Lessons from Angry Birds

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2011-12-22

ADOTAS – The team behind T-Mobile‘s Angry Birds Live commercial gained recognition when their recent efforts spread like wildfire on the internet, achieving 8 million views of the video. Even the behind-the-scenes footage made an impact, with 140,000 views. The success was no mistake — Angry Birds followed all the rules to make sure their ad took flight.

The brains behind this ad did more than just wing it. They relied on three smart principles to increase the odds that their project would go viral:

It’s unexpected. Watching a video game on a small smartphone screen come to life in a real town square surprised viewers and captured their imagination.
It’s entertaining. The Angry Birds video game is already entertaining on its own. That’s how it sold more than 12 million copies through Apple’s App Store. Involving the crowd capitalized farther on the fun. And you can’t go wrong with cute little animals.
It leveraged a popular trend. Mobile gaming is incredibly popular, and Angry Birds is at the top of that trend. Viewers were already predisposed to watch an ad that incorporated something they enjoy.
It incorporated music. The upbeat tempo of the trumpet music used to score this video also scored big with viewers, heightening the excitement of the on-screen action. Music helps viewers engage more fully with the content and it guides them through the story’s tone. The fun music matched up perfectly with the carnival atmosphere they created on the screen.

All four of those factors made it more likely that people would watch the entire video and then share it with friends. But just as important, T-Mobile also avoided the top three pitfalls:

Don’t overbrand your video. Consumers are turned off by the notion of being sold. Smart scripting avoided hitting viewers over the head with T-Mobile messaging. Subtle logo placement at the beginning of the spot and on the end card made authorship clear without overselling. Videos with careful branding and stand-alone content are four times more effective than spots with overt commercial language.
Don’t go long. Short, punchy spots are the way to go for effective videos. People lose patience quickly if they’re not entertained. T-Mobile’s video flirted with the boundary but succeeded because of its strong concept and consistent entertainment value. Short and sweet are the keys to success here.
Don’t force it. It’s smart to support your efforts with a push when it’s released. Make it available on the appropriate sharing sites, make it simple for viewers to share it, and post it visibly on your brand’s social sites. Make your project visible on YouTube, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Facebook. Stellar videos can get additional play on Vodpod, Devour or Popscreen. Also consider sharing your content with bloggers who post content relevant to your brand. The Angry Birds content is appropriate for blogs and other sites that address tech gadgets, smartphones, online gaming and trends. Consider the creative options when you’re evaluating your content.

It’s a mistake to artificially expand your video’s popularity by approaching unrelated sites or including misleading keywords in your hashtags. Once you’ve done the legwork to get your video shared through appropriate channels, don’t push it to go viral. Either it will or it won’t. Trying to force the matter stinks of desperation.

There are no guarantees of success in a competitive environment, but if you follow the strong example set by T-Mobile’s Angry Birds Live, you just might have viewers more engaged with your brand.

Sponsored by CPADNA
Learn the secret of the Affiliate DNA

Click-To-Call is the Next Great CPA Model

By

Carl Holmquist

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2011-12-22

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Digital advertising continues to evolve fast. When we founded Freespee back in 2008, the world was different: the affiliate marketing business was a fraction of what it is today, and mobile advertising was mostly about ringtones and entertainment. Even social media wasn’t considered a serious marketing channel.

The trend was clear though: brand advertisers were increasingly aware of performance, analytics and optimization – and continuously looking for new, more effective channels to get their message across to their target audiences.

However, there can be no performance without measurement. What we discovered was that this pursuit of performance was based only on online measurement and analytics – leaving out everything that was bought offline, like from a store or through a phone call.

Based on the technology we had developed, we decided to go after the phone calls. GroupOn and CityDeal guys went after the store visits. We believe that we are essentially after the same problem – the huge gap between digital advertising and offline commerce – and we have been able to overcome the hurdles over the years.

