1. Jason, you were probably a lot nicer than you had to be.

I would say that the bulk of 'net marketers' make garbage sites that pollute the internet. Not to mention their on-going efforts to spam blogs, forums and groups. It's not about whether they are nice people or not, no doubt most of them are, but that doesn't change what they are doing - spawning crapola - or make it smell better.

A smaller, more smarmy group make (aka 'gurus') and push 'products' to gullible people on their mailing lists and their co-conspirators mailing lists which will supposedly make them the next internet millionaire. They real them in with free ebooks that don't really reveal anything, and which they make them give up their email addresses to get, all to build large lists to try and sell to.

Of course, these buyers seem not to get that the way these so-called experts get rich is by selling this over-priced stuff to them, and promoting the crap of a select insider group for large commissions.

Time after time, they fleece these people by pushing stuff with the promise that this will be the one product, service, seminar, etc that will reveal the so-called secret of making real money online and retiring next year. It's classic snake oil stuff with a new skin for a new age.

Posted at 8:14PM on Feb 26th 2008 by Tari Akpodiete

2. It might be a bit of a stretch, but I think there is a connection between the sharp fall-off in GOOG's share price today and the issues raised here. The apparent fall-off in click numbers isn't just about a softening economy but a bit of a reality check about the value marketers are actually getting from cost-per-click models where there is a lot of unnecessary noise / clutter / spam between the advertiser and the consumer.

Whether you read the Google news as a reduction in low-value clicks, better click fraud prevention or simply spooked advertisers, a good part of the message is that content created simply as an excuse for advertising isn't viable in the long term.

Posted at 9:12PM on Feb 26th 2008 by Daniel Gibbons

3. @Tari - I don't agree that the bulk of net marketers are making garbage sites that pollute the net. Sure, lots do but part of the problem is that those are often the face of the online marketing industry.

Those sites are obvious and the people that land on them see them for what they are - crap. But that isn't necessarily what the bulk of the marketers are doing.

"Net marketers" include Mahalo, Google and any other site that is monetized. They're marketing their sites and earning money from them. Nothing wrong with that, it's just when the spammers, gamers or whatever you want to call them are so noticeable, it seems like that's the majority of the business.

Parallels can be drawn with lots of other industries. Everyone uses used-car salesmen as the stereotypical scammer. Lots are, but there are lots of honest ones out there too.

Some lawyers double-bill. Some policemen are corrupt. Some corporate executives fudge the books. You can't paint a whole industry based on the bottom feeders, even if they're the ones you hear or see more about.

On the whole, I thought your keynote was on the money Jason. I didn't take offense to it and it gave me a couple of business ideas that weren't directly related to what you said, but were sparked by it nonetheless.

Posted at 9:25PM on Feb 26th 2008 by John

4. Like I said on Jangro:

"For every negative comment about Jason’s keynote, there are about ten other attendees that got what he was saying and his intention. Only affiliate marketers with something to hide would find what he was saying to offensive or “scary”."

I GET what your saying and totally agree. You must put users number one, or you will eventually negatively effect your bottom line. I had never heard of you before the keynote, but glad I attendeed. Your strategies will work for me even if my goal is one of the "uncouth checks" that we see so much of... =)

Posted at 4:45AM on Feb 27th 2008 by Seduction Chronicles

5. Hi Jason,

I didn't make it to the keynote, nor did we get a chance to speak at the dinner, which is a shame...what you said is nothing new to me however. Actually, in many ways it seemed to be naive....e.g. "but also the FTC, which doesn't take nicely to covert marketing."

Really? I was on the Spyware Panel with MSFT, AT&T, MIT and Webroot...two or three years later, at Esther Dysan's summit, I sat in line with Eric Howells and said "WTF? Why are we still playing this game of semantics? Three years later?" No- the government is not going to stop it.

At any rate I am preparing a blog post on what Sam archived, plus some additional rambling stuff...but obviously I just don't have as much social capital as you and that is ok- by job is to influence the influencer here. You can help by listening because I know the core of the problem far better and if a strong influencer, like you, and others in your sphere would talk with the right people, work with the "affiliates" (btw- merchants are my affiliates- that is how I see it.) and understand the issues on a very granular level- we might win this war. Because as one who started very small and has been all over the major press for years, at panels, summits even speaking at RSA. I feel I have failed...and I am worn out.

This is why I hate the A list label and think it is bad. Basic network theory says elitist groups becomes cliquish and homogeneous and there are no bridges for carriers of new ideas or viewpoints to enter. (Network gets too big- you can't control it.)

Hopefully I can stay up long enough to finish it at Revenews. Creating Mahalo is nice, and hey it passed my malware test for gaming cheats, but it isn't enough. I expect more from you and I think you are missing a core component.

If you and other tech. evangelists, etc do not step up TOGETHER and work with others- it will be toast or the reaction is going to be full of collateral damage that really sucks because there is nothing wrong with starting out small and working hard and doing it on your own dime. Every giant company was small once.

