Archive for the ‘Industry News’ Category

So Affiliate Summit West 2013 is coming up. I didn’t go to any of the Summits last year in ’12 but I am looking forward to this years festivities.

Affiliate Ball

The biggest, baddest, hottest party of the year is just around the corner. We’re super pumped to have 6 time Grammy Award winning artist, Big Boi of Outkast to perform a full concert as our ASW crowd networks and blows off steam. What can you expect this time? Expect this party to be over the top in one of the greatest venues in Vegas, Chateau located at Paris. Start time is 9:30 pm on Monday night January 14th. Please get there early to avoid any big lines. Our party is in heavy demand, last year we had 3,000 invited guests.

Here’s the agenda. We will have the mighty YT Cracker spin the hottest music ranging from hip hop, dubstep, electro-house with a little rock fusion. Our opening act is a surprise, so I won’t tell you that, but they are amazing! In addition, iBallers will have a big stable of beautiful Go Go dancers shakin’ their tail feather everywhere in the club. This round we have party hostesses sponsored by EnvyusMedia, they will be the life of the party. Did I mention Big Boi is performing a full concert of Outkast hits and some from his new Grammy nominated album? We’re fired up for this party, so please make sure you don’t miss this classic event which will be remembered for years to come. Legendary!

Also, we will present 4 of our industry’s finest with AFFY Awards during the party. We select winners based on people who deserve the spotlight for their outstanding achievement in our industry.

If you’ve already RSVP’d then you are entered into our drawing for the reserved table and VIP’s. If not, please RSVP now before we close registration. We will pick the winner in a week. Please send the RSVP link to your friends who will be attending the Affiliate Summit. It would be a shame for them to miss this one.

We have 2 reserved tables left, if anyone would like to receive some promotion long with the best seats in the house and VIP passes. Please contact me at info[at@]affiliateball.com or call 818 825-3972.

You know our party gets the greatest artists when they perform on Letterman less then 2 weeks before our event. If you missed Big Boi on Letterman, here’s a clip I found on Youtube of his performing his new track. It’s amazing!

Huge thanks to our sponsors, without their support this party would never happen.

Headlining Sponsor – SocietyInvite
Platinum Sponsors – OfferSearch, iBallers, KSIX
Gold Sponsors – Evoplus, PerformInsider (no link for you!)
Silver Sponsors – WP Engine, W3i, TrustedRevenue, Webair
Bronze Sponsors – Sellhealth, DerechoMedia, EDK Innovations, CallPixels, NDemandAffiliates, Coolhandle
Go Go Dancers – iBallers
Party Hostesses – EnvyusMedia

Media Partners – CPAFIX, Adhustler, PPC.bz & Ourselves ;)

See you in Vegas! All passes can be picked up at our Meet Market booth #108 for the Affiliate Ball. Don’t forget to ask for your Players Card. This is a plastic membership card with VIP Perks for all future events. It will be good for VIP line entry, sponsored gifts, social network and entry into all of our future events for you and your group every time.

- Darren Blatt
Vibe Creator

Fake Affiliate Summit Passes

Look at this shit. Hilarious. Someone should have told Collins that fake passes aren’t even a problem. It’s people giving their passes to others or using passes from previous Affiliate Summit shows. This is like the Hall Monitors you used to have in high school. Wonder who Shawn hired to be on his “Crime Stoppers” force? Really I wouldn’t even want to fuck with this guy.

If you see something, say something.

Just a note from Darren “aka D Money” about the upcoming Affiliate Ball for Affiliate Summit West 2013 –

The Affiliate Ball is back as an official party of the Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas on January 14th, 2012. Entertainment for the night and the location will be announced soon. Since the Affiliate Ball has been around, the party scene has never been better. Last years event at ASW was considered by many veterans of the game to be the greatest industry party of all time. With Nelly as their headliner, one of the biggest artists throughout the last decade, it’s no wonder why those who attended had an amazing experience they will never forget. Darren Blatt, organizer of the event explains, “No matter who is performing, you can always expect an amazing vibe in the room, incredible networking opportunities and legendary talent performing who would normally sell out huge venues. The Affiliate Ball is all about providing the ideal situation to do more business with others. After 15 years of throwing internet B2B marketing parties, I’ve seen some of the biggest deals happen right in front of my eyes. The best time to bond with others is in a party environment. Whether deals happen right there or not, relationships are always made and strengthened.”

If you are attending the Affiliate Summit and want to RSVP for this monster party, then sign up now at
http://affiliateball.com/register.html. Passes can be picked up at the Affiliate Ball Meet Market table #108. All levels of sponsorship’s are now available and fit for everyone’s budget. Please contact info@affiliateball.com if you’re interested in receiving some amazing exposure, VIP’s, reserved tables, entertaining prospects, clients and much more.