The biggest problem has been trying to change consumers’ behaviour too fast. When an advertiser planned an affiliate marketing program, they had to remove their phone numbers from the landing pages – otherwise they could not measure the total amount of conversions, and the ad network and publishers didn’t get the attribution and commissions they deserved.

The consumer was left with no choice: they had to fill out a form and purchase online, or walk away. Yet 65% of businesses say calls are their highest quality lead source.

Essentially, there are two issues with this: firstly, many products and services are so complicated, that it is hard to fully understand them in order to make a purchasing decision without talking to a representative for more information. Secondly, there are many important segments of consumers who still don’t buy online, or at least prefer the personal touch of an appointment or a phone call.

Today, the phone calls are back. Advertisers can use their existing call centre resources to drive customers through affiliate and mobile advertising – and only pay for qualified calls. Freespee, together with our peers and partners, we have brought a new type of advertising currency to the market: phone calls, in addition to impressions, clicks and online conversions.

And we are seeing that the results are great: calls have very high sales conversion rates, on average 20-60% depending on the vertical. This makes complete sense as people who pick up their phone are ready to buy. At the same time, there’s a possibility to do more business, and it is easier than online. The average order values over the phone tend to be significantly higher than in online-only commerce.

Call advertising works great in retail (“mail order”), but also the results from banking, finance, insurance, utilities, education, travel and many local services provided by small and medium sized businesses have been incredibly good.

The next thing that needs fixing is mobile advertising. Mobile internet usage is still growing much faster than advertising on mobile devices, and there is a clear reason for it: as long as people don’t do purchases on their phones, big advertisers will still consider it as an awareness-only channel, without the possibility to attribute the advertising directly to sales.

The answer is mobile Click-to-Call with Cost-Per-Action pricing – a button that connects you directly to the merchant, even directly from a banner. This means the advertisers can buy calls from mobile advertising, instead of just clicks. It’s that simple.

Affiliates Adapt to Mobile Advertising Demands

By

Michael Marchese

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2011-12-21

5

According to the Ofcom International Communications Report for 2011, 41% of Internet users access the Internet, via mobile phone. The percentage has nearly tripled over the last three years. With nearly half of the population accessing the Internet, affiliate marketers, who have not mobile-enabled their landing pages and websites, clearly stand at a significant disadvantage over their peers, with such capabilities.

Ofcom’s report goes far in dispelling the myth that mobile Internet usage is solely the purview of rambunctious teenagers and recent college graduates. In fact, the demographic with the greatest access percentage is 25 – 34 year olds, with 35 – 44 year olds coming close to the level of 18 – 24 year old users.

More than Website Optimization

The study also found that the leading Internet activity for U.S. mobile users is reading email. Optimizing email marketing programs for both computer-based and mobile-based browsing, could have a significant effect on open and click-through rates. What is the point of having a great landing page, if a third of the target audience cannot read the email?

Catering to mobile email readers also means that email weight is once again a factor to consider. Heavy graphics may need to be eliminated and designs streamlined. Given the smaller screen size, even more weight is placed on the messaging that goes into the subject line.

Mobile Advertising Spending Growing Dramatically

The report goes on to show that mobile advertising spending per head is accelerating. Comparing 2010 to 2009, the amount spent per head in the U.S. increased by over $0.60 (assuming a 1.56 GBP to dollar conversion rate) to nearly $2.00. This number still pales in comparison to Japan, where spending exceeds $10.00 per head.

To get the attention of mobile users, affiliate marketers will need to battle an increasingly crowded field of competing advertisements. If history is a guide, expect ad click-through rates to decline to levels comparable to other forms of online advertising.

Source: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr11/icmr/ICMR2011.pdf

Clickbooth FTC Raid…Not

By

Pesach Lattin

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2011-12-21

18

Last week there were rumors that Clickbooth, a major affiliate CPA network had been raided by the FTC. This included anonymous posting on several message boards by someone claiming that he had knowledge of a raid. However, despite the rumors we can confirm today that these were nothing more than rumors –we have called the FTC and they have confirmed additionally that there was no raid on Clickbooth.

