Today I ran across a new blog written by web comic Howard Tayler. I wrote a blog post on TheLatest.At/Wikipedia about his refusal to help raise money for Wikimedia, the organization over Wikipedia. He’s trying to start a revolution to make Wikipedia more diplomatic and to make deletions the exception not the rule. This guy is spirited. He’s had many articles deleted from the site, because they are not “notable” enough per Wikipedia’s guidelines.
He notes: “The excesses of elitist, deletionist editors and admins span far more topics than just webcomics.” And notes: “Don’t send Wikimedia Foundation your money until they change the system.”

I poked around and learned he lives close by. Maybe I can show up at Dragon’s Keep and interview him about the story. Oh, and I’ll add you to my list of Utah bloggers. Wait, he’s already on it.

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I loved this quote by former journalist and now a consultant for Wikipedia:

Journalism is not a profession: it is not like being a surgeon or a lawyer. There was an uneasy attempt to professionalize it with the advent of j-schools etc., post-Watergate. But at its heart, it’s just a craft. And that means that it can be practiced by anyone who is sensible and intelligent and thoughtful and curious, who bothers to learn the rules and do it carefully.

- Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation

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I love this account from Jim Forbes about his short evacuation from the California fires with all his high tech paraphernalia and his dog. It just has nothing of feeling sorry for himself. It’s an inspiring response. Plus it reminds me that preparation can have a huge impact on how you handle crisis. His account also had a feel of community – as he looked after his elderly neighbors to be sure they were taken care of.

I also dig his writing style so I think I’ll put him on RSS subscribe. I love blogs so I can read personal accounts like this about things in the news. Blogs tell the human stories behind the generalizations and in this case what seemed tragedy is triumph.

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I ran across this post and it’s right on – you want to become an expert in a topic? Find out who the best thinkers are in the niche and see if they’ve written books. Then read them.
Many times the people I coach can’t figure out what to write about when it comes to creating information for their web site or to write an article on a topic. First, they need to get informed about their products and industry. How?

• Call your supplier and manufacturer and interview them – ask questions like (perhaps to customer service or sales): what are the top sellers and why? What is your main demographic? How do most customers find your products?
• Set up Google Alerts for different topics and skim them daily for news and information online. This is free and very helpful. Set up an alert on your main products, industry terms, etc. It will help you find forums, blogs, and news.
• Get to know your favorite writers in your space (Kevin J. Delaney of the Wall Street Journal is one of my favs. I just checked and he has written a few books but they aren’t on internet marketing topics).
• Search sites like Ezinearticles.com for articles that others have written on the subject.
• Of course, turn to Google and search for information – look at online reviews of similar products – what is important to customers, what do they value? One of my favorite places to do research is on Amazon.com. It’s a great way to get ideas for crafting marketing messages.
• Do some competitive research and see how others are marketing an item like yours. It’s always remarkable to me the different ways similar products are marketed to different audiences. For example – a page protector. To scrapbookers its one product and has a specific value to protect their creations, to business people it’s a way to keep important documents, and for sports enthusiasts it might be a way to store memorabilia. Same product, lots of uses and markets.

I always say that the internet is like an open book test. Books are also a great way to go in-depth to learn about a topic or industry. If you have any other tips, please share your thoughts below.

Jeremy Palmer just wrote and said he is no longer selling his eBook High Performance Affiliate Marketing. It’s sad news because his ebook is one of the best there is. However, he also likes to keep everything very high quality and it sounds like he isn’t able to give it any more attention.

I don’t know how much work it takes to create the book and maintain the program, but others keep selling books for a long time even if the information is dated. He is a paid search affiliate and it’s a dynamic and changing market.

I wish Jeremy the best with all of his other ventures. I don’t know if this means his affiliate training with Affiliate Classroom is going well – perhaps that’s what he’s focusing on. I’ll have to go through my posts and remove the links.

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I loved this post from Guy Kawasaki about how Twitter has helped his blogging and his company. Since this is on my mind I think Paul Allen should Twitter. It really is an efficient and quick way to communicate, especially if many people hope to talk to you and you have limited time to reach out to them. There are some people that Twitter is the only way to reach them.

I can’t say I’ve had the incredible experience of getting a historic family document returned to me but here’s my list of why I love Twitter (and though I write in spurts, my enthusiasm hasn’t wained much):

• I met an artist in Mexico who I bought some art from (but the art has yet to arrive so I don’t know if this one is good or not).
• I started blogging for Marketing Pilgrim because of a twit that Andy Beal wrote.
• I stay up on news and what my friends are doing – many of us work from home at least part of the time and it connects us and keeps us informed of what’s going on.
• I get a sense of what is going on in internet marketing on a larger scale – people write from conferences and other goings on from across the country or world.
• Twitter sends traffic to my blog – sometimes it’s the best source other than StumbleUpon and it builds my visibility.