Just when I thought I was out of the “wrap up” post writing business, they pull me back in!

Curating all of this content is truly a pain in the ass. If you appreciate this great work I’ve been doing for you, then you should vote for me, Barman, here in this silly King of the Bloggers contest. I don’t even think there is a prize… I just think it’s time ppc.bz gets the recognition it deserves. Every one else gets to win contests, and they’re not even legendary like ppc.bz. So make yourself useful and vote for me.

Don’t forget that previous wrap-up posts contain “evergreen” information. See July for example. If you wanted to, you could wrap-up my wrap-up posts and sell them on Warrior Forum for $37. It’s like printing money!

It’s October and if you haven’t noticed, I managed to miss doing an August wrap up post. This time around I had 2 months of crap to sift through. It took some work and I’ve tried to be even more strict with whats get posted here. It just takes too long, so info had to be truly useful or captivating.

Also there appear to be some ad spots available on this blog. Advertiser here so we can stop seeing all of these EWA network snowman ads.

Let the 4th Quarter begin!

Online and Affiliate Marketing News and Posts

I’m not going to post stats and figures as much anymore because they’re redundant. The internet is growing, people are getting mobile, blah blah blah. Instead, check out this State of the Internet Slide deck. Over 100 slides of data for everything that you could possibly want to know about where the internet is heading.

Yes, I am linking to a post on PoF that Justin Dupre wrote. Deal with it. It’s a good primer / overview of advertising on Plenty of Fish with CPA offers. Following that, POF Ben gives you the ghetto-est Photoshop “trick” ever.

iPyxel has a case study on POF’s mobile performance. If you’re going to mess with mobile on PoF, here’s a post discussing mobile landing pages with PoF mobile traffic.

iPyxel also brings you some Facebook advertising tips that “they” don’t want you to know (but really, they do.)

Bryn has a guest post over at the Neverblue blog – Advice to New Affiliates. RevivedMedia has a handy mindmap on doing the proper research and getting shit done.

A handy way to find top keywords in a category from traffic+conversion.

Juicy copywriting nuggets
How to gain the trust of a skeptical consumer. 101 Proven Headlines ( headlines are the most important meal of the day.) This is an oldie but goodie – The most important writing lesson you’ll ever learn.

Seven tactics for increasing your sales letter response. The infamous “diet farticle” now in print.

Good to Great Copywriting in just 24 hours, or your money back! Finch also writes this post with 5 ways to save your sanity with moonlighting (note: selling your body not required, but recommended.) And finally, how to become a guru in any market.

Also, Finch tweeted this incredible resource with 600 plus places to share your content.

Now Back to Landing Pages and Content Generation
Unbounce always has the goods. How to write a call-to-action that converts, with case studies. Here be 23 posts about landing pages that might be worth a read.

KissMetrics also has great posts. In-depth overview about creating viral content. Yes, easier said than done, but its backed up by data. Yo dawg, if you’re into link building, then this post is for you.

Here be a ton of conversion optimization tools you can try.

Matt Cutts Engine Optimization
The SEO world has been shaken up quite a bit this year. Pandas and Penguins, oh my. Here’s some info on Google’s leaked Search Quality guidelines from SEWatch.com. 125 pages on how to tell if a website is garbage, how to make webmasters cry, and more!

SocialMediaExaminer has a good guide on creating blog content that’s highly valuable for your readers. Here’s a good post explaining how to use Google’s authorship to your advantage. Luke from Peerfly touches on this as well. Indeed, here are six things you should be doing in this New World Order of SEO.

Here is a good guide on traffic generation that isn’t overwhelming. It’s simple – different things work for different niches, and once you figure those things out, automate and move on to the next one.

Quicksprout has a good list of ideas with where to start after the Penguin / Panda update. More for QuickSprout – getting that content nice and fresh. TheLinkBuilders has some advice on whoring your social media profiles for SERP real estate.

Another goodie from LayeredThoughts titled Really Easy SEO strategy for startups.

Something from SEOmoz about social sharing and the Open Graph and what have you.

Let’s Get Really Nerdy
How to launch an Amazon EC2 instance. I don’t know anything about this service mentioned, but here’s how to send SMS with PHP and Curl.

Here be a ton of Javascript and jQuery libraries(Part 2) that you can use on your sites and landing pages.

Using WordPress as a backend for your SaaS platform. Want to make WordPress better with some custom content types? Check out this Pods tutorial.

The 4 Hour website is an article / sales page about coming up with the website for 4 Hour Body. Really cool viral way to sell a $3,999 Landing page design service.

If you’re wanting to learn how to program from the comfort of your own browser, here are 5 great resources you can use.