According to an insider within Clickbooth, this was a rumor by a competitor who had been kicked off their network for compliance violations.

In fact, Clickbooth points out that they were ahead of the game in compliance, and as early as 2008 were trying to inform the industry about their compliance efforts and the standard that should be followed. They point out that they were one of the first companies to provide compliance education to their affiliates and still provide up to date information about what is not only legal, but ethical.

Our director of Compliance, Ziare Brown spent the last 3 months interviewing hundreds of publishers, consumers, and advertisers in order to first understand things from an affiliate marketing perspective. Then, he used that information to audit the opinions of various legal counsel which led to more research consulting case attorneys and regulatory bodies. We wanted to do this because we understand most affiliate marketers don’t have the time and energy to do this type of research on their own.

Our advertisers are very supportive as well. They’ve seen an increase in order volume and in customer satisfaction. Also, as a result, backend conversions have been much higher because of a better informed consumer. We are estimating that, in time, this will increase user value to an advertiser, thus allowing them to pay a higher CPA to affiliates, so in the end everyone wins.

Google Does a High-Fiver with Product Ads

By

Kathy Neudorf

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2011-12-21

3

Recently Google included a spot in Product Ads for five single products to show. Users now have more pricing details and information about the products. This new addition allows advertisers to highlight more than one item of their inventory at a time.

In a Product Listing Ad, it is now possible to show the merchant name, image, and price without the bother of extra keywords.

When a user does a search online that is associated to an item in one of the Google Merchant Center accounts, Google will display images of the product in the same ad space, with all relevant information.

The change is taking place in every country that has Product Ads. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany were added to the list this month. Google’s program was launched in U.S. beta and the studies are showing that users were much more likely to move their mouse to ‘click’ Product Ads than plain text ads.

The leads were also higher quality, making a higher ROI. There has been an increase to the tune of 600% for retail sites using Product listing Ads, compared to last year. The mega search engine is expecting even more productivity this holiday season.

What Product Ads Actually Do
Data is drawn from Google Merchant Center accounts by the Product Ads. These recent changes are becoming extremely beneficial to retailers and any that have not hooked into Google’s Product Ads just may find that they are missing out.

The recent changes are:

Retailers can now use their entire inventory simply by selecting the “All products” option when you set up the product target. This will ensure that your entire inventory can be shown.

Check your quality control with the data Quality tab at the Merchant Center. This allows for reviewing to see that the right amount of data for lining up the products for Google to display when someone does a search.

Any copy can be improved to be more appealing and draw users to your products. Bid opportunities can be maximized. This is a competitive time, especially during the holiday season. You can place your bids with more budget firepower to compete.

It is now so much easier for the retailer to display the entire inventory they have. Product advertising is much more engaging and attractive. Users are becoming more educated and this new and improved way to advertise at Google puts retailers in a better position to market successfully.

Cost per Action or CPA is how advertisers pay for the listings. This makes for low risk in finding a large audience. The risk is low because the advertiser only pays for that ad when someone clicks on the ad and then buys something from the site. The fact that someone gets to see the image and price of the product before they actually go to the site, is making them more likely to be in a buying mode when they arrive at the merchant retailer’s site.

High five for Google`s ingenious add on!

Criminal TypoSquatting on Rise

By

Kathy Neudorf

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2011-12-20

5

By registering misspelled web addresses, cyber thugs are seizing innocent victims Sophos, the IT security and data-protection company, is warning internet users to take care when they type in web addresses, especially the popular ones. By a subtle misspelling, users are taken to these cyber-bandits websites instead of the one intended.

