Category Archives: Business – Affiliate Marketing

Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Celebrity Sightings

Hair Pulling Extension Tension Intervention – Real Housewives

July 13, 2010 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

“She certainly didn’t look like she just pushed out a watermelon out of her chuckarella.” – Dina Manzo from Real Housewives of New Jersey

Time for another one of my D-List celebrity sightings. If you happen to be a fan of Real Housewives of New Jersey, you will happen to see a tall good looking gentleman named Greg who is titled as a friend of Albie, the eldest son of Caroline Manzo. You have seen him in the episode when Albie confronts his other friend who is dating his younger sister, Lauren.

Most recently, you would have seen him on Season 2 Episodes 9 and 10 sitting next to Theresa at the fashion show (famously now known as the hair extension pulling episode) and later walking Ashley, Jacqueline’s daughter. Below is a picture of me with Greg, a business associate of mine in the affiliate marketing world.

Me and Greg from Real Housewives of New Jersey

Business - Affiliate Marketing

Testing Affiliate Links and Personal Merchandising

June 27, 2010 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

This store brought to you by

Bench: Smithtown, New York

Wasting Money

Good in Business

Wasting Money

Pictures

I’m going to keep this brief as I’m just testing some links, but as it relates to my theory of web based personal retail the above example “virtual gallery” by Art.com is the perfect example for discussion that I thought I’d share it here.

Art.com calls itself the best kept secret on the web. In fact, it is the biggest brand you’ve never heard of. Above is what they call their virtual store. Any of their affiliates can place one of these “widgets” on their own website/blog as I am doing here. Now that is half the battle. There is no viralness to this widget. I do love that someone like myself can display for you some art that they find interesting or that they’d like to share with you. It allows me to broadcast what I like.

What do I not like about it you ask? Art.com does not make it easy to share. If someone wants to make a copy of this gallery or make one themself, how do they do that? Art.com has created a great widget. Now they have to turn on the marketing engines. Art.com has developed the application on Facebook, but similary there is no viralness. There should be an embed or share button somewhere. There might be, but I couldn’t find one.

If you want to get one of these widgets, go to http://affiliates.art.com

Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Business Lemmings and Lack of Marketing Fundamentals

March 9, 2010 erikhom@aol.com 2 Comments

Advertising is tax deductible, so we all pay for the privilege of being manipulated and controlled.: Noam Chomsky
US activist & linguist (1928 – )

Before I rant, let me just say 3 things:

1. Other than email marketing from an owned list, a well run affiliate marketing program is the best ROI marketing tool on the web when it comes to sales.

2. When it comes to customer aquisition, a well run affiliate marketing program provides the cheapest way to bring new customers or returning lapsed customers back to your business.

3. In the new world of social media and the fragmented web, we are finally at the point of peer-to-peer distributed marketing at it’s purest online form.

Now if you don’t believe these statements as fact, you (and your dog) can stop reading right here and talk to my hand.

Yesterday the State of Colorado passed a bill that caused Amazon, the so-called father of Affiliate Online Marketing to shut out its’ community of affiliate marketers on the Web. Some say that Amazon could have fought the State and others say that Amazon was sticking by it’s principles, but I say this is all a silly excuse by Amazon like many other greedy companies to cut their costs. They weren’t afraid that this might prevent them from having to do this in other states, but what I do fear is that this action will cause the many corporate lemmings of affiliate marketing to say, “we should follow Amazon’s lead” and drop our Colorado affiliates too.

A little over a decade ago, the lead venture capital firm , CMG Ventures, for my start-up specifically came to us and I was given money to “build an affiliate marketing program just like Amazon’s”. Back then, a deal with AOL was worth something, eyeballs were worth something, and building a strong affiliate marketing program was worth something. They were right. a $10MM investment turned int0 a $100MM business just 2 months later. I remember our acquirer marveling at how I had amassed 25K new points of distribution that drove 8% of our business.

While some might debate the validity of the analysis during those years, affiliate programs still were the unsung heroes of driving traffic for online companies which had no real name for themselves. The new online “dot-coms” and their online affiliate partners dominated and created formidable foes for their larger “brick and mortar” foes. The hope was to build a large enough network that would help fend off the bigger brands once they entered the online world. Other than email, the best marketing ROIs came from affiliate programs where contextual selling becme the key buzzwords along with collaborative filtering”. Back then and today though, companies really struggled to figure out whether these programs were “brand builders” or “traffic drivers”. I’ll address this in another post.

Now today you hear about Amazon dropping their affiliate marketing program in certain states because of taxes. Are they turning their back on the girl that brought them to the prom? Are they putting man’s best friend out on the street? Let’s get something straight. There are alternatives. They can charge taxes in those states and let those politicians see the inequities. People understand. How many times have you purchased something online where it said something like, “those in CA, VA, TX, and NY must pay 4% additional”? Happens all the time. Don’t tell me that Amazon couldn’t have imposed that strategy. Not to mention at a time when affiliate marketing is now showing some oats with the power of social media marketing coming in to play, there is no doubt that affiliate marketing is beginning to feel it’s traction again. This can’t happen in every state or else all affiliates will be living in another country or New Jersey (take your pick).

I’ve even had people in my company (you know the people who know little about your business but always like to send you links just because the follow Guy Kawasaki and Alltop which makes them a genius) send me the Colorado announcement and say “oops, looks like your Colorado affiliates are all going away.” It just shows the lack of clarity as my current business doesn’t fall under those same laws. The rush to judgment like lemmings would easily spell the ending of affiliate marketing as we know it. “Why would they do something like that then?”, I’ve been asked.

If you haven’t worked inside a large company, the phrases “customer ownership”, “brand dilution” and “incremental sales” are terms I’ve heard mentioned at almost every large company I’ve worked with. There is no doubt that now that Amazon is a large firm and not just some online start-up that they might just feel they don’t need as much help from the online community helping to build brand equity and that they already own the customer because just about everyone online knows who Amazon is by now, is in their database, and is no longer an incremental customer (somebody who hasn’t purchased from them before). They no doubt have done some analysis and figured what percentatge of those links from Colorado were already customers or could have come from links from somewhere else instead. As much as Google is the big Brother of the Web, Amazon knows more about Web consumption behavior than anyone.

So you see, they have spent the last 10 years gaining ownership over your traffic that you sent them. Your Uncle Charlie who clicked through your link in your blog and bout Sarah Palin’s book? Yep, Amazon now has his email on file. And likely knows his birthday and the last 8 items he looked at online. That next purchase? Yep, they don’t need your Colorado taxes and can pocket that 4% affiliate commission they aren’t going to pay out anymore.

Yep, Amazon is smart and they know points 1 & 2 stated above. What they argue though is statement #3 and where politicians look like the greediest (and dumbest) of all. Politicians are also to blame here. So this is a new advertising tax, eh? So now when I tell my friend via Facebook or Twitter about a cool book and add an affiliate link, that I should be taxed for opening my mouth? Dear Mr. Colorado Governor, since when is giving advice taxable? Are you going to tax every conversation on the Web? Books have always been sold because someone told them it was good or because the NY Times put it on their Bestseller list (Oh so now we might want to get all those last taxes for those NY Times Best Seller referrals)! Let’s have some common sense.

