Friday Podcast: Niche Site Development with Zac Johnson May 23, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : podcasts , 5 comments
I had a chance to talk with Super Affiliate Zac Johnson’s and pick his brain on his strategy in developing niche sites.
Some of the points we touched on:
- How he got his start in internet marketing
- How he developed a niche site which received 180,000 visitors per day and was hosted on 16 Dell servers
- How he researches and develops new niche sites
- His viral marketing strategies
- Tips for new affiliates developing their websites
Tune in for another episode of the Friday Podcast
And visit: ZacJohnson.com
Popularity: 5%
Analytics-enhanced Aweber Autoresponder Service Accompanied by Huge Price Increase May 22, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : email marketing , 9 commentsI signed up with Aweber for my email marketing solution when I started out 2 years ago and have been generally happy with their deliverability rates.
In a recent Friday Podcast, Aweber education marketing manager Justin Premick alluded to some forthcoming enhancements to their services and it looks like they made the announcement today.
Here are some of the enhanced email analystics tools:
- See exactly when subscribers open your message so you can focus on the right time to send your message.
- Send a broadcast to only subscribers who didn’t open or click on your previous broadcast.
- Send a broadcast to only subscribers who did click on your order page, but didn’t order.
- See which subscribers are responding to your campaigns — which messages they’re opening, which links they’re visiting, and where on your website they’re going after clicking through.
- Target subscribers by sending broadcasts to only those who responded (or didn’t respond) by clicking or opening a specific message or link.
- Track revenue generated by campaigns and subscribers to see which subscribers and campaigns are making you money.
Together with click tracking, campaign reporting, email tracking, email ROI reporting and other features.
The old package cost $179.40 for 10,000 list members for a year. The analytics-enhanced service costs $69 per month for 10,000 list members.
With about a 362% increase in their prices, email marketers will have to decide if they need the enhanced analytics functions.
In an exchange between marketer Kevin Riley and Aweber founder/CEO Tom Kulzer, Kevin mentioned in a twitter update that existing customers can choose to remain on their existing plan.
Are the enhanced analytics going to be worth the upgrade?
I’m keen to hear some feedback from other marketers before making a decision.
Popularity: 10%
Trent Reznor And NIN Leads Online Content Charge With The Slip May 20, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : content creation , 3 commentsTechnically that title is erroneous as NIN fans will know that Trent is NIN, accompanied by Josh Freese, Robun Finck and Alessandro Cortini (according to the sleeve credits from The Slip).
When most think about information products or digital products, they think of the ebooks which used to hog eBay listings – but NIN’s The Slip album (together with the entire inventory of iTunes and other digital music marketplaces) are digital inventory too.
With their latest album, NIN have chosen to “give away” the album via a Creative Commons license (although a bunch of merchandise at their “merch” tab at NIN.com looks pretty tempting too…)
Taking a step away from Radiohead and NIN’s previous effort at selling their music online at a fraction of the printed CD package, or asking for a donation, you’re getting The Slip for free – in essence, content becomes free. (I would not be surprised if Trent’s production costs and time cost upwards of $100,000 or more for this).
Which is what online analysts have been saying about online platforms and applications for years. Eventually, a technology-based platform will become commoditized to the extent of being free and you’d pay only for applications that ride on it.
It’s already being practised with cell phone operators. Most time you either get a free cell phone handset or get it at a vastly discounted price, the operator makes up the difference through your monthly subscriptions via a contract of 1-2 years.
Progressive analysts have even said that eventually cell phone service will be free – you merely pay for the applications and data services you use (like the GPS and maps functions mentioned by Todd Crawford and Sam Harrelson in Geekcast 16.
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But back to NIN for a moment.
They’ve broken new ground in my eyes for a couple of intiatives.
You’ve not only been given the right to play the tracks however you wish, you have NIN’s blessings to:
- remix it
- share it with your friends,
- post it on your blog,
- play it on your podcast,
- give it to strangers,
- etc.
Which will undoubtedly viralize the music.
I can still remember listening to NIN’s Pretty Hate Machine in the early 1990s, especially tracks like Head Like A Hole and Down In It. (A number of the tracks (which are pretty hypnotic) appear on the soundtrack of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers – which features “Iron Man” Robert Downey Jr…)
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How is NIN going to monetize their intellectual property (ie. the music)?