This new form of criminal use is called typosquatting. They simply register a popular website with a slight misspelling that can go easily unnoticed by web surfers. These characters have found an ingenious way to bring traffic to their websites in the hopes of making money. Unfortunately many of these people are affiliates trying to promote programs and offers, and the methods are not only questionable, but potentially illegal.

A study by Sophos reveals that there is a vastly large ecosystem behind typosquatting and they like to target high profile domains. They rate an 86% possibility of people misspelling the web address for Apple’s homepage that unknowingly re-routes the user over to their own web pages.

738 URLs (5.1%) of the 14,495 that were misspelled led to adult or cybercrime sites. A worse- case scenario would be to misspell an address that could land you on an illegal website specifically designed to destroy your credentials or steal your identity. Senior technology consultant for Sophos says that the safest thing to do is to bookmark all your favourite websites.

Facebook is suing a man from Alpharetta Georgia for having a website that is far too much like the social media giant’s.

The charge laid against John Paul Souza for using a name that is very close to Facebook’s own is typosquatting.

The lawsuit states that when a user goes to the site that is owned by Souza, they see fonts, colors, and assorted designs that are falsely suggesting that the website is approved and connected to Facebook. The website was offering awards and prizes that never actually existed to complete surveys. Souza’s website was also full of offers and advertisements that asked for personal information. The suit also states that he was paid every time someone clicked on an ad, bought something or gave out personal information.

Facebook is claiming that Souza took intentional advantage to make things similar and his domain name is typosquatter efficient enough to drive traffic there.

Facebook wants the cancellation of Souza’s domain name or to transfer it to them for ownership, and among other requirements, award them damages and legal fees. At this time, Souza’s site is blocked from any misspelling travellers falling unknowingly into his trap.

Cutting Edge Media Celebrates 20 Years in Business With Expanded Growth

By

Pesach Lattin

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2011-12-20

4

As 2011 comes to an end, it is not uncommon for many companies to reflect upon their successes and struggles. For Cutting Edge Media, this practice is no different. But, as the company looks back, the end of 2011 also marks an important milestone for the company as they celebrate their 20th year in business.

During one of the most challenging economies in history, Cutting Edge Media has consistently displayed deliberate growth in the performance marketing industry significantly increasing their staff and expanding into new departments to better serve its partners.

Cutting Edge Media has added staff in public relations and social media, marketing and design, compliance, technology and sales.

“We have a lot of great opportunities in the pipeline and are committed to making the investments that will position us for success over the next 20 years and beyond,” said Peter Wilson, who has served as President and CEO of the business since 2010, adding “I believe our reputation and longevity speak volumes about how we operate.”

Founded by Phil Longenecker in 1991, Cutting Edge Media has consistently focused on partnering with the strongest advertisers, marketers and publishers in performance marketing. The company offers a wide range of performance marketing services including a leading affiliate network – Cutting Edge Offers, email marketing, data brokerage, lead generation and sales, the publishing of specialty magazines and technology including an offer management platform and a CRM system.

“The principles that were key to our success 20 years ago – delivering great service, building strategic partnerships, investing for the long-term, working hard and having fun – continue to serve us well in 2011,” said Wilson.

The company’s affiliate network, Cutting Edge Offers founded in 2004, has made additional strides in leading the performance marketing arena by expanding beyond their once niche, Business Opportunities, and forging partnerships with leading brands across many verticals including education, health and wellness, credit and debt financing and insurance.

“As someone that has been with Cutting Edge for more than a decade, I can tell you that it is a really exciting time for us right now,” said Trisha Hawthorne, who leads the network and data business, “in a rapidly changing marketplace, we are evolving alongside our customers and will continue to build Cutting Edge Media as the premiere brand in performance marketing.”

Cutting Edge Media strives to demonstrate its commitment to continual development, innovation, quality and service to the advertisers and publishers they work with as well as their employees.

Social Media Marketing Tips 101

By

Ron Cripps

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2011-12-20

21

Social media marketing is obviously the hot new trend in our society.