This just won’t happen. People will lose jobs. Measurable consumption will disappear. Good, quality advertising techniques and methodologies will be left behind in the dust.

As we post this entry, the Senator from Colorado has said he will listen to those who will want to complain. Let’s hope this is more action than just a political move.

Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good from Affiliate Summit 2010

March 7, 2010 erikhom@aol.com 2 Comments

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the problem is I do not know which half

Lord Leverhulme 1851-1925, British founder of Unilever and philanthropist

I was recently asked to recap my thoughts on this past Affiliate Summit for colleagues in my Company as many are new to the business and we are going through a reogranization . It was pretty remedial and I wished I could have elaborated more. The industry has come a long way but it still has a long way to go. The good thing is that it has been two months, so nobody will read this anyway.

When I posted before I left for the annual Affiliate Summit, I had lots of thoughts about the industry and its direction. And while the Affiliate Summit gave me many more things to ponder, I think many of the assumptions I had going in were answered or at least became a little more clear to me. I have to say that I probably find myself on the more conservative side of the industry, but since I work in the more corporate end of the affiliate marketing industry that is probably where I get my opinions. That said, as an affiliate marketer industry veteran like most in the industry, we are rogues, entrepreneurial thinkers, outside of the box workers, and sometimes just plain troublemakers.

This year’s Affiliate Summit keynote was delivered by Dr. Robert Cialdini, psychologist and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. I’d actually heard Dr. Cialdini before and thought his speech would be rather interesting with this crowd given that the last time I’d heard him was in a room full of MBA alumni in our local Commonwealth Club. Online affiliates are a crazy mix of people. Most are on their second careers. I’ve met ex-lawyers, ex-dcotors, empty nesters, etc. But if there is one way to describe them all in one, it’s tenacious marketers. these people sell all day long and thus Dr. Cialdini’s speech while maybe falling on virgin ears to many was a rallying call to them. “How can I influence people and make them buy from me?” So why is this relevant and why am I rambling? Well one of the psychological influencing tools that Dr. Cialdini uses is to tell you the good news last. And that is why I reversed the title of this entry to The Ugly, the Bad & the Good”.

The UGLY – Given that I’ve been in the affiliate marketing world for 12 years now I expect to see change. How long is 12 years in this business? Scott Jangro just received the industry “Legend” award which I think qualifies me as a dinosaur (my boss so aptly called me a relic). Well there has been change, but we are still getting a lot of new people in the industry. I stomp my feet and smile when standing in front of a big sign that says “Ticketmaster” and someone asks me what we’re selling. There are lots of people new to the industry and patience (lots of it) goes a long way. I actually think that the most interesting person I met at the conference was a new first time attendee that I met at the blackjack table at 2 in the morning (Yes the conference was in Vegas, and part of why this was Ugly).

So what’s ugly? It’s that this industry has become more complex in its problems. It still struggles for the respectability and recognition of the contributions that it provides to the online world, and many of the basic understandings of the industry are still questioned and not being practiced in a respectful manner. This is not the fault of the industry but the greater understanding of affiliate marketing in general

THE BAD? The bad is that while there is innovation, there needs to be more. There appear to be a lot of businesses which are varations of others. The exhibit floors are aisles of networks peddling the same things. Everyone claims their network or platform is better than the next. As a merchant one could just look at all those networks and say forget it. In speaking with other merchants, many said that they couldn’t fathom the commoditization of networks. Sure, some had unique propositions such as video or mobile implementaions, but there was very little else different between the models. While the idea of belonging to multiple networks turns off many people because of the lack of control, publishers are left to play with many of them, not being able to really differentiate one vs. the other. That doesn’t mean that merchants are any better. The lack of representation from merchants such as Amazon, the leading merchant innovator, as well as traditional brand names leaves the publishers very little choice but to deal with the networks who try to act on the behalf of these merchants. It also shows a bit of concern about the lack of interest by management of these companies.

THE GOOD Well for all the issues, there are still some cornerstones that enable the industry to thrive. Affiliate marketing continues to be the most economical marketing online tool. ROI driven companies are starting to notice how efficient these programs are in terms of sales. As Gary Vaynerchuk said, affiliates are the hardest working people on the web (the also are the hardest partying). Many of the original pioneers in the business have done very well for themselves and many veterans in the industry (Todd Crawford) continue to innovate and develop new businesses to adress many of the problems that have plagues the industry for the last decade.

The industry doesn’t have as much low hanging fruit as it used to but there still exist lots of opportunities to innovate There are people still focused on financial gain or first mover advantage. We have to move beyond that. As this past year’s speaker (@copyblogger) mentioned, those who work at it longer will win. There is still a lot of opportunity to win in social media, feeds, APIs, etc. when you combine with affiliate marketing.

In the end though, what makes the industry is the people. It is one of the best parts about the affiliate market industry and as long as it attracts more smart and knowledgeable people. And if it retains the learnings of the past 12 years, it would become a staple in the arsenal of all successful online marketers and not just an afterthought.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Business - Affiliate Marketing

Internet Marketing from the Real Experts

February 3, 2010 erikhom@aol.com 1 Comment

Internet Marketing My Shawn Collins and Missy Ward

At our recent Affiliate Summit, the organizers, Shawn Collins and Missy Ward unveiled their new book Internet Marketing From the Real Experts, a compilation of lessons from many of our colleagues in the internet marketing world.

The book has quickly risen into the top 1200 list on Amazon with very little marketing….or should I say traditional marketing. The beauty of a book written about internet marketing is that it will likely be marketed well by those who wrote it. In fact, the Gang of 88, as the contributing writers are called, are all marketing the book in their own way in blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter, etc. Shawn and Missy also gave an incentive by giving all people who wrote a review online a silver pass to their next Affiliate Summit in New York in August.

The book is a quick read and for those of us in the business many of the “3 minute anecdotes” might seem trivial but for someone just entering the game and wanting some quick reference points will find this book to be a good useful starting point. While I found myself shaking my head at some passages I also found myself nodding my head at others. There are probably sections I might never read, but that is why the book was written this way.

The book is written so that you can skip around and find the parts relevant to you. Want thoughts on Twitter and Social Media? There is a chapter. Want to know about SEO and SEM? Video? There are sections dedicated to those topics as well. The articles are based upon the writings from the first 7 issues of the of their magazine Feed Front. Some might look at the title and say, “experts”? Well maybe the writers aren’t experts, but they are real people in the industry who do the dayd to day work. Thay aren’t professors or pontificators, but really the people on the affiliate line on a daily basis.

I could go on and on, but I don’t want to reveal too much about the book because I think those interested should purchase the book themselves. Still not sure if this book is for you and perhaps would like a reason to purchase a marketing book? At $14.93 on Amazon the book is a bargain, but not just for the knowledge gained, but because all proceeds from the sale of the book go to benefit and help the Fight Against Breast Cancer, a cause near and dear to the hearts of the authors and those in the industry.

While at the Summit I kiddingly asked Shawn to sign the copy included in my bag. He laughed and I told him I wasn’t kidding. Admittedly he was more distracted by the football game on the screen in front of him as his beloved Jets were playing in the playoffs.

I didn’t read what he wrote until returned home. Hmmmmm, looks like I might have to write something for Feed Front to be included in the next edition. Perhaps the ongoing struggle of running affiliate programs within larger corporations.

Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

A New Decade of Affiliate Marketing: New Questions? Or Just the Same?

January 15, 2010 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.

– John Naisbitt, American Author and businessman

It’s the eve of our main annual Affiliate Marketing Industry conference (Affiliate Summit) and a couple of people have asked me how I see this next year and decade shaping up compared to the past 10 years in the industry.

On the surface there are many obvious changes, but we should look deeper. A decade ago (2000) BeFree and Linkshare as well as large merchants roamed the industry. Today there are many more networks and less merchants and less independent affiliates roaming the halls in my view. The era of banner creatives and tool bars have now progressed into RSS Feeds, widgets and APIs. The names Marciano, Messer and Gerace are now replaced by Collins, Ward, and Brogan. Online communities such as eCircles, Geocities and the Tribe have now been overtaken by Myspace, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. One thing is for sure the affiliate marketing industry has evolved and matured, certain vertical areas have consolidated ,and many in the industry have learned to fuse either their marketing savvy with their technology hutzpah or vice versa.

Some people such as Owen Van Natta have taken that prowess to the next level. 10 years ago Owen was was in Business Development having led the Amazon Associates affiliate program. Today he is the CEO of MySpace. 10 years ago, Todd Crawford was this upstart with a company called Commission Junction. He sold that network and is now starting the new decade with the launch of a new business which we will likely be hearing more about over the next couple of weeks and especially at this conference. I look forward to hearing the pitch from Todd and his partners.

There are other issues. Even certain industries within affiliate marketing are changing. In the music space, for instance, 10 years ago people would buy a $12.99 CD from Amazon and get an 8-10% commission. Today, more people are buying downloads of single songs from iTunes or $.99 and the affiliate commission is only $.05. This is such that recorded music has disappeared in the affiliate music space as an interesting option.

Okay, so the technology has advanced, the channels have changed, some industries have changed and if the faces haven’t changed they definitely have become a little bit older, but what hasn’t changed is that basic marketing and sales principles can not and should not be ignored.

What will the next decade have in store for the Affiliate Marketing Industry?

Will it work in mobile? Is it Click to call?

(To be continued)

Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Social Media in Marketing is Just That…Social

December 7, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 1 Comment

Last month I spoke on a panel at a Marketing conference at Electronic Arts in Redwood City with several marketing professionals speaking about innovations in marketing. The panel was set up a bit around brand marketing as well as social media so those on the panel spread across a large group of marketing functions as well as types of companies. After all, marketing for a consumer packaged goods company is not the same as marketing for an online gaming company. We have a much better educated consumer these days.

The questions were pretty basic about our own particular experiences. I always think that each industry, product and company has its own challenges/barriers to overcome. In the entertainment business where I have run affiliate marketing partnerships for the last 10 years, the challenges are very unique whether an established brand such as Ticketmaster or a hot new start up like Reel.com was back in 1997. It is hard to give advice when such antedotes do not apply to other situations. In the end the basic principles of managing your brand are still the same though and times have changed in brand marketing, product, promotion, placement, and pricing (the 4 P’s) are still very important and fundamental to the marketing of a product or service.

There did come a point during Q&A though when the panel was asked about what is the new hot thing or what is innovative in Marketing today. Many on the panel hesitated and I started to agree with some of the responses that there is nothing really new and innovative. Maybe there were new channels such as the internet and social networks where placement was just more timely and pricing is more discounted and services and browser based products seemed to succeed better than physical products.

Just as the conversation stopped I asked everyone if they knew who the CEO of Electronic Arts is (this panel was taking place in their building after all) and a few hands were raised. I asked the same about Proctor & Gamble. Again hardly anyone raised their hands. I then followed and asked if anyone felt either of those brands knew who they were. Silence. When I asked the same of Amazon, Microsoft and Zappos, the names Bezos, Ballmer and Hsieh were blurted out and hands were raised and people agreed those companies sure knew a whole hell of a lot about who their comsumers are. For years, companies have been wanting to “own” the customer so that they could market to them as efficiently as possible on a 1 to 1 basis. Well the big deal and innovative piece is that these companies are now able to do this. Faces now represent the brand more than ever. Sure we all knew Lee Iacocca, but he never had a dialogue like new companies do today. The opportunity to get to know your customer is there so that the dialogue is no longer about nameless faces and people talking to you from a call center in some 3rd world country asking you about the weather.

Sending an email or letter to a company CEO used to be hard enough as nobody gave you their information. Now people like CEO Tony Hsieh of Zappos have their own public Twitter accounts where you can have a public or private dialogue with him about how much like his company or your favorite pair of shoes that you want him to carry. Now while that may not be quite that personal and while Tony might not respond to everyone, it is quite empowering to the customer that at least their voice will be heard. In this day and age our society always wants to air their grievances and praises publicly. Things just aren’t that personal anymore.

That said, in the world of music, there is a lot of impersonalization going on when it comes to music discovery. It always used to be that you had one or two good friends who you could rely on to recommend a hot new song. You would also rely on your favorite DJ to introduce you to something cool. Nowadays, radio stations are being condensed, Djs are now replaced online by music sites where you self select and program your own radio station and or get recommendations from perfect strangers. I personally find the recommendations on iTunes to be very off-putting. Artists such as Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) and Matt Morris (@Mattmorris) are getting personal on Twitter, interacting with their fans. Backstage passes mean a whole new thing with artists granting you the opportunity to meet them before a show and take photos for just a little more money. Gone are the days when the artists were held on a pedastal like gods and you swayed in a mosh pit of 50,000 people barely able to see the band. People want to touch and feel the merchandise. My 7-year old daughter now believes that every concert starts with getting together with the band for a photo shoot. She doesn’t root for people on the awards shows because of the music they play but rather on how nice they were to her when we went to see them play. She wants me to text them during the concert to win an after concert meeting as well. Of course my job affords me these luxuries occasionally, but as this example points out, people have a tendency to have an affinity for those things which have a little more touch in their lives. People don’t want to just have a photo or a poster of Lady Gaga, but they want to be in a photo with Lady Gaga and they want to put it on their Myspace page.

So here’s the point. Social media now allows us to do what we used to do on a more realtime basis. We used to get advice from the 3-4 resources in our lives that shaped our tastes. Now we still can, but we are able to share more information and on a more timely basis. We’re also able to get more information in your hands so you can make a better decision. Sometimes the brand, or serice or product is presented to you in a way that is more personal as well. Your friends who told you about the next great thing, now can just send you a quick note via Twitter to your cell phone. Why is this important? Because you’d rather hear that advice from a face and name you know rather than a person you’ve never met. We learn more about each other and sometimes we get to give feedback that someone will really use.

In the end its all a personal sale, a personal purchase that means more to you than it probably would have 10 years ago. Its a real change in marketing evolution. It’s about at least three things that help social media to change the way we make our buying decisions today: 1) More product information 2) More Personalization/customization and 3) more timely interaction. But remember, it’s not that new. It’s just that the social media world just makes us more social. It’s just not a good social in my mind. Playing games online through a virtual network rather than in the same room, sharing music through file sharing rather than having listening parties around a turntable, and sending someone a virtual rose for Valentines as opposed to handing a real rose is social, but just not the same. We run the risk of building very loose relationships. In the world of customer acquisition, the cost of those relationships should not be as high as those we have paid for in the past.

Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Does the Affiliate Marketing Industry Need To Get Back to Basics?

August 20, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 2 Comments

“Life is an Occasion, Rise to It.” – Dustin Hoffman in Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

( The opinions expressed here are strictly are those of the author and are not in anyway endorsed or promoted by any relation, acquaintance or employer)

As an attendee at a recent Affiliate Advertising conference I found myself motivated by the speeches, yet dismayed by the situation the affiliate industry is in. Like most conferences, this conference did a pretty good of providing you with “go forth” motivational messages and tools for what to do next, but it is the attendees who need to bring it on home and practice it.

The messages about trust, personal PR, building your own brand, social medias future role, weathering the current economy, etc. were all there and for the most part delivered on target. Those are what I gathered of the themes of the panels and keynotes, but as I looked around I could see there is something missing at the day-to-day level and that in order for these messages to thrive, there needs to be more directness in not only what those messages were, but who is delivering them.

We had two keynotes delivered at our affiliate conference. Filter through them and you can see the impetus, but wonder where the practice will be. You can watch the keynote videos here:

Peter Shankman: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1965661

Chris Brogan & Julien Smith: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1960635

Peter Shankman, 2nd day keynote at ASE09

When you combine these two speeches with the keynote delivered by Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV from the Winter Conference, you can begin to see where the transformation needs to begin. Gary said it best when he said, “Affiliate marketing is hard work, and those in the industry are the hardest working people out there. They are the Rocky’s of the advertising world. They drink raw eggs and do push ups on rocks before getting on their computers in the morning”. Armed with Gary’s motivational speech resonating in my ears, and refueled by the two keynotes at this latest conference I feel there are a few things that need to be revisited as we get back to basics.

1. Merchants: Know your salesforce (affiliates). Be a face for them, and not just a brand. These are your hardest working employees.

2. Affiliates: Know your merchant industries. Don’t just sign up for a program without truly knowing the product and industry you are working in. Focus on the title of being a top salesperson, not a hired gun.

3. Affiliates: Be honest to your followers. Don’t give them something unless you truly think it might benefit them and not simply because it gives you a high commission. Trust is something you earn, not something you buy.

Having attended these conferences since 1998 (Many consider the online affiliate business to have truly started when Amazon launched their program in 1996) I’ve seen the birth, the growth, and now I think we need to begin to see the disintermediation or at least a reaching out across the divide by merchants and affiliates. Back in 1998, the panels featured online merchants such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, Sears, Target and Amazon on panels with other merchants hanging on their every word and affiliates clamoring to figuring out how to market with them. Harking back to the theme of trust, big named brands are ones that people know and trust. Depending upon who you are, trust comes in different ways. For those big brands you know that they have real products and that there are real people, buildings, and business practices behind them. When buying products from Bestbuy.com, you know there are real stores and places to go when you need help. Would you as an affiliate tell your audience to buy products from Cheapcameras.com over BestBuy.com?

Sadly, I only saw Ticketmaster, Amazon and eBay as the major brand retailers with a booth. If you wanted to talk to gap.com you needed to talk to Commission Junction (CJ). I’m sure CJ didn’t have anyone there who could help affiliates understand this coming season’s new fashion trends. That’s not CJ’s fault. Same if you wanted to talk to iTunes. They would rely on Linkshare to spread the word about new releases this Fall? That is a mistake on the side of the merchant for relying on the networks to get the message out.

Social Networks are expanding and decentralizing the world of affiliate marketing with more new affiliates selling online every day. As a merchant, you HAVE to meet these people at the door. According to Shawn Collins of Affiliatesummit.com, there were more affiliates at this eastern conference than ever before. With the economy in flux and many unemployed, there are people turning to the industry for extra income. I met one woman who has a family plumbing business which is suffering with the lack of new housing developments. She decided to create a website fueled by affiliate referral fees. Every day I checked in with her and by the last day she said it was too hard to filter and there were so many companies she had never heard of. I told her to go with what she knew, what she’d be comfortable talking about with other people, and to experiment without spending a lot of money. By the end she decided to go with the Amazon program selling books in a niche topic area that she knew of, Home Improvement and would focus it in her local area. She had met with the Amazon reps and felt comfortable with them, so this was not much of a stretch for her.

The core of affiliate marketing are the merchants and the affiliates. Since this online industry started, new role titles such as advertiser, network, agency, and publisher have been all added to the mix. These are all great, but what is missing is the interactivity between merchants and the affiliates. In fact, at these conferences, you often see networks speaking to the affiliates about the merchants andvice versa. As a result, many large brand merchants choose to let the networks speak to the affiliates. As my current network, Buyat.com, can tell you, the ticket business is a lot more complex than it sounds. They’ve probably learned more than they ever cared to know, but understand how Ticketmaster might be the better party to answer a lot of these questions.

Over the last decade, Networks (Linkshare, CJ, Google (nee Performics)) have added much value to the industry and fueled the growth to what the industry is today and will continue to shape its future in some way. They add additional products and services that allow them to manage aspects of the affiliate business beyond traditional tracking and reporting. Management services such as widgets, feeds, affiliate recruiting, and servicing are all value added services that have helped to make the online affiliate marketing industry become much more prevalent. These are all important parts of the affiliate puzzle, but in the end, the best merchant andaffiliate relationships are the direct ones. Affiliates seem to be using these services as a proxy for getting to know what it takes to become a successful affiliate. They are forgetting the human aspect. Would you ever work for someone you didn’t know very well or sell a product to friends that might not be around tomorrow?

Message for the Merchants

As a merchant, the best relationships I’ve had are ones where I’ve worked closely with the affiliate to create a unique online experience. I often heard affiliates say that their network knows nothing about the merchant that they are representing and that they have never talked to a representative from that merchant organization. One affiliate at the conference told me that they felt more like an outsourced consultant rather than a field marketing and sales representative. That isn’t good (and this particular affiliate is pretty important if you ask me). Affiliates should be treated like regional sales people and the affiliate manager from the company should be the leader of the external sales force. This means they are responsible for training and communication with this group. I will speak only about my current program so as not to defame others, but I know that I have to go through a thorough education process to help people understand why ticket commissions are the way they are. These days most affiliates are all looking at who offers the highest commissions and not about what it is exactly they are selling. Someone might say they could earn $50 for the sale of some insurance product for a lead versus only $2 for selling a ticket to a Beyonce concert, but they need to know the difference in the effort to sell one vs the other. They need to understand conversion rates, uniqueness/scarcity of product, and the likelihood the consumer will have a good experience with a known name brand product over one they’d never heard of. Yes, brands = trust and to Chris Brogan’s point, they are Trust Agents.

