news, the other big story has been Google’s move into mobile. There has been a lot of speculation about the Gphone. Was Google going to create it’s own cell phone? Well, maybe. But now the emphasis is more on an alliance than a piece of hardware. Google has announced a new mobile cellphone alliance with 33 participating companies including Samsung, T-Mobile, Sprint and Motorola. What’s the point? Potentially a lot…
Android is the name of the platform which is being promoted to this alliance by Google. Google bought a company called Android back in 2005 – now it is clear why. The idea is to provide a common operating system for cell phones which will allow open source software onto the mobile phone. This will allow the cell phone to become more like today’s PC where it can be used to easily surf the internet, do social networking, etc. Obviously this could mean a lot more ad revenue for Google, but it also represents a wider sea change in the cell phone industry. This represents a shift from today’s world where each cell phone carrier determines the type of phone you have as well as the software you are allowed to run on it. Under Android, the phone will turn into a much more flexible device where the user is free to do more of what they want.
Talk is that we can begin to see Android powered phones mid-2008. I wouldn’t hold my breath about the entire industry changing overnight. Cell phone companies will all be operating in their own financial interests and sometimes that will be an impediment. Some companies will be slow to sign on, such as AT&T because they have secured the deal as exclusive service provider for the Iphone (one of the dumbest moves Apple ever made, BTW).
So, perhaps rumors of a Google handheld device were wrong. Perhaps instead of a phone built by Google, we’re seeing Google throw its weight into the existing field of manufacturers to open up the field of mobile devices.
And for us web publishers, this just means we need to pay even more attention to our sites on mobile devices than before. This Google alliance actually had the potential for a much wider change than a mere Google Gphone.
Google Slaps Webmasters Around Using PageRank
There has been a lot of talk about Google going after paid links. In other words, if you sell links on your page, Google has a problem with you now. Well, it also appears as if Google is in the process of updating PageRanks. And a lot of blogs are all of a sudden finding that their pagerank has decreased.
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger is reporting that his pagerank dropped from 6 to 4 while he isn’t selling any links. Darren is running sponsor banners on the right side of his page, but I also do the same over at PC Mechanic. So far I am not noticing a PR change on any of my sites. WebbyOnline is at 4, BUZZscreen (newly re-launched) is at 4, and PCMech is at 5.
Speculation abounds on the reason. Are they penalizing paid links? Or are we seeing some change in the Google algorithm?
And only Google can spark this much conversation and speculation, and you can get a small sample of that here:
- Thanks Google!, Copyblogger
- Google Changing the PageRank Algorithm?, www.dailyblogtips.com
- Three Clicks to Spam: Google’s Hypocritical Link Selling Policy, mashable.com
- The Randomness of Google PageRank, Dan Blank
- Google PageRank Update and It’s All Down, John Chow dot Com
So, I’ll just keep an eye on it. While I know PageRank doesn’t really mean that much, all webmasters (including myself) do use it as a kind of benchmark in some cases. Nobody likes to see their PageRank drop, but hey, it happens. You’re more or less at the whim of Google in that regard.
AOL Actually Launches Something New?
Yeah, remember AOL? That company that used to equal the internet to a large portion of the surfing public? That company that used to litter out mailboxes with AOL software CDs? Yeah, those people. Well, they are apparently launching something new: AOL Mobile.
AOL is today launching a mobile version of it’s AOL.com portal as well as a customizable MyAOL for mobile phones. According to the story:
The beta version of the mobile portal has been available since September but is now being formally introduced, said Scott Falconer, executive vice president of AOL Mobile. The portal includes the type of news, entertainment, and sports content that is available on the desktop version of the portal.
This really isn’t all that notable, but it is indicative of the growing importance of mobile internet content. While the web used to be the wild west, with most ideas untried, it really isn’t that way anymore. The mobile arena, though, is currently more like the web was many years ago. And the story says it like this:
AOL isn’t alone among Internet services and content companies pursuing mobile users. So far, none seems to have a clear advantage. “I would say it’s still an open market,” said Falconer. “Google of course is the leader in online search but mobile search is fundamentally different.” In addition to the online giants, a number of startups are targeting the mobile search and content market.
And that is about right. I still think Google is the one to watch, though. It is much easier to translate success in one industry into a very closely related one, and Google is the hands-down king of search. AOL, well, they’re not really king of anything anymore.