People are jumping on board and creating Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook pages by the thousands every day. Businesses are starting to stand up and take notice, and you should too. In this article, we will discuss some great marketing tips which will allow you to take advantage of the social media craze.

Is Social Media Marketing Right For Your Business?

Once you decide that social media marketing is the thing for you, be sure to post things regularly.

By having this consistency, you will have people come and visit you on a regular basis. They will know to expect a new topic from you daily, and they will know that it will fit their interest.

Make Sure People Know Who You Are

Brag about your achievements on your social media blog. This may seem odd, but some people like to see your social credentials before they will feel comfortable interacting with you. Blog about your friends on Facebook, or your number of Twitter followers. Include links to your other pages as well.

However, a word of warning here, if you are listing your achievements never lie, they are always discovered and can destroy your online business very fast.

If you are looking to use Twitter as another social media marketing strategy, make sure that you choose a Twitter username that displays well and is easy to remember. This username should get the point of your company across, but should also be easy to remember.

Don’t choose usernames like poopy24AD, its not a license plate for your car it is actually a way for you to brand yourself or your business on the internet. No one will remember a username like that and it is likely irrelevant to your company’s name.

To make sure that your best content on your site doesn’t get buried and lost, have it posted onto Twitter automatically. There are a great deal of programs, such as JustRetweet, that will take care of this for you. To most of your social followers, this content will be brand new, and it can be an excellent way to get people interested in what you have to say and keep a continuous flow of traffic coming to your online business site.

Article Marketing Works Well With Social Media Marketing

If you are using article marketing, consider adding an RSS feed to link your most recent content to your social media profile. This is an easy way to increase readers for your new content, because RSS feeds will automatically update your news stream with a link to your recently published article. Use these tips to build your business with social media sites. The sites you are using every day for your personal life can be just as helpful, effective and fun for business use.

We are currently using social media marketing to promote and brand our newest blog MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings across many different networks and other blog sites. Social media marketing can bring you business around the world, and with tips like the ones in this article, you will not only grow your online business but thrive.

Facebook to Offer CPA Advertising?

By

Pesach Lattin

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2011-12-19

3

Despite Facebook’s obvious dislike for performance based marketers and affiliates, it seems that Facebook is playing with the idea of some sort of cost per action ability. The purpose, according to Facebook is to determine the interest from advertisers for having action-optimize campaigns. However, this could also be a part of their already secret facebook conversion tracking system that is only available for select advertisers

This unfortunately, despite the hoopla, is not a true CPA advertising mechanism, and is only an optimization of things like “Likes” and despite being called an action, is really just like a click – albeit a different type of click. Still, this could be a lead-in to looking at other CPA based campaigns in the future, as Facebook looks to continue growing their revenue.

Inside Facebook had really interesting comments about this:

Across the industry, advertisers are moving away from CPM models that do not ensure that consumers are truly seeing their ads. Cost-per-conversion, action or engagement are much more desirable because companies do not have to pay unless an ad is effective. In fact, some third-party ad providers that use Facebook’s API, such as AdParlor, charge and optimize for cost-per-fan or cost-per-install as opposed to the CPM or CPC options in Marketplace.

Facebook could provide something similar in the future to emphasize its strength in getting users to connect with pages or engage with Sponsored Stories. However, Facebook will need to consider how this sort of change would affect developers working with the ads API, which was brought out of private beta in August. It is possible that third-parties who sell on cost-per-action models could lose that advantage over Marketplace, but it is likely their ability to run large-scale tests to optimize creative will still make third-party vendors an attractive option for some.

How to Improve ROI for the New Year

By

Pesach Lattin

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2011-12-19

6

ADOTAS – As the new year approaches, most marketers evaluate the previous year to determine changes and improvements to their company’s marketing efforts and ultimately improve ROI. Just in time for your New Year’s resolutions, my company, marketing automation platform provider Act-On Software, has compiled a list of eight tips to improve marketing’s ROI in 2012.