It doesn’t mean that being a big brand you can’t have an individual identity. Look at Frank of @comcastcares on Twitter as a good example. He has personalized the Comcast service. So when people who are upset with Comcast go online they know that Frank is just a person who is trying to help and he works to make that experience better. He puts a face to that persson on the other end of the message. Also try Dick’s Sporting Goods CMO, Jeff Hennion who provides discounts online (@dickssportcmo on Twitter). So those are cases of a traditional brands reaching out and getting personal. On the other hand Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, really put his own name out there to promote Zappos into a trust brand over other lesser known shoe sales companies like Shoebuy.com and shoes.com. There is nothing new here. We’ve seen this for a long time in traditional advertising. Both trusted celebrity endorsements as well as the founders lend their personasto connect with the consumer. Arnold Palmer was the face of Pennzoil for years, Steve Jobs is the man behind Apple innovation, Jared is the face behind Subway ads, and all the faces of Blue Shirt Nation (the Best Buy staff) have developed a reputation for knowledge about products. Even if you can’t talk to these people directly, their persona makes the brand come to life. Last night I had an interaction with a woman on Twitter who wasn’t happy. When I responded to her via our twitter account in a direct message, she was not only shocked that Ticketmaster had a voice, but that we were funny (I made a reference to a Kelly Clarkson song knowing that she was a Kelly Clarkson fan by saying “Life would suck without you”). She told everyone she could on Twitter that our brand had won brownie points with her. It turns out that she is also an affiliate which has been part of my mantra for merchants: “Affiliates are your best customers”. We also know the customer is always king. If you want to work well with ShoppingBargains.com, you don’t use your network. You work closely with Michael Allen, but first you have to build a personal brand relationship with him that leads to trust.

Edelman, one of the largest PR firms in the country, recently came out with a mid-year study on Trust in Brands. The findings were pretty obvious, but merchants have a chance to change this:

What can the Affiliate do?

If you are new to the affiliate game or maybe think you don’t know the inner workings of your current merchant programs, make sure you understand the business. Shoot off an email to your merchant and ask them for some good sources of information about their industry and what would be a good example of an affiliate that does well. Becoming an affiliate is not all about the biggest commissions. This isn’t about instant success or overnight riches. As Gary Vaynerchuk says, “It is hard work”.

Get to know your merchant business. Don’t just pick up a pamphlet and take it for granted. Don’ t just go with the numbers promised to you. This isn’t a get rich quick scheme. This is a business remember? I often see new affiliates starstruck by the big numbers: High percentage commissions, promises of strong clicks, high conversion rates, and high lead fees. Later they find that while those numbers might be real for them, the actual transactions are few and far between. Affiliates get a quick lesson in ROI and humility. People spend lots of money buying keywords on search engines and run out of money in days. I often tell people 20% of nothing is nothing, but 3% of $100 times 50 transactions can get you a nice dinner. Yes I can tell you stories of the movie nut college who was in my program at Reel.com who earned $15k/month pushing potty training videos to moms all over the web (Potty Training for Him outsold Potty Training for Her in case you are interested). But he had a secret. His parents were a pediatrician and a pre-school teacher. He was a video nut kid, but really focused on educational videos. Sure he sold a few copies of Titanic, but who didn’t. I had other affiliates who knew the release dates of every movie on DVD for sale or rental and were all over our site before our content people could announce it on our home page listings. They would even tell us when there were mistakes on our site. I had another affiliate tell me how low my rates were compared to another retailer and I told them that as a car salesperson in the real world, you’d get more for selling a new car over a used car, and you’d get more for selling a Porsche than a Honda. Why should this be different in the online world. Every product has a different audience, a different purchase cycle, different margins and a different value to the consumer. Remember, you have to act like the key salesperson for your boss (the merchant). Let them know you understand their business or at least want to know more.

Yesterday I was sent an tweet by the blog, Internet Marketing Review 101, in which they explained affiliate marketing as someone accidentally coming across your ad. There is no accident in the online marketing world anymore. Recommendations and promotions are highly targeted and when you send someone to a merchant, it is done with a purpose. Would you tell your grandmother to go to the corner of 42nd Street in New York and buy a diamond necklace from a street vendor in a raincoat who promises you the same thing as Tiffany’s for $200 less but with no service or warranties? I don’t think so, unless you no longer want to inherit her estate. There is no accidental recommendation there. The article went on to speak about how the key to success was finding the right ad networks to use. I almost choked on my spring roll (warning: Do not eat lunch and read Twitter SPAM at the same time). I will not say this again. Affiliate marketing is not about the commissions you earn, but the number of transactions and long-lasting relationships you build. Its not just about eyeballs (impressions in the online world). A friend who runs a dating site said that his company only succeeds when they make a connection between two people and that connection lasts more than 2 dates. It isn’t about how many possible profiles that individual looks at before choosing one. Good matchmakers/marketers build relationships that last because they know their business.

Last, once you build trust with your merchants by showing them you are knowledgeable, then build that trust with your customer base. When I looked at the marketing sheets at the conference I saw merchants promoting their programs by leading with their rates. That hardly is the way affiliates will sell products. You need to go out and examine these merchants for yourself. You need to be able to look these people in the eye and tell them you gave them the very best you could. Novice affiliates will often build their followers through friends and family who spread the word. Can you feel comfortable when your mother in law tells you she followed a link from your Facebook page and that she got scammed, yet you have that $100 in your pocket for the lead you provided? Don’t you want people coming back to you for more? Gary Vaynerchuk isn’t going to recommend wine that he doesn’t like or thinks that you won’t like. That is why people follow him! He’s trustworthy or as Chris Brogan says, he’s a Trust Agent (caveat: living in San Francisco near the Napa Wine Country and as former Board Member of the Northern California American Institute of Wine and Food, I don’t follow Gary personally for wine recommendations, just his entertainment factor).

Summary

This is an important time in the online marketing world and the affiliate industry has a chance to bump up its value in the advertising food chain. Networks and Agencies are providing new tools and programs for the merchants and affiliates, but the fact is that they cannot do it alone and cannot act as a proxy one to one relationship between a merchant and an affiliate. The world is becoming one big salesforce and we all know that the best salesforce is the most educated one. In the new world of decentralized social media the best salesforce is also the most trusted one.

There are two lines of relationships that need to be reinforced: The one between the merchant and the affiliate and the other between the affiliate and the consumer. Okay, lets get text book here. This is in any business Marketing 101 class you might have taken and again in any Brand Management MBA course, but it has some application here to help the merchant and affiliate see eye to eye. They need to go over the Four Ps of marketing together: Product, Placement, Price and Promotion. If you are an affiliate and don’t understand the dynamics of these four keys of what you are selling for your efforts, then call your merchant today. And if you are a merchant and have not put out materials to educate your associates on these points, publish it now. These are just some basic points to cover in your relationship amongst others but they will more than likely improve your understanding of each other.

Now for the Affiliate and the consumer relationship the text book answer is the Four C’s of Marketing (Convenience, Cost, Consumer Needs andCommunication) which are the consumer oriented aspects of marketing. You need to communicate clearly with your audience to build that trust in today’s world and you have to provide some or all of the other threes C’s to your audience.

I know those last thoughts sound basic, but isn’t that what we want or need? We need to get back to the basics. There might have been over 3K people at the last Affiliate Summit but in my mind there should have been 10K. Everyone needs to go. Everyone, merchants and affiliates alike, needs to be at the next gathering and talk openly and freely about how they can help each other. We need to see merchants and affiliates hugging in the aisles and maybe even see a few Karaoke duets.

Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Affiliate Marketing – Why Now? Why Me?