This is beyond money, this is Snowcrash, this is a digital society in decay.


regards,
Wayne

Posted at 8:30AM on Feb 27th 2008 by Wayne Porter

6. @John. I should have been more specific: When I say 'net marketers', I don't mean major companies, I mean individual people clawing for a piece of the online pie. Mostly, they have nothing to offer with their MFA (made for Adsense sites).

And I think that most reading my comments would clearly understand that distinction. Claiming that there are just a few bad apples negates the reality of the garbage these people spew while trying to game the various advertising systems, and not just Google.

I mean, come on, they use software programs to endlessly rewrite articles that they bought for a few bucks. And thousands of people are buying these articles (white label) and putting up tons and tons of sites, hence the problem of duplicate content. Then they use more software programs to spam blog, forums and groups.

I have a few quality content sites that have been around for awhile, once since 1990, and I get a lot software-generated requests for links, dozens and dozens a day.

Posted at 8:32AM on Feb 27th 2008 by Tari Akpodiete

7. Do I need to text benchmarks?

Posted at 2:09PM on Feb 27th 2008 by Wayne Porter

8. OK Jason. This is how I see the world.

http://www.revenews.com/wayneporter/next-gen-marketer-or-a-has-been/

Not pages, but types of media.

Posted at 10:21PM on Feb 27th 2008 by Wayne Porter

9. Informative Article... AWESOME.

Posted at 6:21AM on Feb 28th 2008 by Eliseo

10. Hi Jason,

I wrote a little bit about the question I asked you after I had time to ponder it. Thanks for being a pretty good sport when I was discussing your contributions to web spam. Since I didn't get to talk to you afterwards, I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your stories about how you got started in the business, I had never heard you talk about that stuff before, it humanizes you, you should do more of that in your talks.

See ya around...

Posted at 8:04AM on Feb 28th 2008 by David Dalka

11. I started my first web business in 96 as an affiliate. It wasn't much but I learned basic SEO tactics, how to build traffic and what viewers will respond to and at what point they switch off. It was a great learning experience for me and I think the whole affiliate world really helps young entrepreneurs learn just what is needed to succeed on the web, without necessarily risking large amounts of cash.

Onto the vaguely relevant part of this post, Mahalo. I'll admit, I'm no fan of you. Sure your blog is on my RSS reader, so is Cuban's, but often I find your self promotion a bit Branson-esque. Like your putting yourself ahead of what you create, I realise it's a good marketing tactic but its a little like Spearmint Rhino bragging about their winelist.

But this week I gave Mahalo a try, and I'm impressed. Sure, it doesn't give me the best result when I'm searching for the dimensions of a 500kw induction motor. But when I'm searching for something like cardiac arrest, you're spot on with all the information on the front page.

I think you're a long way from luring me from Google, but you're going to be getting traffic from the newbs, and they click a lote more ads.

Posted at 11:56AM on Feb 28th 2008 by Adam

12. I attended your keynote at affiliate summit. I'm an affiliate marketer. I like your speech, and your message was clear to me - honor thy consumer. But there are some things you neglected to mention:

A. Affiliate marketers are very creative, and they've provided new tactics that were quickly copied by others. For instance, in the early days of the internet, when pornography was the only thing you could find, adult affiliate marketers were the first to implement a lot of marketing techniques that are now considered the standard. While you may personally dislike affiliate sites, you must recognize their importance in terms of innovation.

B. You described your first project, Silicon Alley Magazine, as a 16 page black and white zerox magazine. I would imagine that many people in the publishing industry at the time accused you of making something akin to a "thin affiliate site". It seems a little hypocritical to debase the efforts of so many as "crap" when your first effort was probably a piece of crap too (at least to begin with). My first website was a piece of crap, but since that time I've worked hard and I now own a website good enough to be a recommended Mahalo link. My question is this: Can you admit to being a hypocrite?

C. You've lost touch with the common man. You wrote off $100k sum as "a joke" - such a small amount of money that "people in the valley laugh about it." While that may be the case, it's certainly nothing to be proud of. There are a lot of people that struggle to earn half that. If that's how you really feel, whip out your checkbook and donate $100k to some charity. Then, take a picture of yourself holding that check and laughing...I'm sure people would love to see you give that kind of money away like it's some kind of joke.

D. Ultimately, I found your keynote inspiring. I found your comment that "most of the people in this room are smarter than half the CEO's I meet" to be energizing. I found it especially powerful after I realized that the man saying it probably wasn't as smart or hard working as most of the people in the audience. He was just lucky enough to found a piece of crap magazine in the right place at the right time, and then smart enough to capitalize on his good fortune.

Basically, that's what I'm doing. Maybe in a few years we can laugh about $100k together.

Posted at 1:55AM on Feb 29th 2008 by Jason Lancaster

13. I did not attend the keynote. Most people I talked to said that they agreed with many of Jason's points but regarded his provocative attitude as a marketing tactic for mahalo.com. (I think most people resented this attitude and its motivation.) To this point, I think it's safe to say I wouldn't have heard of mahalo.com but for hearing about the (in)famous Jason Calacanis 'seo is bs' quote.