1. Define the “qualified” lead. Marketing and sales must discuss what constitutes a qualified lead and define its characteristics together. This becomes the foundation for a lead scoring system through which marketing can winnow more qualified, sales-ready leads from all those captured. Once lead characteristics are established, lead scoring also allows marketing to determine the key triggers that identify the ready buyer, so those prospects can be delivered to the right salespeople in real time, decreasing the time to conversion through rapid response.

2. Formulate an integrated marketing plan. It’s easier said than done. Keeping track of email campaigns, drip campaigns, traditional media outreach and coverage, content to bloggers, tradeshows, SEO marketing, social media campaigns and more calls for a lot of juggling – not to mention funneling, segmenting and filtering the leads you’ll generate through all these activities. A good automated marketing platform is the best way to manage and track an interrelated set of campaigns and programs and the resulting leads. The usual process is to begin with email and lead scoring, and then to scale to additional capabilities as your programs become more sophisticated. As you scale, make sure that the leads and data you get from each program are not silo’d. Ideally, every interaction with a prospect should be tracked in a single location, usually a profile in a sales or marketing database. On the content side, aim for consistency in messaging and offers. Create, manage and coordinate your messages across all channels for a consistent customer experience, and update all channels when messaging changes.

3. Segment your lists. By segmenting your lists, you can deliver more focused campaigns by targeting promotions to specific audiences, providing the right content and making the right offer at the right time. The concept of message matching is based on the idea that people pay attention only to what matches their own needs, which in turn helps build more targeted lists and boosts overall response rates. List segmentation comes in infinite forms – by demographic factors, title, industry, offer, behavior, interactivity, preferences, company size, to name just a few. Start simply, and let testing and sales results guide you to more sophisticated list parsing.

4. Create compelling landing pages. When your prospect clicks on a search result or an online ad, the resulting landing page should be exactly what the prospect was looking for and should provide a compelling offer (webinar, trial, whitepaper, demo, etc.). The value of the offer increases with an accurate, concise description of what the prospect will receive. A relevant landing page delivering content that addresses the visitor’s problem induces the reader to not only consider the offer, but often to pursue it. And a strong call to action that clearly shows how they can “act now” provides the incentive for lead capture, in turn allowing your company to continue the dialogue and nurture that new lead toward conversion.

5. Refine your surveys and registration forms. Develop and implement productive online surveys that capture relevant prospect data and furnish quality leads. Review each of your lead generation forms, and make sure they work together to gain more information as the prospect continues to engage. Keep the initial form short and sweet; aim for capturing simple, basic information. You can ask for more information as the dialogue progresses.

6. Measure, measure, measure. “Metrics” has to do with measurements, such as tracking numbers of web visitors. “Analytics” has to do with teasing those numbers apart so you can distinguish categories (e.g., how many visitors visited your pricing page). To gather precise information about campaign effectiveness, you need to tap into the full spectrum of metrics available from all your programs. Analysis will guide you in determining which leads are ready to go to sales, which leads need more nurturing, and which offers are or are not working. All such information helps you focus on where you are most likely going to generate qualified leads that are likely to convert.

7. Test, test, test. Testing tells you what works and what doesn’t, so you can focus your budget and efforts on what does. Remember, less is more. What you choose to test depends on your industry, your target audience and your campaigns. You can test lists, ads, landing pages, keywords, email campaign content, sending strategy and more. Commonly tested list elements include titles, actions and industries. Commonly tested content and campaign elements include headlines, body copy, calls to action, offers, contact forms, days of the week, time of the day, page design, graphics, and so on. Begin with a simple plan and let your results and changing conditions guide you to continuing, expanding or redirecting your testing efforts. Continued testing will allow you to understand how to optimize and improve your communication with your target audience, which leads to better leads, more conversions and closed sales.