August 8, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

“No matter how much pressure you feel at work, if you could find ways to relax for at least five minutes every hour, you’d be more productive.”
– Dr. Joyce Brothers

When my mother asked where I was heading this week, I told her I was going to the Affiliate Summit. “What’s that?” , she said? When I told her it was an advertising/ marketing conference, she looked at me oddly. Not unusual for my mother.

“But I thought you sold tickets”, was her reply.

Telling parents what you do in this day and age is always difficult to explain if you are not a lawyer or a doctor and especially worse if you are involved in technology. My mother once asked me when I was an investment banker on Wall St. if I knew the teller at her local bank on the other side of the country. So you can see my mother’s confusion, or at least the difficulty that I have in trying to explain what I do. In fact, it has taught me patience as well as an understanding of the need to break it down more simply.

When I told her it was like being an Avon lady except you could promote whatever you wanted online, you didn’t need to buy the product on consignment, and it was done strictly online, she pulled out her laptop and made me show her (I first sat her down with the video above). So after a 30 minute explaination of what affiliate marketing is, she was hooked and then started grilling me. Despite my mother’s “flightiness” she is pretty tech savvy for a 70 year old grandmother. In fact I would have to say she tends to be an earlier adopter of of retail than I am (as long as it is her idea). Not your typical geriatric mother, but she is one of the most productive people I know. So much so that she has started telling her friends about affiliate marketing and unfortunately they are now telling me daily about all the things they’ve helped to sell online for Amazon, etc. I am amused though as these women are all widowed friends of my mother who have Facebook accounts and blogs about their health which they started via an elderly technology class taught at the University of San Francisco’s Fromm Institute. They used to share information with each other during their Scrabble nights and now talk about how much product they sold on the Web. I must caveat all of this again and say my mother is a bit unusual. She was the first to put alfalfa sprouts in our sandwiches as kids, she wears a wooden fish around her neck (just so you know she is a Pisces), and has had many successful business ventures (before they were called ventures) in the gifts, confections and tourism industries. My mother is always selling something whether it was personal alarms, water purification systems , or vitamins, I think I heard all of her selling tactics. Afterwards, my mom hit me because I have been doing this for over 10 years and had never put her onto this. Truth be told I did, but my mom never listens to me (but that is another story).

So why am I telling you this about my mother? Well recently I’ve been looking at the attendance levels at the Affiliate Summit (ASE09) and saw how it has risen. As a mentor to first time attendees I was also assigned to 2 mentees this year which indicates that there are many people getting into the industry or learning more about it. As someone used to say, “it is the economy, stupid”. My feeling is that if my 70 year old mom can do it, so can you.

And why do you need to do this? Right now everyone is trying to make up for lost income due to the recession and the biggest beneficiaries are MOMMIES. I hear about moms offering massage therapy, holding clothing sales in their homes or helping as a doula. Some moms are strictly going back to work and restarting their careers. My sister has restarted her speech pathology consulting again. Women from single income families are earning income in as many ways as they can. An interesting side note, many of these women right now would be still considered unemployed and not reflect against the rising unemployment rate. Mommy blogs and moms (check twitter) who have started businesses online are extremely successful. MyBargainBuddy.com and SunshineRewards are two companies started by moms who are very big in the affiliate marketing game, work from their homes and make a very comfortable living while mainintaining household. One mom, Tricia Meyer, of Sunshine Rewards, even has her young daughter video tape some of the video for her blog.

So now many people might thing that this industry might be mature and that they have missed the boat. Au contraire. The affiliate marketing world is ripe for you. Many large companies are looking for the lowest cost for acquiring sales during this down time as their marketing budgets are getting trimmed left and right. Affiliate marketing has long been the cheapest way of advertising online.
Secondly, social marketing in the affiliate world has not yet been fully tapped and my guess is that it won’t be for a while. This is because the power is in you,the individual. It is your ability, just like my moms, to influence people just like you do in the real world. While there may be people who think they can help you tap into people like my mom and help sell women’s shoes for example, they might have no idea how poor of a seller of shoes my mother might be. In fact my mother might be the best at recommending chocolates and movies, but if you’ve seen my mother’s attire, she is not the one who should be giving advice (sorry mom, just my opinion).

So if you are new to the game, and are looking for some way to make a little money, think about what it is that makes you an expert about something. Figure out how you can use that knowledge and help your friends and their friends fins what they need and earn you some income based upon referrals. For example, I spent quite a few years in the travel industry visiting the most luxurious hotels in the world both in the US and abroad. I have many people ask me where to stay and where to go and if I wanted, I could send them to my website and link them straight to those hotels , cruise lines, etc and make a profit, just like a travel agent. Travel and music (the industry I’m in) are two industries that people seek personal advice from people based upon individual opinions. Some other good ones are health and financial.

For more information, I suggest checking out some of my affiliate marketing links on the right. I would also do some reasearch and possibly attend Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas in January 2010.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Business - Affiliate Marketing, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

It’s About Nothing!

April 11, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

“Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.” – Jerry Seinfeld

You might have noticed I slightly altered the tagline about this blog. I’ve been debating it since I had a conversation with a good friend a couple of weeks ago. He was interested to learn I had a blog and wanted to know what it was about. We’ve shared many of life’s details that we haven’t shared with our own wives so he wanted to know more about the phenomena of blogs. After I told him, he laughed. We both love the comic, Seinfeld. He didn’t have to say it. He knew what my blog was about….

Below is a work of semi-fiction. The names have been changed (or not). If you followed the show, Seinfeld, this blog entry might sound familiar.

(At a Keith Urban Concert)

BUD: So you write these entries about your life in a blog and people read them? I think that is pretty ballsy. I think that is interesting. Maybe I should write a blog too.

ROUTE53: Really? Well I can help you.

BUD: So, if you have any idea for a blog for me, well, let me know.

ROUTE53: I’m not sure if you can write about your legal clients, but I’d be very interested in something like that.

BUD: Well, that is attorney-client privilege so I don’t think I can. Maybe something else.

[They listen to Keith play “Sweet Thing”]

ROUTE53: Well let me know if you come up with something. Just tweet me.

BUD: Tweet you? Is that like, give you a ring?

ROUTE53: Um …never mind.

BUD: I’ll read your blog and see if it inspires me.

[Two days later BUD and Route53 meet at the local Peets]

BUD: I’ve been reading your blog. Why do you do it? It’s kind of public.

ROUTE53: I thought I’d write down my thoughts. It keeps me honest with myself.

BUD: For what? I mean, it’s kind of boring reading that you ate oatmeal again.

ROUTE53: It’s for me first, but if you find my life interesting, go ahead and read it. You don’t have to.

BUD: So it’s a blog about your everyday life?

ROUTE53: Yeah, I guess so. I’m getting old and have lots of thoughts. Sometimes I want to step back and remember them.

BUD: Yeah, but eating oatmeal. How could that possibly help you?

ROUTE53: Well, let’s say someday I get accused of a crime and the police ask where I was on this day and time? I can read my blog and tell them I remember because I ate oatmeal with Flax seed and that night I was at a country music concert with you. Well, because nobody would ever believe that story.

BUD: Come on, how hard is it to make it all up? It’s all fiction. Look at all the junk that’s on TV.
You want an idea? Here’s an idea. You’re a butcher. And you’re married. And your son is a vegetarian and you’re pushing him into the business. That would be fun to read.