Infographic mania
How to integrate SMS with customer service. 20% of moms in the US shop with their smartphones. But overall, men are still bigger mobile shoppers than women. Global e-commerce is going to explode – better learn some Chinese. How to improve your AdWords Quality Score.

Outside the box thinking – using mTurk to interview 100 customers in four hours.

And a lil’ bit of Facebook and Google
If you’re advertising on Facebook, here’s a very handy and simple guide to all types of Facebook Advertising. Advertising on Google? Here are a slew of webinars for making use of all of those Google products.

Donor’s Choose has some good tips for marketing content on Facebook. Luke from Peerfly has this interesting case study on Facebook’s Sponsored Posts.

Google is also updating its policies, so check this post out for the latest updates in Google-will-find-a-way-to-fuck-you-over.

Marketing News of the Mobile Variety

Have an app? Here’s how you can integrate A/B testing for your app promotion. It’s an interesting take on the app promotion process. Google AdWords is also providing some split-testing tools for driving apps installs.

Google has some more advice on mobile – Giving mobile user’s what they want and Mobile-friendly websites turn users into customers.

Peep Facebook’s mobile growth in handy infographic form.

Great resources from mobyaffiliates: Increasing mobile app revenue with mobile ad servers. I feel like this has been linked to before, but a comprehensive PDF on building mobile sites and landing pages. This one too, but whatever, it’s good – Mobile affiliate marketing guide.

Urban Airship is providing some highly granular geo-targetting capabilities.

There are a shit ton of government APIs out there. Gov data is becoming more open and available, so get to building! If you need a way to build a mobile app, here’s a round-up of mobile application builder platforms.

Startups, Growth, and Productivity

Productivity and Procrastination
The science of procrastination, animated, is a cute video explaining why we procrastinate (it’s a symptom, not a cause) and a few tips on how to overcome it. This is the first time I ran across brainpickings.org – very good site.

And here we have an article about the science of motivation. Why do we do what we do everyday? Here’s some science on why exercise makes you feel better. Science, fuck yeah!

32 Lessons learned for life and business, a great read from ConversionXL.com

Here be seven procrastination busting tips. You know, once you read enough articles and advice on productivity, you see the same themes emerge over and over. See this post from theenergyproject called battling your online addiction. All of these tips work, so start now!

Every productivity tip I’ve ever came across is mentioned in this post – Top 50 Productivity tips for Entrepreneurs. Apply one of these per day and in 2 months you will be 10x more productive.

Save brainpower by reducing the amount of stupid decisions you have to make: Being Boring is Productive. ZenHabits has a primer on full-screen living. Pure focus is the goal. But most of all – just stop thinking and lean into the pain (believe you can change). Get inspired.

The myth of doing “that one thing,” which boils down to that success isn’t just one event, but a process.

Dr. Charles Ngo (yes, he’s a real doctor, ladies) launched his new blog recently (He’s got a PhD – pretty huge … devotion to marketing.) Lots of great advice on productivity and success. This is a guest post called the 1% Difference to Achieving Success. What Can Fuck Over Your Business? And most recent, How to Setup your marketing Super Team ( its about outsourcing yo.)

Keeping with the theme of motivational Asian bloggers, we go to Asian Efficiency for a few posts. Do the right thing to keep yourself motivated. And forcing decisions to improve productivity, which has similarities with the “Being Boring is Productive” post linked a few paragraphs up.

How to be a productivity dynamo. I like this post because it’s just a good collection of links.

One more thing – don’t get addicted to stress.

Book Recommendations
Want to keep your brain busy for the next year? Here are 50 psychology book recommendations. I’ve read a handful of these books already, so I’ll definitely be checking out many of the recommendations in this post. Here are 18 life-changing books from OKDork that you might like as well. Good post from the same author called “How to get past being a one-hit wonder.”

Startups and their Merciless Leaders
ComScore is going to help accelerate Chicago-area startups.

“Growth hacking” is bullshit… God I hate buzzwords like this. Stupid hipsters. How is growth hacking so different from customer acquisition anyway?

How can a scam company raise $76 million in Series B funding?

Huge in-depth guide on how to get media coverage for your start-up or business.

Want to build a start-up community in your area? Here’s what makes it possible. Seriously, forget Silicon Valley, just build your startup where you live.

Great interview with Chris Sacca on This Week in Startups. This guy has a crazy history, a ridiculous story when working at Google, and great advice once he gets back on his feet.

Why do a lot of startups suck? They’re not really solving a problem. There are way too many free tools and resources out there. Everyone should be starting a business. Here’s some startup advice from DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg.

Good read (depending on old your are because the author is giving life advice at 25) on lifehacker “Are your goals holding you back?”