8. Automate, automate, automate. Automate as much of the process as you can. You will save time and labor — you’ll also increase consistency, efficiency, awareness, actionable intelligence and measurability. A good marketing automation platform reduces complexity, makes workflow more efficient, and enables and enhances well-timed communications as contacts, leads, prospects and sales professionals interact. It also gives you real-time visibility into every aspect of the sales cycle, from lead generation to close, documenting the data and circumstances that make success repeatable. And finally, automation delivers the sales and marketing reports that provide data for analysis and planning, proves marketing’s contribution to sales, and illustrates return on investment.

Facebook Likes Against the Law?

By

Pesach Lattin

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2011-12-19

13

Did you know that Facebook “likes” could be illegal? Accordig to a federal judge, Lucy Koh, a lawsuit against Facebook is allowed to continue. The lawsuit claims that sponsored stories, where people like the stories are in violation of California’s Right of Publicity Statute, which says that permission must be given to use a photo or name of a person.

“[The] plaintiffs have articulated a coherent theory of how they were economically injured by the misappropriation of their names, photographs and likeness,” she wrote in her ruling.

Judge Koh’s decision means that plaintiffs may pursue claims that the company’s sponsored ads violate state law and are fraudulent, however the report ads that she did dismiss a claim that it is “unjustly enriching” itself through its sponsored advertising.

Frank Reed at Marketing Pilgrim had an interesting comment:

It is obviously Facebook’s desire to take every bit of information they gather from their users and turn it into dollars. Wait, you mean the company’s altruistic PR about connecting the world and making it a better place isn’t the real reason that they do what they do, you ask? No, Virginia, it’s not and Santa isn’t real either. Facebook always tries to come off as the kid who didn’t realize that what they were doing might be wrong. They exemplify the “ask for forgiveness rather than permission” mantra that runs through many Internet players.

Alleged Corrupt NYPD Police Officer Fought with Social Media

By

Pesach Lattin

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2011-12-19

2

Technorati– When NYPD Police Officer Mehtab Malhi bought the house at 2842 Brigham Street in October 2011 he wanted to move his entire family into the house. Unfortunately for him, there were already residents in the house including New York Times best Selling Author Bryan Eisenberg. According to Eisenberg, that is where the trouble immediately started. According to Eisenberg, Malhi made it very clear from the start that he was a NYPD officer and that because of that, things were going to go his way.

Unfortunately for Malhi, he picked the wrong person to allegedly bully. Eisenberg is not only a best selling author, but a best selling author about, among other things, social media. He has a network of hundreds of thousands of people who follow him on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites. In response to the issues he was facing, he created a blog to document his issues.

Eisenberg says that while at first Malhi offered to pay Eisenberg to move, things started to quickly get very bad with Malhi moving as much as dozen of his relatives into one of the units and then packing the hallways wsith garbage. Additionally, it seems that Malhi confronted Eisenberg on several occasions explaining the “rules” of what it meant to go against a NYPD Officer. Those confrontations often ended up with police officers from the local precinct started coming around, ticketing select cars, seemingly to make a point.

Eisenberg points out that he is not doing this in order to retaliate, but because he has no other options. It seems that despite recording the harassment and late at night noise, that he claims is happening to force him to leave, the local precinct has been ignoring his complaints. NYPD has refused to respond to them, closing them out, reportedly because a NYPD Officer at the residence is dealing with them. Who is that officer? Eisenberg says its Malhi, making sure that nothing is done.

Eisenberg’s social media campaign seems to have worked. NYPD Internal Affairs has now launched an investigation into Malhi after Eisenberg’s story landed on Commissioner Rayond Kelly’s desk. Also, City Councilmember Lew Filder has taken the case, personally contacting FDNY, NYPD and Sanitation to ensure that appropriate actions are taken.

