Amazon launches the “All Business Center”

Amazon sent out a press release a few hours ago announcing a new niche category on the online super-mall - the All Business Center - for small and medium sized businesses.

This latest offering from Amazon is a sort of niche social-network and retail store where small business owners can use the discussion forums to chat about their businesses and rest of the “business center” to buy stuff ranging from amazon webservices to office supplies and amazon fulfillment services to books and software.

While research indicates that small and medium businesses are experiencing a higher success rate in the early years, entrepreneurs still struggle with many day-to-day challenges such as poor inventory management, unexpected growth and low sales. The Amazon All Business Center provides customers with a single, comprehensive resource aimed at helping small and medium business owners address these types of issues and increase the odds of success.

All in all, a nice web 1.4.5 place to shop for business needs, it could be marketed a whole lot better if amazon added more social-networking elements to the mix other than just a plain old discussion forum.

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Doubleclick Performics introduces new affiliate interface

The new Get Links interface enables affiliates to use links right away, rather than generating the links before using them.

In order to avoid any disruption during the holiday season, the new interface is being made available concurrently with Performics’ legacy links interface.

More details on the Affiliatetip blog by Shawn Collins

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CJ now offering direct deposit to more countries

Valueclick’s affiliate network, Commission Junction recently announced something that might delight many international affiliates - the inclusion of nine more countries to the places where CJ will send payments as direct deposits straight to the affiliate’s bank account.

This facility was previously only available to affiliates in the US, Canada, Germany, Sweden and the UK.
The list will now also include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (USD option added), France, Ireland(CHF) , Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and Switzerland

From the notice posted on the CJ account manager interface:

Commission Junction has updated our payment method options; publishers are now able to choose to receive payment via direct deposit in nine new banking countries. Direct deposit offers fast and free delivery of your commissions earned through Commission Junction. Payments are made after the 20th of every month.

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Linkshare updates API

Great news from linkshare today - they announced the merchandiser query tool that allows affiliates to use their REST based API to “just enter your search term and get the link you want”

From the announcement email:

As we continue our year of innovation, LinkShare is pleased to announce the release of a new Merchandiser Query tool that allows you to search for products within your Merchandiser data feeds. This API makes your life easier! No more digging for product links, just enter your search term and get the link you want.

Using a REST-based web service, the Merchandiser Query tool allows you to do a full text search for products that match keywords in any of the following categories:
* Product Name
* Primary Product Category
* Short Product Description
* Long Product Description
* Keywords

Finally, a GIANT leap forward by linkshare in the “programmable affiliate-web” department.

A PDF user guide for the API can be downloaded here…

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