ROUTE53: Why should I care if my son doesn’t eat meat?

BUD: Because you’re a butcher. It’s only natural.

ROUTE53: But meat is not for everybody.

BUD: I know, but he’s your son.

ROUTE53: So what? Besides you hit the nail on the head. Look at the junk on TV. It’s all reality TV. Well my blog is reality me.

BUD: All right, forget that idea, it’s not for you….Okay, okay, I got another one. You’re bankrupt because of the recession and you auction your life treasures on eBay.

ROUTE53: Yeah and…?

BUD: And people buy your junk and you get involved in their lives wanting to know if your items are getting good homes

ROUTE53: What person who runs an auction on eBay gets involved in people’s lives?

BUD: Why not?

ROUTE53: So someone bids on some my old comic books and all of a sudden I’m
getting them to tell me their life stories? I could see if I was a pharmacist because a
pharmacist knows what’s wrong with everybody that comes in.

BUD: I know, but online auctions are very popular right now.

ROUTE53: No they’re not, they used to be. It’s all about Web 2.0 and social marketing

BUD: Oh yeah, like you know.

ROUTE53: Oh like you do, you’re a lawyer [Route53 Tweets the whole conversation]

[STEINBERG enters Peets]

STEINBERG: …And you’re the manager of Cirque du Soleil.

ROUTE53: [Looks at BUD] You told STEINY about my blog?

[BUD shrugs his shoulders]

STEINY: Come on, this is a great idea. Look at the characters. You’ve
got all these freaks on the show. A naked Asian woman who contorts herself into a pretzel? I mean, who
wouldn’t tune in to see a headless man with an umbrella; a mute clown; underwater acrobats.

ROUTE53: I don’t think so.

STEINY: Look ROUTE53, web blogs aren’t about boring lives. People want to read about the nuts of the world.

ROUTE53: I don’t think people will go for it.

STEINY: Why not?

ROUTE53: Look, I’m not about writing about freaks. I’m writing my everyday thoughts about the people around me.

STEINY: Oh come on ROUTE53, you’re wrong. People they want to watch freaks. Look at Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. This is a “can’t miss.” [Queue laugh tracks and fade to commercial]

[Later that week at The Butcher and The Chef in San Francisco’s South Park]

BUD: So, what’s happening with your blog? You come up with anything new?

ROUTE53: No, nothing.

BUD: Why don’t they have Acai here?

ROUTE53: What do you need Acai for?

BUD: Everyone’s doing Acai in America.

ROUTE53: I know, my wife makes me drink an Acai shake every morning. You know why? Because people like to say “Acai.” “Excuse me, do you have AH-SAH-EE?” “We need more acai.” “Where is the Acai? No Acai??”

BUD: You know its crazy that first it was ginko biloba and now it’s acai.”

ROUTE53: “Don’t you know the difference between ginko biloba and acai?? You can’t order an Acai bagel at Noah’s Bagels.”

BUD: That’s not Acai, that’s Asiago. It’s a Cheese.

ROUTE53: See, that’s a blog entry.

BUD: What?

ROUTE53: This. Just talking.

Bud: (dismissing) Yeah, right.

ROUTE53: I’m really serious. This is what I blog about, my everyday life.

BUD: Just talking? Well what’s great about that?

ROUTE53: Yep, that’s what my blog is about. My life. It’s about nothing.

BUD: No story?

ROUTE53: No forget the story. It’s about the people and it’s about sharing experiences with similar people who find me

BUD: You’ve got to have a story, don’t you?

ROUTE53: Who says you gotta have a story? Remember when we drove to Santa Barbara and Herbie broke down and we spent the night in King’s City in that creepy motel? That could be a blog entry.

BUD: And who is in the blog?

ROUTE53: Me, you, everyone. I spend find minutes with someone and I’ll be writing about them.

BUD: Great, but can you fictionalize me?

ROUTE53: You?

BUD: Yeah. You could base a character on me, but not write about me, per se.

ROUTE53: So, in my real blog, there’s a fictional character named BUD?

BUD: Yeah. You can call me Art Vandelay, the architect. There’s something wrong with that? I’m a character. People are always saying to me, “You know you’re a quite a character.”

ROUTE53: And who else is fictional in my blog?

BUD: STEINY could be a character. STEINY..

ROUTE53: Now he’s a character. (Pause) So everybody I know now has a fictional side to them? I don’t think so. This is about my REAL life.

BUD: Alright, have it your way. Write about nothing.

ROUTE53: Thanks. You really think so? Nothing? I guess I’ll have to re-title my blog again.

BUD: Absolutely nothing.

ROUTE53: So you’re saying, I continue to spend my days and write in my blog about nothing.

BUD: WE write about nothing.

ROUTE53: “We”? Since when are you my ghost-blogger?

BUD: (Scoffs) Blogger. We’re talking about the web. You think Internet Geek Girl writes all her own material?

ROUTE53: You want to go with me to WordPress?

BUD: Yeah. I think we really go something here.

ROUTE53: What do we got?

BUD: An idea.

ROUTE53: What idea?

BUD: An idea for the show.

ROUTE53: I still don’t know what the idea is.

BUD: It’s about nothing.

ROUTE53: Right.

BUD: Everybody’s doing something, we’ll do nothing.

ROUTE53: So, we go into WordPress, we tell them we’ve got an idea for a blog about nothing.

BUD: Exactly.

ROUTE53: They say, “What’s your show about?” I say, “Nothing.”

BUD: There you go.

(A moment passes)

ROUTE53: (Nodding) I think you may have something there.

[ROUTE53’s apartment]

(ROUTE53’s explaining BUD’s idea to STEINY)

ROUTE53: So, the show would be about my real life. And one of the characters would be based on you.

STEINY: (Thinks) No, I don’t think so.

ROUTE53: What do you mean you don’t think so?

STEINY: I don’t like it.

ROUTE53: I don’t understand. What don’t you like about it?

STEINY: I don’t like the idea of a character based on me.

ROUTE53: Why not?

STEINY: Well it just doesn’t sit well.

ROUTE53: You’re my colleague. There’s got to be a character based on you.

STEINY: That’s your problem, buddy.

ROUTE53: I don’t understand what the big deal is.

STEINY: Hey, I’ll tell you what – you can do it on one condition.

ROUTE53: Whatever you want.

STEINY: I get to play STEINY.

ROUTE53: You ARE STEINY.

STEINY: I am STEINY.

ROUTE53: But you can’t act. It has to be the real you. This isn’t fiction.

STEINY: Phew!

[ WordPress reception area)

(ROUTE53 and BUD are waiting)

ROUTE53: (To himself) Acai, Asiago. Hey, excuse me, you got any Acai? No, not Asiago, Acai. (BUD doesn’t react) What’s the matter?

BUD: (Nervous) Nothing.

ROUTE53: You sure? You look a little pale.

BUD: No, I’m fine. I’m good. I’m very good.

ROUTE53: Why are you nervous?

BUD: No, not nervous. I’m good, very good. (A beat, then he snaps) I can’t do this! Can’t do this!

ROUTE53: What?

BUD: I can’t do this! I can’t do it. I have tried. I’m here. It’s impossible.

ROUTE53: This is just a blog. We don’t even have to tell them. You’re supposed to just write it! Besides, this was your idea to be part of my blog.

