It’d be like saying Florida’s Natural OJ had thousands of convenience stores as their “joint venture partners”.

Whoever comes up with a definition like that should read some basics on supply chain management.

Think of it in another way -
One partner takes care of the part of creating the product.
One partner takes care of the marketing aspect.
They really do not have to divide each task 50-50.

Just my 2 cents.

For the purposes of the post, I focused on pointing out how the phrase “joint venture” had been abused, and given the intensity of engagement I’d associate with typical joint ventures, I’m pretty surprised at the number of “joint venture” proposals I receive each week.

I’m not sure if it’s a semantic issue, maybe “joint venture” sounds nicer and more politically correct than “email promotion” or “affiliate promotion”.

Who knows?

-
The key criterion for a joint venture is instrumental contribution by each partner contributing to the success of the joint effort. There may or may not be a formal business entity in place, a written agreement might also formalize the bond. (although I’ve done JVs with only an oral agreement in place…)

Reciprocity is more an intangible amount of social goodwill that’s built up between partners.

In the case of promoting Amazon or eBay offers, an affiliate is more an element in their supply chain (together with the distributor, reseller, retailer) than any type of “JV partner”.

PS: I’d imagine any type of alliance would incorporate elements of strategy and tactics, so “strategic alliance” and “strategic profits” might make for nice buzzwords and great names for an “advanced” event, but I don’t think it conveys a whole lot of meaning.

There’re a number of issues to be resolved before going to WP 2.5.1.

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In the info marketing space, I think a JV is in many ways more than a normal “affiliate” relationship with the “networks”, though often there are JVs that fit even the Wikipedia definition.

For a start they are never anonymous, or very rarely

Secondly there is an implied level of reciprocity – I doubt very much that Target or Amazon will promote my next product just because I have been one of their affiliates for years.

Then of course there is very obvious problem that it is the term being used by thousands of people in one segment of the industry, and nothing is going to change that.

Ultimately the Wikipedia definition needs to be expanded. If Americans can spell colour wrong, they are also able to establish different meanings for JV, and with the millions of people who have been exposed to that variant, it isn’t going to change any time soon.

Reciprocal Information Product Affiliate Arrangement and Special Rewards Group just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well as JVAlert and JVNotify

The Wikipedia definition is interesting, Rich Schefren used “Strategic Alliance” to describe what he is doing with Stompernet as beyond a normal JV deal.