The point I'd like to add is that content publishers have always tried to acquire more readership at any cost, with the byproduct of low quality content. This is easy to spot in print and broadcast mediums.

It may not happen in quite the same automated fashion as on the internet but here the system is geared to not reward the most offensive gamers. (And I think we can all agree that a lot of this behavior is undesired.)

When it comes down to it, affiliate marketing is simply a means of paying for advertising. You've basically got CPA, CPC, and CPM. If you took away CPA, you'd still have all the same people playing all the same games - they'd just monetize differently. At the end of the day eyeballs are worth money. Pretending otherwise is silly.

Posted at 2:13AM on Mar 3rd 2008 by Brook Schaaf

14. "In the Affiliate World I'm the bad guy."

What makes you believe that? Paranoia?

"The more Mahalo succeeds the more folks in the Affiliate business will suffer because the honest truth is that most consumers DON'T want to go to the sites that Affiliates are making. Affiliates typically make sties that are "thin" with little original content, and in some cases stolen content."

Maybe the ones that should suffer will, but don't generalize where it is not appropriate.

Don't fall for Matt Cutts propaganda and talk about "thin" affiliate sites. They do exist and if they go away, nobody will miss them. However, if all of them would be gone, you will be surprised that affiliate marketing will still be there, stronger than ever I might add as well.

I suggest that you maybe spend some more time learning about affiliate marketing (if you are interested).

Affiliate marketing is first of all a way to monetize an online business or a personal website (it does not have to be a business at all).

Ways to monetize your site are:
1. access/subscription fee
2. display advertising
3. sponsorships
4. contextual ads
5. affiliate links

1. restricts access to the content. It's a valid means to monetize a site, but it becomes less and less popular and harder to do, because the same content can often be found elsewhere, free, because it is monetized via using one of the other methods

2. display advertising is bulk advertising. It is the translation of TV ads to the Internet. most websites don't qualify as a publisher, regardless how good their content is. Publishers who qualify don't have control over the advertisement that is shown on their site.

3. Direct sponsorships are not easy to come by, especially for small websites with a very niche audience. Even if you would be able to attract sponsors are you creating a potential conflict of interest. If your content is related to what your sponsor is offering, negative comments about products of your sponsor could cause the termination of the sponsorship. A loss in revenue, most publishers are not willing to risk. The result will be a loss in quality of the content itself, because it becomes skewed, biased and less honest.

4. feasible for small publishers with the main drawback that the publisher has no editorial control over what Ads are shown on his site. Ads displayed might be irrelevant and poorly targeted and in the worst case harmful for visitor who fall for them. This will in many cases reflect bad on the publisher himself too, because many people are unable to distinguish between editorial content and non-editorial contextual ads (including the ones that are labeled as such)

5. small volume is not a problem, affiliate marketing is actually designed for small volume niche publishers. Some of the uses of affiliate tracking today is not even affiliate marketing IMO (talking about loyalty sites etc.). The publisher selects specifically who and what he advertises and keeps full editorial control over it. Bad recommendations will fall back on him, rightfully, because he has no excuse as he would have with contextual ads or display advertising. This means that a site that uses affiliate links to monetize its content can be as good or as bad as the creator of the site wants it to be. The final judge of that will be the visitor of the site.

Jason, did you ever considered those things? Do you still believe that affiliate marketing is a bad thing after seeing the arguments for it? C'mon, you should be somebody who evangelizes affiliate marketing and should use your influence and power to help this industry to clean up its act, outlaw the bad players and organize itself before outsiders (e.g. the government) step in and attempt doing it for them. You know how that goes (see CAN-SPAM and Direct Marketing hehe).

Carsten

Posted at 10:22PM on Mar 5th 2008 by Carsten Cumbrowski

15. I made my long comment to a blog post also, where I elaborated things a little bit more. Just fyi.

http://www.revenews.com/carstencumbrowski/monetization-options-for-your-web-content/

Posted at 10:51PM on Mar 5th 2008 by Carsten Cumbrowski

16. Jason,

As my wife once made clear to me, "It's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it."

Everyone knows that the Internet is polluted with malware and spam. My 67-year old mother could tell you that in an instant.

What people object to is the wide net that you case over affiliate and internet marketing, attempting to make your case like the schoolyard bully... pushing other people down in an attempt to make yourself look bigger.

Not having met you, I was surprised to have seen this and had expected more out of you. Your foul language and insulting behavior was the absolute basest of ways to make your point and I hope you would seek to hold yourself up to higher standards in the future.

If your goal was to be controversial, than I congratulate you because you accomplished it with flying colors.

But if you wanted to make a point that would have a lasting impact on the attendees, I'm afraid your signal got lost in all the noise.

I do look forward to meeting one day. Perhaps we'll discuss over your favorite beverage...

Posted at 5:29AM on Apr 11th 2008 by Joel Comm