Great series of interviews from Kalzumeus. This interview has a lot of good discussion (market research specifically) for almost any business – Getting your first consulting client. Haven’t listened to this one yet, but here’s Part II.

35 people give their best advice on public relations. Shopify has 12 “must watch” Ted talks for entrepreneurs.

People Ask James Altucher a lot of questions. Not gonna lie, sometimes his blog is depressing to read, but he always lays out some good advice. In this Part II post, there’s some good stuff at the bottom, especially the “fastest way to make a million.”

Mandatory interview with Elon Musk. Elon is a legend.

That should keep you busy for the next month. Show your appreciation and vote for Barman here in this King of the Bloggers contest which does nothing but stroke my ego.

In this month’s installment of “Barman reads the news so you don’t have to…,” or as some people call it, “a Glorified AffBuzz,” we take a look at new developments on the internet. Well, not really, just a lot of useful resources for copy writing, affiliates, and people stepping up their entrepreneur and start-up game. Don’t forget to read last month’s “issue” or even the month before that – some of the links are timeless.

General Internet and Affiliate Goodies

Going to Affiliate Summit East? AffPlaybook is having another “Mastermind” and here are the details.

It’s been said that greatest minds of our generation are not curing cancer or solving world problems, but rather focused on getting people to click ads. This post from Finch kind of drives that point home. And finally – Finch goes in-depth about selling e-books vs print books.

Did you know that, unlike sex, free doesn’t sell. Finch explains why.

Profitapolis is back! Yay! Here’s a review of the Millionaire Fastlane, which I recommend everyone read. I agree with the point in the post where it should be required reading in every high school curriculum. We’d have a lot less entitled pieces of shit in our country, and a lot more people focused on real reaching their own success. And finally, How to fight the productivity demons.

Hey NickyCakesTV Numero 7 is out.

This blog post is just like 50 Shades of Grey. Shock Marketer has some David Ogilvy related goodness.

Have ad inventory to sell on your website properties? This article explains How to Find Advertisers to Buy Ads on your website. Not enough? A big ass infographic on how to monetize your website.

Perhaps you are looking for some WordPress themes for affiliates? Cleaning up affiliate feeds with Google Refine. I did not know such a thing as Google Refine existed.

Not using Google+ ? Sadly, you should be. Here are a whole bunch of infographics exploring the many benefits of getting integrated with Google+. So, what has the greater impact? Facebook Likes or Google+ 1′s ?

Landing Pages

More from Unbounce – 50 posts that every lead gen business should read… or at least, skim over. Always a goodie – 25 lead gen landing pages reviewed with tips on what to keep and what to change.

Here are 6 Tips to Make Landing Pages more effective. Hint: Add Oprah. Here are some examples of “portal” style landing pages.

10 Best Practices for Mobile Landing Pages from SE Watch. Usually these kinds of posts are drivel, but this one isn’t too bad in terms of helpfulness.

The evolution of the Basecamp landing page.

Conversions

9 Psychological tricks that make users convert. Some “Influence” stuff in there.

How moving the Call-to-Action Below the fold increased conversions 3x. Test er-thang!

Here we have 8 Habits of Conversion-focused copywriters. Here’s an infographic about conversion rate optimization from SEOGadget.co.uk.

Great post from Conversion Rate Experts on how they helped topcashback.co.uk become the 5th fastest growing company in the UK. Basically, the nuts and bolts of conversion rate optimization.

So you go the conversion – now what? Post conversion strategies for lead generation.

BoostCTR always has good posts backed by data. The “Curse” of knowledge in PPC ads, via BoostCTR. What’s the End Goal? is a case study in helping a searcher achieve their goals.

RADically re-thinking your Calls to Action. Not sure if I posted this before but it’s a good read.

Link Building and SEO and Such

15 handy link-building tools. More from SE Watch – 5 PPC Keyword Research Tools. Here we have an article about SEO for images.

SEO Theory says SEO is simpler than ever. Your content just sucks! Also, some ‘SEO’ trends that will waste your time and money. LOLSEO. So… shut up about your SEO tactics.

Neil Patel has these 5 Rules Every SEO Should Live by. Got forms? 5 Ways to Improve Your Contact Form Conversion Rate. And finally, how to build authority without cheating.

The war on free clicks aka SEO is dead or dying. Google wants money for its clicks. Don’t act like you didn’t see this coming since its been years in the making.

Google Adwords and Facebook

Google AdWords now takes device type into account when coming up with a Quality Score, says CertifiedKnowledge. Great interview with Brad of CertifiedKnowledge – Affiliate marketing and Google Adwords.

A slide deck about Getting the most out of Google’s Content Network.

Singular vs plural search queries and what it can tell you about your customers.

A behavioral targeting case study.