BUD: What idea? I just said something. I didn’t know you were going to listen to me.

ROUTE53: Don’t worry about it. They’re just an internet social platform.

BUD: They’re men with jobs, ROUTE53! They wear Crocs and drink way too much Acai.

ROUTE53: I told you not to come.

BUD: I need some water. I gotta get some water.

ROUTE53: They’ll give us water in there. In fact, they have free soda and catered lunches.

BUD: Really? That’s pretty good.

[ WordPress‘s Conference Room]

(The WordPress Network staff are all talking with ROUTE53 and BUD)

Staff Member #1: (To ROUTE53, laughing about one of his bits) The bit, the bit I really liked is your hiding in your cruise stateroom hiding from the horny 65 year old ladies. Now that’s funny.

ROUTE53: Yeah, it’s one of my favorite life events.

Staff Member #2: I was touched and felt for your wife’s battle with cancer and all the stories of other survivors.

Staff Member #3: I like hearing about how you make money on the web with affiliate programs

Staff Member #4: I think your life in San Francisco is worth reading about. And the fact you drive a beetle named Herbie with a big “53” on it.

StaffMember #2: What about you, BUD? You have any funny stories?

BUD: (Quickly making it up) Well, possibly. I wrote an off-Broadway show, “Dos Hermanos.” ..Actually, it was off-off-Broadway. It was a comedy about two Mexican entrepreneurs.

ROUTE53: Oh, it was very funny. There was one great scene with the CTO- what was his name?

BUD: Pepe.

ROUTE53: Oh, Pepe. Yeah, Pepe. And, uh, he was making a Facebook Application.

Staff Member #3:Oh, he actually wrote code on the stage?

BUD: No, no, he tweeted it. That’s what was so funny about it.

Staff Member #4: So, what have you two come up with to talk to us about?

ROUTE53: Well, we’d like you to feature our blog. We’ve thought about this in a variety of ways. But the basic idea is I will just write about my life.

BUD: (Interrupting) May I?

ROUTE53: Go ahead.

BUD: I think I can sum up the blog for you with one word: NOTHING.

Staff Member #3: Nothing?

BUD: (Smiling) Nothing.

Staff Member #3: (Unimpressed) What does that mean?

BUD: The blog is about nothing.

ROUTE53: (To BUD) Well, it’s not about nothing.

BUD: (To ROUTE53) No, it’s about nothing.

ROUTE53: Well, maybe in philosophy. But, even nothing is something.

Staff Member #3:What’s the premise?

ROUTE53: Well, as I was saying, I would blog about myself, and, as an internet entrepreneur, living in San Francisco. I have a family, friends, and co-workers, which is all true.

BUD: Yeah, but nothing happens on the blog. You see, it’s just like life. You know, you eat, you go shopping, you read. You eat, you read, You go shopping.

Staff Member #3: You read? You read on the show?

ROUTE53: Well, I don’t know about the reading. Maybe blog about blogging.

Staff Member #3: All right, tell me, tell me about the blog entries. What kind of stories?

BUD: Oh, no. No stories.

Staff Member #2: No stories? So, what is it?

BUD: (Showing an example) What’d you do today?

Staff Member #3: I got up and biked to work.

BUD: There’s an entry. That’s an entry.

Staff Member #3: (Confused) How is that an entry? If you Tweet that, will people read?

ROUTE53: Well, uh, maybe something happens on the way to work. And yes it would be more of a Tweet than an Entry.

BUD: (scratching his head) No, no, no. Nothing happens.

ROUTE53: Well, something happens.

Staff Member #3: Well, why am I reading it?

BUD: Because you’re following me and you’re my “Friend”.

Staff Member #3: (Threatening) Not yet.

BUD: Okay, uh, look, if you want to just keep on doing the same old thing, then maybe this idea is not for you. I, for one, am not going to compromise my artistic integrity. And I’ll tell you
something else, this is the show and we’re not going to change it. We’ll just put this on Blogger (To ROUTE53) Right?

(A moment passes)

ROUTE53: (To Russell) How about this: I manage Cirque du Soleil……?

[Later at Peets]

ROUTE53: I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. What were you thinking? What was going on in your mind? Artistic integrity? Where, where did you come up with that? You’re not artistic and you have no integrity. You know you really need some help. A regular psychiatrist couldn’t even help you. You need to go to like Vienna or something. You know what I mean? You need to get involved at the University level. Like where Freud studied and have all those people looking at you and checking up on you. That’s the kind of help you need. Not the once a week for eighty bucks. No. You need a team. A team of psychiatrists working round the clock thinking about you, having conferences, observing you, like the way they did with the Elephant Man. That’s what I’m talking about because that’s the only way you’re going to get better.

BUD: . . . I thought the woman was kind of cute.

ROUTE53: Hold it. I really want to be clear about this. Are you talking about the woman in the meeting? Is that the woman you’re talking about?

BUD: Yeah, I thought I might give her a call. I, I don’t meet that many women. I meet like three women a year. I mean, we’ve been introduced. She knows my name.

ROUTE53: IT’S COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE!

BUD: Why? Maybe she liked me. I, I mean she was looking right at me. You know, I think she was impressed. You know, we had good eye contact the whole meeting.

ROUTE53: Oh, I forgot to call STEINY.

BUD: Wait a minute let me call her.

ROUTE53: No, no this is more important.

BUD: She might be leaving to work any minute.

[BUD and Susan enter]

BUD: Hello, oh, hello. You remember, … Susan, from WordPress

ROUTE53: Of course. How are you?

SUSAN: Fine, it’s good to see you.

BUD: And this is STEINY.

SUSAN: Hello.

BUD: All right go ahead Susan, tell him.

ROUTE53: Tell me what?

SUSAN: Well, I, [phone rings]

ROUTE53: Uh, sorry, Excuse me one second. Hello.

TEL: Hi, would you be interested in switching over to TMI long distance service.

ROUTE53: Oh, gee, I can’t talk right now. Why don’t you give me your home number and I’ll call you later.

TEL: Uh, I’m sorry we’re not allowed to do that.

ROUTE53: Oh, I guess you don’t want people calling you at home.

TEL: No.

ROUTE53: Well now you know how I feel. [Hangs up]

BUD: Well, go ahead, tell him.

ROUTE53: STEINY, are you drinking that milk?

STEINY: Yeah.

ROUTE53: What’s the expiration date on that?

STEINY: April 1st.

ROUTE53: The 1st?

BUD: and SUSAN: The 1st?

STEINY: Um, Uh, ugh, …

SUSAN: Noooo… [STEINY throws up on Susan]

[Peet’s]

BUD: I never should have brought her up there. Should have known better. Should have seen it coming. I didn’t see it coming.

ROUTE53: I think SHE saw it coming.

BUD: You know she was behind the idea. She was going to champion your blog. That’s what I was bringing her up there to tell you. And she liked me.

ROUTE53: Look just because STEINY vomited on her doesn’t mean the blog is dead. I can still write the blog.

BUD: What, are you crazy? It’s a traumatic thing to be thrown up on.

ROUTE53: Vomiting is not a deal breaker. If Jobs had vomited on Wozniak, Wozniak still would have given him Apple.

BUD: Well, write your blog about nothing.