Week In Review, News From The Internet
I have been using Twitter some lately, so it caught my eye and the eyes of many in the tech community when Google purchased Jaiku, a competitor of Twitter. I was wondering why they didn’t buy Twitter instead, but I think it simply has to do with the fact that Jaiku had a little better grasp on the mobile sphere than Twitter. Twitter is certainly more prominent, but that doesn’t mean they had the best technology. And Google is moving forward quickly to get into the mobile arena (see my video post about this).
China made some news this week when it came out that they had banned all western search engines from the mainland. The story is that access to the 3 major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) in China is now being redirected to Baidu. As Techcrunch points out, this move is likely an economic one, where China is using it’s censorship powers to take power away from US search companies and redirect to a Chinese company on the NASDAQ. There was some back-and-forth on whether this story is indeed true. Search Engine Land is reporting they got numerous reports from China that this block was indeed the case, yet Scoble linked over to a blogNation China blogger who is reporting it not to be the case. My guess is that this is indeed happening, but that the Chinese IT guys are like our own – they just can’t get it all to work sometimes. 
Facebook made some news when it came out that their traffic had declined. My first impression is and was – whoope doo. On the short term, every website goes up AND DOWN. It is the trend that is important. And Marketing Pilgrim states that the same exact thing happened with Facebook this time last year and Facebook hasn’t exactly shown any signs of subsiding.
Google PageRank is something a lot of site owners pay attention to. But, is it as important as some say? DailySEOBlog has posted 10 Reasons why I Don’t Care About Google PageRank. And, from my experience, PageRank is overvalued. Just over at PCMech, I get my stories routinely posted to Tech Dispenser, a new site from ComputerWorld. Tech Dispenser has a PR of 0 right now, likely because Google doesn’t update their pageranks very often. At the same time, PCMech got linked up on Chris Pirillo’s blog recently and I got very little traffic while his blog has a PR of 7. Tech Dispenser routinely sends in more traffic than Pirillo did from his post. I guess if Google updated PR values more often, it would have more meaning. But, do not make the mistake of thinking PR is a measure of the quality of a website.
Yaro Starak did a great post: I Made $10,899.83 From Blogging in September. Yaro does great with his blogging, obviously. He goes on to explain a few lessons on how to do it, and the most important one is diversification. He notes in his post that he did not make that revenue from any one source. And I can tell you from experience that it is hard to make that kind of money from any one source. I have never divulged exact income amounts anywhere online, but let’s just say that I make close to the same amount of money per month in my web publishing business. I have my hands in many different pots to make that happen: advertising, affiliate income, e-commerce, some consulting work, etc. It all combines. I’ll send a shout out to Yaro and point some attention at his Blog Mastermind program if you want to learn more. As of now, I am not an affiliate with the program and I have not yet seen what it contains, but I know Yaro knows what he’s doing.
Smashing Magazine is awesome, and they posted another classic: Best Practices for Bulletproof Email Delivery. If you send out mass email to your mailing list, definitely check this out.
Lastly, CopyBlogger has released a free report: Forget Everything You Know About Making Money Online (And Start Making Some). You can download it here. I haven’t read it yet, but I plan to in a little bit. And Brian Clark (the guy behind CopyBlogger) usually has good things to say on his blog.
So, that’s it for this week. Tomorrow I have been assigned the duty of painting the baby room at home. All is well on the baby front. My wife is due in less than two months, and she has a baby shower coming up in 2 weeks. So, I guess we’re in the home stretch! Now, I need to paint the baby room the color of my wife’s choosing so that she can start setting things up properly. So, that’s my weekend. Fun fun.
Microsoft and Facebook, Myspace Shows Muscle, Wordpress 2.3
This week, the LinkedIn.com service has said they plan to add the ability to add photos to your profile. LinkedIn is the business-oriented social networking site. It’s a cool site, but quite frankly it moves at a turtle’s compared to other networks. Besides, the other networks had photo capability a long time ago. But, hey, it’s news.
Yahoo has bought Zimbra for $350 million. Zimbra is an open source alternative to Microsoft Exchange, but through the web. It is, in other words, a fancy web-based email service. I’m left wondering why Yahoo wanted these guys, but we shall see. Maybe they are looking to outdo Google with a real piece of software that is more robust than Google Apps.