Facebook has a shitton of ad units so here’s an explanation of those ad units.

Facebook launches mobile ads for apps. Oh my. Also, Subscriptions are now available. Oh my again.

What do desktop users on Facebook do compared to Mobile users? Facebook is close to a billion users. And what’s going on with that Instagram deal?

Advertising on Facebook (or any other social media network)? Here are some ideas for customizing your image creatives. Here are a few posts on what NOT to do with your Facebook ad images- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Why do you care about your images? Chicks get clicks, man.

9 Tips on getting those Facebook ads to actually work. A lot of good advice.

BevoMedia Blogs about the Battle for 1 Cent Clicks on Facebook. They do exist.

A nifty PDF report from AdParlor about Facebook Mobile Advertising.

Trends in Commerce

A whole lot of data about US online advertisement spending.

An interesting infographic from Match.com data – the Dating Olympics.

Here be some more infographics from EConsultancy – some good ones about shopping APIs and other things (There are 300+ shopping APIs available). ECon then asks if m-commerce will overtake other payment options. One thing is for sure, shoppers love their smartphones. Maybe you should build an e-commerce site with the Shopify API? Here are 28 examples from Canada, eh!

Physical mobile commerce is about to change with this deal between Starbucks and Square.

Ebay sees a huge surge in mobile shopping.

How to bundle products without reducing value.

It’s car buying season according to AdCenter. Honestly I didn’t know there was a season for car-buying, but hey, good to know.

Design, Development, Services, etc

Common colors and what they mean in website design from UX Movement.

Neat domain tool – Search 5 letter domains and 6 letter domains that may be available.

Need to post a job to every single job site out there? There’s a Zip Recruiter for that.

Want to build cross-browser extensions with JavaScript and jQuery? That’s what CrossRider does. Here is how they got to over 100 Million users.

Want to improve your skillset? Broaden your horizons? Now, you have NO EXCUSE! Yes, a list of websites where you can learn anything, free. Here are some more collegiate resources for free education. Fuck college!

Specifically, if you want to learn Javascript, JSBooks has a giant list of free JavaScript books. Awwww snap! And here – a ton of great HTML5 resources for developers.

Need to process images in PHP? Check the PHP ImageWorkShop Library. The Facebook blog re-visits the HTML5 Canvas element. Here be an HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet for your viewing pleasure.

Then, a very good post on how to use Appcache Manifest for faster HTML5 apps and websites.

All Things Mobile

If you’re looking for some really nice app store insights, check out Xyologic, which recently revealed a search engine to improve mobile app discovery. As of writing, it’s a closed Beta – but easy to get in. Check it out!

Mobile marketers should focus on mobile moms and more M words. Check it out – old people get technology too. They’re like, hip to the scene and shit. Young whippersnappers!

Neverblue launches a Game Performance Network, a “full service growth machine for game developers.” Interesting to see how this plays out.

A/B Test your App name to increase downloads on iPhone. If you’re an Android developer, AppFlood looks like a cool way to cross-promote your app. App-o-day looks like a good way to get your paid app out there for iOS.

The Olympics blow up mobile search. Then, Google explains the difference between a mobile website and a responsive design, and which one you need. If you’re going the responsive design route – here’s a huge interactive guide on responsive design.

How to emulate Phonegap / Cordova in your desktop browser. Really cool.

Some decent tips on monetizing mobile apps, before you develop them. Here are some tools to help you with mobile app monetization.

Here’s an interesting study regarding some big mobile ad networks – AdMob accounts for 50% of total share but has the worst engagement of these ad networks. I wonder why this is?

Who’s winning the apps race in mobile shopping?

SEOBook takes a look at the opportunities in mobile SEO.

The growing “mobile-only” audience. And then some data on the “multi-device” audience. What’s the most popular mobile activity? It’s true – SMS keeps growing. With that said, 5 examples of SMS marketing the right way.

More data on who is using all those smart phones.

A ton of data from Adfonic about the $5.3 Billion mobile advertising space. Get the report! Here are some of the highlights.

Goodies from Mobaff (although these appear to be reposts from an earlier date): Hey bro I heard you liked push ads, so here’s a case study on push ads from mobaff. Un-tapped cheap mobile traffic opportunities. Finding mobile strategies that work. Ad planners for international mobile. And finally, some angry thoughts from the Angry Russian on mobile marketing.

400,000 Apps in the Apple App Store have 0 downloads. This is due to people putting out shitty apps (copycat worthless apps) and / or not knowing how to market them. Maybe these people should have read App Store Optimization for Beginners? Check out this post from Invantory titled App Store SEO: The tools we used.

Estimating App Demand from Publicly Available Data. I haven’t read this yet, but it’s like, a scientific research paper or some shit. Yeah! Science bitch!