Thanks to Randy Clark for the tip this morning. I just wrote about this for Marketing Pilgrim but since Ancestry.com employees read my blog, I wanted to talk about it here too. Ancestry.com was acquired by their biggest investor, Spectrum Equity for $300 million. The story looks to have broke on TechCrunch and I didn’t see anything on The Generations Network’s site yet.

Some of my readers have messaged me about conditions at the company – which from what I’ve heard haven’t been very good for some time. The most vocal of these groups are affiliates who went from making thousands per month to hundreds and the numbers keep getting worse. The program went from a top performer in CJ to a very low one. They basically ruined it. Affiliates love residual income like a subscription plan. To me, it’s a win/win. However, the execs somehow think that affiliates don’t deserve the income and continually cut payouts.

I had a brief chat with Paul Allen about the sale and he seems pleased it. He’ll probably funnel the money into his company, World Vital Records, a competitor. Paul loves the genealogy space and I doubt he’ll ever get out of it, it’s in his blood.

TGN should be pleased with the sale and I wonder if it will lead to a future IPO.

I wanted to see what people in Utah were searching for online. I was surprised how many people are searching for cars like jeeps in Provo, Utah. I have a blogging solution that can help Utah car dealerships get some of that traffic to their web site. It’s saving businesses loads on pay-per-click advertising. Note that the numbers are monthly searches.

If you own a car dealership in Utah, you have a very good chance of ranking high in search engines like Google when someone types in one of these words. Not many people are optimizing their web sites.

Local businesses often don’t realize how often people are going online to find your business. If you don’t apply some internet marketing, customers won’t find you, they’ll find your competitors.

Monthly Searches for Cars in Utah

jeep provo utah 4,260
mitsubishi provo utah 3,084
nissan provo utah 3,546
used car provo utah 4,959
dodge provo utah 5,708
chevrolet provo utah 6,172
honda provo utah 7,764
ford provo utah 7,985
toyota provo utah 8,323

I met Teresa Tao at CJU this year. She was gracious enough to answer a few questions about her award and the affiliate program at ShoeBuy.com. The program is just two years old and she won a 2007 Commission Junction Horizon Award for her contribution to the industry. They have also been honored by Shopzilla, “for its relentless dedication to customer service and satisfaction.”

“The award for People is presented to an advertiser and publisher who have shown an enthusiastic commitment to performance marketing, are market leaders, and are dedicated to building a strong community among online marketers.”

Newspapergrl: What do you like most about affiliate marketing and what are the rewards of your work?
Teresa Tao: Time and again it is reiterated that affiliate marketing is all about relationships. As I enjoy meeting and learning about people, I have had the opportunity to get to know such talented and wonderful individuals. I am amazed each time of what their capabilities are and because of this, I respect the time and efforts that go into affiliate marketing.

Newspapergrl: What one tip would you give new affiliate marketers?
TT: I realize you are asking for one tip but I have three to share for those who are new to affiliate marketing: 1) Focus on one market or marketing strategy then build upon it 2) Educate yourself constantly and 3) Persevere with a positive attitude.

Newspapergrl: How has winning a CJ Horizon award affected your business?
TT: We are proud to have received CJ’s Horizon Award for People as the meaning behind the award aligns with our overall business goal, which is to provide the best consumer experience. This award would not have been possible without the partnerships we have in our program and these partners are who motivate me to make our program the best. The Horizon Award has reinforced just that.

Newspapergrl: How long have you been an affiliate and how did you get started?
TT: I first got into affiliate marketing two years ago at Shoebuy.com as I saw an opportunity to grow the program despite having no experience. However, I was taught the basics of running an affiliate program and then took off with the objective of making ours the best affiliate program available.

Newspapergrl: What’s one of your favorite tools for affiliates?
TT: One tool that I am a big fan of is our dynamic showcase builder, which allows partners to display our product on their site with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Congratulations to Teresa. I hope to interview some of the other winners also.

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I’ve never been to a First Friday that started or ended on time. The problem with this one (my second) is that I couldn’t hear or understand most of it. And I was sitting on the second row. It wasn’t loud enough and covered so much ground that it was tough to follow.

But let me tell the truth: he lost me when he said he wasn’t going to talk about affiliate marketing.

He said he failed algebra three times. He failed journalism and intro to computers once.

“The world is awash in money,” he said. It’s just figuring out which bucket to pick up. If you try to pick up all of them, you won’t make any money.

If you wanted a philosophical musing about the internet – which Bresee says changes faithfully every 18 months – it was great.