Of the entire ordeal, Eisenberg says of it on his blog, “We want our kids to learn that you don’t have to be scared or run away when you are bullied. There are three sides to every story. Each side has their perceptions and unfortunately nowhere in between is there a real objective truth. What we hope that our kids take away from this situation, as uncomfortable as it is for them now, is that you if you don’t stand up for yourself no one will.”

Focus Your Efforts Where the People Go

By

Kathy Neudorf

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2011-12-18

4

The best way to attract an audience for your affiliate marketing efforts is to go where the people are. In that case, start with the 10 most popular websites and work your way down from there.

According to Compete.com, the top 10 websites are not only capturing the most overall visitors, but those visitors are actually increasing the amount of time they spend there.

Where once search engine giant Yahoo! held the top spot, Facebook is now the hands-down winner when it comes to Internet visits. They capture a whopping 11 percent of all Internet traffic. Somewhat of a surprise is that Craigslist.com is number two, with 5 percent. Then it’s Google (5), Yahoo! (4) YouTube (4) and eBay (2).

A decade ago the top 10 Internet destinations captured about 31 percent of page views. The number has gone up and down these past ten years and now sits at 36 percent.

As an indicator of how much things have changed, in 2001 MySpace was the most visited site, capturing a full 12 percent of the available audience. Obviously those numbers weren’t enough to keep MySpace in business.

It is not enough to put your affiliate marketing efforts in the top 10 Internet sites. You also need to keep track of trends in terms of time spent on the site, interaction levels and be ready to shift your efforts when the list changes. If you want to go where the audience is you need to keep tabs on their location.

Nielsen reported that the average American spent more than 28 hours online in September. Most analysts expect that number to grow larger as the Internet grows. Your job as an affiliate marketer is to stay ahead of the trends and carve out a niche in the most popular (and most effective for your purposes) sectors of the Web.

In Memoriam: Sebastian Quezada

By

Pesach Lattin

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2011-12-16

14

Yesterday I learned that my old friend Sebastian died. It wasn’t really a surprise, many people in the online advertising industry knew him and had been wishing him the best with the fight for his life. His facebook page had been filled with messages for months and everyone who knew him was talking about how sick he was.

He had told me in confidence this last spring that he was going to die, and made me promise not to tell anyone. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or being completely honest.

Like many of us in the online advertising industry, we met Sebastian around the turn of the century. I met Sebastian at one of the first industry parties that I threw, where he was definitely the life of the party.

Sebsastian was one of those guys you couldn’t help liking. He wasn’t partially handsome, but his personality shone and he was always around beautiful women and interesting people. For as long as I remember, wherever there was a party in NYC in the industry, there was Sebastian schmoozing it up, making new friends.

A few years ago he had a daughter and he decided to stop drinking.

Yes, I forgot to mention he was an alcoholic and heavy smoker for as long as I knew him. That’s until he realized that if he didn’t change his ways, he would never live to see his daughter grow up. He wanted desperately to be healthy, to be there for his beautiful daughter who he loved so much.

Unfortunately it was too late for him. He had numerous visits to the hospital, the years of drinking, the years of smoking and not taking care of himself was too much for his body.

That’s why he shared with me he was going to die: he knew no matter what he did, he had only a short time to live, but didn’t want anyone else to have to share the pain. I don’t think he could bear the rest of the world knowing that he was going to die: it made him sadder, and he was always about smiling and making other people smile.

We are taught never to talk ill of the dead. Still, I wish he had changed his life sooner. I wish he had heeded what everyone was telling him for years, that his drinking and smoking would eventually kill him. Maybe someone out there will hear his story and make a change that prevents another needless death for them or loved ones. I’ve seen too many people die needless deaths because of abuse of drugs, drinking and smoking — including my brother who died 13 years ago. There’s no happy ending to a story like this, just sorrow.

All we can do now is remember the happy times and wish we had done more to change what happened. He died at home, after leaving the hospital to spend time with his friends and family.

Goodbye Sebastian. You and your smile will be missed.

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”― Thich Nhat Hanh

UrbanObserver

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