Techcrunch article on marketing tactics used to get a very niche mobile app past 10 Million downloads.

Mopub is growing and making new hires. Also, Google is putting the smack-down on “spammy apps” which have started to become a huge problem.

What developers can learn from top mobile apps. Kind of fluff but decent ideas.

APIs, Startups, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, and Everything Else

The future of web APIs and a bunch of handy links. Planning an API? Here are the best 30 APIs to take a look at to see what they are doing right. The App Economy is really the API Economy. Basically, most apps make calls to or rely entirely on APIs.

The US Census Department releases an API. Twilio SMS goes international to 150 countries.

Speaking of APIs, if you’re looking for a job that deals with API, api-jobs is for you.

Pretty cool way to reward your customers when they refer people to your service or product.

Always one of my favorite things from Kissmetrics: Learning how startups become successes – this time its Quora.

Bootstrapped, profitable, and proud. Profiling profitable companies that were built from the ground up, without outside funding. Stories of failure and redemption from 18 startup founders. Not every one ends up successful, but interesting to see how people fuck up.

Start up? Read up – Excellent ways to increase user engagement. 54 Quotes from Startup Leaders on how to improve conversions. Bet you didn’t know there’s much we can learn from the porn industry.

Advice I wish I could’ve given myself 5 years ago. 5 things young people don’t know. Is this your first time, Mr. Entrepreneur? Stop Fucking Around then!

Behind the scenes at fab.com. Somehow Fab.com always seems to make it into these posts.

Asian Efficiency has some thoughts on productivity and outcomes. You don’t have to be a fan of Will Smith to like this post on procrastination.

Good read from Wired.com exposes dirty tricks to get that investor money in the mobile app world.

Student debt is hitting the middle-aged pretty hard. What happens in 10-20 years when recent grads start reaching that age?

P90X is a huge now, but it took a lot of hard work to get it where it is today.

How our brains sabotage our goals. Scumbag brain! Finch asks where productivity ends and “staying busy” begins. So, why aren’t you delegating?

Good videos to watch – Entrepreneurial happiness TED Talk. And a great fireside chat with Elon Musk, a true badass of entrepreneurship and innovation.

How to achieve the “Flow” state. Much easier read than trying to get through the long and boring book “Flow.”

So it looks like I might actually finish a wrap-up post on time for once. It’s only July 4th, whereas most of the time these posts are finished halfway through the month. Happy Freedom Day Americuh FUCK YEARRRRHHHH!

Let’s begin with all things interesting on the internet…

Affiliate, Copywriting, Traffic, and other Online Marketing Goodies

Some chick on Shoemoney posts 11 Things to Make You Look Like a Conference Douche. While I agree industry conferences are filled with some of the lowest of low life degenerates, I think this chick is out of line a little here. You’re an 8 at industry conferences because they’re giant sausage parties. In real life you’re a 5 at best. You get +3 just for being there and having tits. AND I’ll stare at your tits if I want to WHY ARE YOU WEARING THAT LOW CUT SHIRT THEN?!

But seriously, all joking aside ( i respect women in real life), seobitch ( If that’s your real name…) makes some valid points. Mr. No Tipper – That turns ME off, and I am a guy. I fucking HATE this. Broke asses can’t even toss a bartender a $1. Shit is just mind-boggling.

/end rant. Down to business.

I always forgot to holler at Bevo Media’s Blog, run by the ever so sexy Ryan Buke ( Richboro repping ), but NO MORE! How to become a millionaire in affiliate marketing, with pros and cons for each. 1 Simple Trick to saving your Facebook campaign. And finally, how to really research a niche, funk proper.

Still using the same “copy + paste” method in affiliate marketing? No wonder you suck! Read this good post by Mr. Green over at POF – Stop Ignoring Angles! A lot of great advice on how to bring up good campaigns – focus on the copy and angle. Once you’re profitable, then you can fuck around with small stuff like button color.

Frank Schilling has a few words on Google’s future. In other domaining news, Conan launches Conan.xxx, the best use of the new .XXX extension since dullspace.xxx.

There is now an “Alliance to Fight Bad Ads” or something. What is this shit I DON’T EVEN

Real Time Bidding is growing like a mothafucka. Every impression on sale!

Why do people leave online reviews? Because it makes them feel cool? Yes, but no. Usually it’s just to be helpful (duh).

Shock Marketer writes about David Ogilvy, advertising legend.

What is this? Something useful from SEOMoz? How to Hack a Domain Name for your Website.

Newbies – Check out the Finch Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. Also, Finch is moving back to Thailand. I think it’s just because he misses Justin Dupre.

How to write the perfect blog post. The irony is that the post is an infographic.