Mashable is reporting that Mark Zuckerburg, the 23-year-old CEO of Facebook, was spotted in Seattle. FORTUNE is reporting that he is there to meet with Microsoft. Microsoft apparently plans to buy a stock stake in Facebook. I can see why Microsoft would be interested, but I fail to see what Facebook has to gain out of that deal other some money.
Oh, and with Facebook being all the rage among some, Myspace strikes back. “Everyone believes all the b.s. press that says MySpace is done for and Facebook has passed us,” moans Tom Anderson, CEO of Myspace. And he has a point. Myspace is still the most popular site in the U.S. A LOT of people still frequent that crappy-ass site. So, he is right, Facebook has not surpassed Myspace. And I don’t know if it will. But, it should. Facebook is better than Myspace in about every way.
Smashing Magazine has posted a great list of 10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of. All site owners are guilty of some stupid stuff with their sites. Read the article to see what to avoid.
Lastly, Wordpress 2.3 has been released. In the release, it reads:
“I’m thrilled to announce that Version 2.3 “Dexter” of WordPress is now ready for the world. This release includes native tagging support, plugin update notification, URL handling improvements, and much more. This release is named for the great tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon.”
I have not yet upgraded anything. I will need to do so with a testbed because I am concerned they might have broken some of the plug-ins.
BlogRush or BlogBust – A Pyramid Scheme?
I made a quick mention of Blogrush a few days ago and have withheld major comment on it – until now. Leave it to John Reese to use his savvy marketing to create such a buzz about this product that bloggers have RUSHed to it in droves. I actually find the name ironic because it reminds me of the California gold rush. No doubt that is exactly the attitude John Reese wanted bloggers to have.
I have seen BlogRush all over the blogosphere. And bloggers generally fall into a few different categories on this:
- BlogRush is awesome. The next internet boom is here.
- BlogRush could be cool, but we’ll see.
- BlogRush is just another dumb gimmick.
Well, I was in the second category. The bloggers in the first category are the ones that are just a little too exuberant about it. They are mailing out their referral link to their mailing list. They are giving rave reviews of this thing. In all, they are being intellectually dishonest with their audience. Because here’s the deal…
I tried BlogRush out on PC Mechanic for a little bit. All in all, I gave them a boatload of traffic. The way the system works, each page view I give the widget earns me a credit and, hence, a syndicated view of one of my headlines somewhere in the network. Well, first off, they are WAY behind in delivery. They have delivered upon only about a tenth of the credits I earned. But, the syndicated displays they did give me (about 2,200) across the network resulted in only 2 clicks. I say again, 2 CLICKS!
Let’s do the math on that. That’s a click-through ratio of 0.0009%.
John Reese is a marketer. Even he can’t tell me he would continue investing anything (even if not money directly) into something that produces so little.
The only answer they give seems to be to improve your headlines. I’m sorry, my blog headlines are not bad at all. They perform quite well on other sites and get picked up fairly routinely. So, it’s not my headlines. It’s the fact that end users are not responding to BlogRush. Only the bloggers are, and they are in it for the traffic. So, it’s a one-sided pyramid scheme.
And pyramid scheme is exactly how BlogRush is marketed. Those who get in early are at the top of the pyramid and have the most to gain. Especially as other bloggers sign up using my widget. That’s classic MLM.
And it is those types of people who seem to mostly be signing up for BlogRush. The headlines I have been seeing mostly are from internet marketing sites. Makes sense, as those are the types of people who generally follow John Reese.
I’ll throw BlogRush a bone here. First, this is a brand new program. It is quite possible it will improve. I would imagine that the headlines will become more related over time. But, that doesn’t alleviate the problem which is that the design of this MLM pyramid basically builds in an off-balance situation in the network, where people are posting the widget looking for traffic but no end users are actually CLICKING on the widget because they don’t give a crap.
For now, BlogRush is not a rush. It might be a rush for bloggers looking for a quick fix of traffic. They might think that by attaching themselves to anything with John Reese behind it might be gold. But, as of now, it’s a bust. Instead of a rush, it is barely even a crawl.
Don’t get me wrong on one thing. I really admire John Reese. The guy is frickin’ talented. But, at this admittedly early stage, I see little value to taking up screen space with the BlogRush widget. I will continue to follow what experiences other bloggers have with it.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