I think NIN fans are pretty hardcore, and the proceeds from merchandise and concert sales, and likely DVDs, interactive media will more than make up for it.
If NIN has bypassed or disintermediated themselves from the music studios, they’ll certainly have more room to access funds and stay in touch with their fans.
The other techie thing that NIN have done is to release it in a variety of audio formats – besides the ubiquitous MP3, you can also download a lossless FLAC version as well as a high quality 24/96 version.
Lastly, they’re distributing a number of these versions through the Bittorrent Peer-to-peer network, typically used to distribute pirated CD albums.
Could this signal a change in the winds for content distribution via the internet?
Stay tuned…
Popularity: 6%
Weekend Wonderings – 18 May 2008 May 18, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : stuff , add a commentI’m listening to Geekcast ep 16 with guests Scott Jangro and Todd Crawford. Much funnier than the regular series (I think Lisa Picarille’s presence helps up the content quota on both Geekcast and Affiliate Thing). Perhaps it’s time to break the Geekcast into 2 separate sessions (1 content-driven with Lisa and/or a guest on) and a “frat boy” humor edition focused on Stadium Pal, Hand Teddys (sic?), Man-dles, being unable to pee in airplane toilets, etc. (language may be NSFW)
Sam talked about Todd’s new blog, be sure to check out Todd Talks. If you’re nice, you might even hear about his secret project…
This week also saw the launch of Sam’s new RedHatBlueHat political podcast. (and if you’re following the industry, political blogs are quite the money rakers…)
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In other news, I’m getting blog consultants to work on the this blog and there’re a number of neat enhancements coming up. You’ll see the weird MySQL errors popping up when you post comments, but they do end up in the moderation queue. If you posted a comment and didn’t see it published, chances are you dropped a “nice post” or “come and look at my site -> [link to made for adsense or ebook opt-in page]. Your name makes it into the master blacklist of bloggers too…
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I’m posting twitter updates more often too. Twhirl seems to be working like a charm.
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I got a bunch of schwag from CPA network Market Leverage (Thanks Debby and the ML crew!) and have been playing with the Flip Ultra that came in the goodie bag. I’ll post an update next week.
Popularity: 5%
Friday Podcast: Got Video? Get With Jim Kukral May 16, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : podcasts , 4 comments
I first communicated with Jim Kukral when I saw he was presenting a session on bloggers as the next wave of super affiliates during Affiliate Summit West 2007. Since then we’ve been talking over email, and he’s probably one of the few geekcasters who remembers I’m from Singapore (I’m not from Thailand, Sam….geeze!).
Aside from his experience at Kowabunga, and as one of the co-founders of ReveNews (with Wayne Porter) and having launched BlogKits, Scratchback and the now (infamous?) TwitterMeThis, Jim has just launched the Online Video Toolkit this week – a series of video tutorials on setting up to create video content.
Besides talking about the launch of OVT, we also discussed a number of video marketing strategies and its future prospect for online marketers.
Check out this week’s edition of the Friday Podcast
Popularity: 4%
Twitter Overload and Possible Solutions… May 14, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : social traffic , 6 commentsI’m getting snowed under, even with following 92 twitterers, possibly because I live 12 hours in the future (GMT+8 vs GMT-5 for most Americans), and there’re pages of back tweets when I wake up every morning and check out my twitter account.
I am probably behind the curve when it comes to picking up new-fangled technology, unlike Shawn Collins, Scott Jangro and Sam Harrelson.
On a recommendation from Kerri Morrison (AKA @kmore) , I checked out Twitterific.
Oh great…it’s Mac-only. I typically keep my MacBook on a pile of Cat5 ethernet cables under my desk most of the time and I don’t think I’ll be firing it up, so I can burn more time on twittering…
Twhirl looks like a better alternative – it’s Windows and Mac OS X and I see a number of people sending updates using it.
I’ll probably check this out.
Anyone have experience? What do you recommend?
I don’ think I’ll venture into Pownce territory till next week, as there’s quite a bit of site development on a couple of new verticals I’m working on.
Popularity: 8%
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