Google Ranking Factors in 2012. Hint: Facebook has a lot to do with it? The Content Marketing Grid v2.

HasOffers has some tips for marketing with video.

Whats the best day to launch a Facebook campaign? DM Confidential reports.

8 Quick ways to improve your Adwords CTR (although these tips can apply to almost any ppc traffic source.)

Aaron Wall of SEOBook writes a long, in-depth post berating Google and their bullshit. I. Love. It.

The Amazon Affiliate Program is underrated.

Better than link building. An interesting post on gaining traffic by becoming an authority source. Another article that repeats some of the same things along with some more SEO stuff..

Yo dawg I heard you like infographics, so he’s a giant post from Unbounce on how to make and market infographics. Also, is Google+ not totally worthless?

Hey I just met you, so “click here” maybe? UXMovement tells you Why your links should never say “Click Here.” Then, Radically re-thinking your Call to Action.

5 Awesome psychological studies on pricing, from Kissmetrics. Really good read – I love that kind of psychology selling stuff. FBAdsLab has 13 attention grabbing headlines. And then, how to incorporate benefits into your ad copy for more clicks.

PPCHero looks at effective calls to action. Learn more! And then – how to port your desktop search ads over to mobile.

Some sexy Keyword Modifiers for better ROI.

How to make your images Pin-worthy. OH YEAH BABY PIN ME!

Nueromarketing has some good stuff – Marketing lessons from Nigerian Scammers. Yes, that is a real article. And then, some mental tricks to make your prices seem lower.

9 Ways to shit on the user experience and make them leave your website.

E-Commerce websites are still too damn slow. You’re losing sales, people! Once you get that site faster, here are conversion rate optimization tips from 10 great online retailers.

Great post from LukeW – Evolving E-commerce Checkout. What be the future of digital shopping?

GetListed.org is a handy way to list local businesses on various local properties.

Sort of useful info from Yahoo on “what moms want.” Then Microsoft has some shit about back-to-school shopping.

Check out some newer mobile and social media traffic sources.

39 Affiliate APIs. Excellent stuff.

While we’re talking about APIs – APIS.io is an open source directory of APIs. So very juicy.

Trello is a cool app for organizing and collaborating via boards. Kind of like visual Basecamp.

Do you need icons? IconsGuide.com BAM!!

And Now More Facebook and Social News

Facebook’s FBX / RTB is big news. Here’s how it really works. Jay Weintraub ponders how the Facebook Exchange might have come to be.

The Complete Guide on how to use that newfangled Facebook WordPress plugin.

There are now 50 Million Facebook users in Brazil. Latin America is blowing up on Facebook in general.

Also, Facebook testing a Want button.

SocialMouths – Analyzing a whole bunch of Facebook engagement data in handy infographic form.

SocialFresh says “Never underestimate a puppy photo.” Interesting data on the effectiveness of puppies. I didn’t even read this article: Content Marketing is Not As Simple As Writing a Ton of Posts, but I’m linking to it because it has Bofu all over the post.

SocialCam has blown up. But are their marketing techniques shady or smart? If they’re making money… the answer is: Smart.

Mobile News and Goodies

Mobile affiliates – driving more clicks but conversions are down. Can’t blame the affiliates when the merchants don’t know what they are doing half the time. Case in point – 45% of consumers WANT to be marketed to on their mobile device.

Also, I heard you liked infographics about mobile so here are 10 of them.

Mira mira!! Turns out, Hispanics and Blacks are very responsive to mobile advertising and are the fastest adapters of mobile shopping.

The Good and Bad in mobile landing pages, from hotels to restaurants to clothing shopping.

Someone is finding out that phone calls are worth more than clicks. Really innovative what Datalot is doing.

Creating a responsive, mobile first WordPress theme from Smashing Magazine. Why should you care about responsive design? Because Google, other search engines, and more importantly – your users, will love it.

Mobile is going to be local – so here are 88 Local APIs.

The Mobile Mindmap from iMobiTrax. Lot of good stuff I ain’t even seen before.

Mobile Stats everywhere…
Why mobile will dominate the future of media and advertising. Just wait till your device is controlling all of the electronics in your house.

20 Billion app installs on Google Play. Apple has passed 30 Billion. Billions everywhere. 67% of Google Play revenue comes from outside the United States.

Apple is selling a lot of fucking iPads. Also, more Google Android stats from the Google I/O conference.

This Business Insider chart shows you just how much $$$ is in the app economy. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry now.

MobyAffiliates has some good posts. An Introduction to the Mobile Social Gaming Market. Can’t remember if I posted this before, but World’s Top Mobile Advertising Platforms.

Using real world mobile behavior to get results. Interesting read which brain-farted me some ideas.

