1. Nice keynote Jason.

Most of the people I've chatted with after your talk today (the real people who most don't know; who run real businesses in the affiliate marketing industry) said they agreed with you.

I was counting on your "outside" perspective and I/we got it.

Yeah, and thanks for the hug. I'll never wash this jacket again.

Posted at 4:39PM on Feb 25th 2008 by Jim Kukral

2. my question is who the hell are you to say what is and what is not ok for the internet? You are a self appointed blow hard! You monetized weblogs inc with ads like adsense, you tried other things that did not make as much for you. (this is what many affiliates do)
The thing about affiliate marketing is it can be done by anyone.
I like the fact that I am sitting in my living room, looking out over San Diego bay, building and selling product and I don't have to deal with the bs of an office, owning the product and dealing with customer support. I can make my $300k a month by my self - I don't need 25 people to do that. You only sold Weblogs for 25mm or so and not all of that went to you so if you say the people in the industry are thinking to small you are in the same boat, you still have not done much. If I can sit here and make 3.6mm a year by my self how is that small? how is that bad? how are you not the pot?

Posted at 5:22PM on Feb 25th 2008 by fred

3. Fred: Come here you big knucklehead and stop being so sensitive, I think somebody needs a hug. You've missed the point entirely. Jason never says that marketing or affiliate marketing shouldn't be permitted and when he says the industry is thinking small, he means they are limiting themselves by not expanding their horizons beyond thinking outside of the current affiliate mindset....that has nothing to do with the size of a company so if you want to operate as an affiliate making "$300k" per month in your skivies overlooking San Diego Bay, I'm sure Jason approves. It's a general concept of size of thought, not size of company....

In short, he's just saying don't be a douchebag about it by spamming...he suggests an insanely outlandish idea that if you build a quality product / portal / desintation you can make great money without the need to spam / pollute....

The issues exist for the exact reason you state, "The thing about affiliate marketing is it can be done by anyone." THERE IS NO BARRIER TO ENTRY! That means that there is going to be a lot of garbage entering the market.... and thus Jason's comments and views....

Posted at 7:15PM on Feb 25th 2008 by trace

4. I agree with Trace. I don't think Jason's point was to knock the affiliates who are happy with what they're making, whether it's $30,000 or $3 million. Aside from the obvious knock against the spammers and not-so-legitimate tactics used by some, I took his comments to mean don't limit your thinking by what the industry as a whole considers "success".

If you let yourself be limited by the picture of the $100,000 cheque, you're missing a huge piece of the pie. It's not for everyone, but that shouldn't stop the people who want to chase that dream from doing so.

Jason, if I'm off base and you did mean to slag every affiliate marketer on the face of the Earth, by all means correct me :-)

Posted at 10:59PM on Feb 25th 2008 by John

5. I thought it was a a great keynote, but I'm not an affiliate.

There's more to life than monetization. Building something that at least tries to change things for everybody for the better or empowers a ton of people in a new way...these are objectives that are scalable from a community perspective. Everybody can learn and benefit from the failures and successes. You can have everybody try, and the system doesn't collapse. It flourishes.

System spoofing doesn't scale as a community solution. Spam doesn't scale as a community solution. Gray to black hat SEO doesn't scale as a community solution. Guerilla marketing via plants doesn't scale as a community solution. And so on and so on. These might scale wonderfully as an individual monetization device, but that's about it. At a certain point, it collapses under its own weight because there's no "there" there.

Posted at 1:07AM on Feb 26th 2008 by SC

6. Nice Stuff... Keep It Up.

Posted at 6:22AM on Feb 28th 2008 by Eliseo

7. Greetings Jason, I just wanted to say well done for speaking the truth on 95% of all affiliate marketers. It is a shame that so many so called intelligent people chose the life of less resistance in stead of building real business.

On a second note it would be brilliant to bring Mahalo to Australia my current home away from home UK, as it is such a brilliant tool for business needing concise results.

Good luck with everything that you do, and remember the people that call you every name under the sun, only do so as they know in their soul what you speak is true.

Posted at 5:27PM on Feb 28th 2008 by Patrick Ryall

8. I've posted thoughts on the keynote at http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/youre-not-the-boss-of-me/

Posted at 1:00AM on Feb 29th 2008 by Shawn Collins

9. I didn't even go to this conference but it's apparent that "Fred" must have been having or had a bad day.

Gosh I hope he's not as miserable in real life as he appears in print. Someone tell him to lighten up, find time to have fun, and enjoy living.

If he is, as he says he is, which implies great personal wealth, self made, then I hope he can use as much energy just finding a path to happiness. His words appear to be that of a very miserable person.

bobj

Posted at 4:41PM on Mar 5th 2008 by bob johnson

10. I have always wanted to venture on affiliate marketing and I hope you guys will continue to share you expertise.

Posted at 4:52AM on May 7th 2008 by James