Mobile users are more serious shoppers than regular web surfers. How can this be, Leadsmob?! And now, 5 tips for increasing Mobile E-commerce ROI.

The debate still continues: What’s better, a web app, or a native app? Stats are showing that people are actually more loyal to native apps.

Perhaps you have some Phonegap questions or maybe heard some myths?

Really cool app called My Data Manager to show you how much data you use on your mobile device in detail.

Internet Trends for 2012. Not necessarily stuff to monetize on, but a look at the “then-and-now” of technology (then being like 2 years ago ). Looking for a trend to capitalize on? The Olympics will be huge … on mobile!

7 Things learned while making an iPad web app. Great tricks.

Promoting a Mobile App

This here is a collection of posts that are about marketing a mobile app and the cut-throat App Store game.

Figures and stats from the App Store on iOS from the GameBakers. This is a massive post that analyzes some of the myths people have about the store and then lays down a shit ton of data on what actually happens.

160+ iOS review sites. That is a lot of review sites… someone automate this.

MobyAffiliates has a great guide called the Mobile App Marketing Guide. 43 Pages of very helpful goodness.

How to maximize the lifetime value of users in a mobile app.

The low-down on the Chomp Update. This is iOS App Store related… basically the Penguin of the App Store ( I am really starting to hate these algorithm change names.) No worries though, here’s an article on How to Write a Great App description.

Startups, Productivity, APIs, and other Internet Stuff.

A great post from Sir dchuck called 12 Rules for Building Your First Profitable Startup. Very good insight and so many delicious stock photos. And if you’re wondering what happens when a post gets popular, check out the follow up post.

On the flip side – Here is Why Starts Fail, infographic-a-licious.

If I Would Have Known Just One Thing – Answered by thirty people. There is some wisdom in these slides. 7 Do’s and Don’ts for Founders.

Shopify has a great read – Your Passion is Stupid. How to Find Products that Sell. Follow Your Passion is easily the worst advice you could ever give or get. -Mark Cuban

Infographic alert – Who’s an Entrepreneur Now?

A collection of the best growth hacks from Kissmetrics, explained in detail. Here are more growth hacks inspired by Groupon. Great articles, but the term “growth hacks” is almost as gay as “social media expert.”

Stop claiming you’re profitable.

A Ted Talk on Gamification.

2012 Roundup of API Providers. You can check out the companies listed here, then browse their customer / clients lists to find APIs you can mess around with.

Some Aussies build a $1 Billion company …. in the cloud! Core Peer Groups: How I Found a Co-Founder, Built a Prototype, and Raised $5M in Less Than 4 Weeks.

Lot of people unhappy with the Affordable Healthcare Act being upheld. Here are 11 options for health care so you can avoid the tax penalty. But expect more competition – entrepreneurship should go up once the ACA is in full-effect. Also, mobile is changing the future of healthcare.

Good article from NYTimes – The “Busy” Trap. When you’re actually productive busy, here’s how to get more out of your day.

A list of must-read books for startups and entrepreneurs. This can keep you busy for a long time. Daymond John (of Shark Tank fame) also has a book list. To be honest, I fucking hate “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and am sick of people recommending to.

The Seth MacFarlane School of Productivity. He makes cartoons all day and is now a billionaire. I <3 Capitalism.

Here’s what the most successful people do before breakfast. Great read and great tips. The Power of Consistency.

The incredible James Altucher writes 25 Ways to Make a Trillion Dollars Part Duex. Plug All of Your Leaks or You Will Die.

How to read 7 Books in 7 Days. Then, some thoughts about finding your purpose. How to Break Habits. Gotta put “The Power of Habit” on my reading list.

Old school video from Napoleon Hill. Old school wisdom that still applies today. Here are some of the smartest things ever said about Getting Things Done.

10 Simple Mind Hacks. I dislike people adding “hack” to everything, but this is a good article.

Interview: Do More in Less Time from a guy who wrote Your Best Just Got Better.

How 30 Days without Social Media Changed My Life. This is something I am going to try at some point.

Need to get creative? Noise helps creativity.

A great article on income inequality in America, and how each “tier” feels about it. Here’s an expect from a multi-millionare…

And the biggest nonsense of all, he says, “is the idea that because the rich are the smartest, and because we’re the job creators, the richer we get, the better it is for everyone. So taxes on the rich should be very, very low because we’re essentially the center of the economic universe, the font of productivity.” Nick pauses. “If there were a shred of truth to the claim that the rich are our nation’s job creators, then given how rich the rich have gotten, America should be drowning in jobs!”

And we end with some Asian Efficiency. Even if you’re not asian, these articles are good. Goal Frameworks explains how to really break out the process of goal setting, and achieving said goals. How to set better outcomes.