Affiliate marketers invited to advertise on MySpace

I somehow landed on MySpace’s MyAds website and noticed something I haven’t anywhere else – at least not at a place that aims to become (or is) a major player in online advertising — An open invitation to affiliate marketers to advertise on MySpace…

…and that’s a good thing, IMO. Now wouldn’t the world be a wonderful place if only Adwords was also as welcoming to affiliates advertising on google.

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Commission Junction goes green

Will cut larger checks, save paper.

Effective August 28, Affiliate network CJ will pay affiliates only once they have accumulated a minimum of $100 in commissions – in an effort towards eco-friendliness -  from the current minimum of $25, the new minimum direct deposit amount, however remains at $50. 

Smaller affiliates, especially in parts of the world where CJ doesn’t not provide a Direct deposit facility will have to wait longer to see their commission money.

The changes are as follows:

It’s good to see that CJ is showing concern towards the environment, but they should really think about providing direct deposit or paypal to countries besides the US, UK, canada and a few others. Affiliates in these parts of the world will still have to order checks.

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Google Product Search is a price comparison engine – Again!

Froogle – Google Product Search, which launched as Froogle many years ago as a price comparison shopping engine later changed it’s format to a simple product search engine that would display the stores that sell a product you are searching for, without grouping the stores that sell the searched product according to prices, but simply in random algorithmic order – each product listing displaying a merchant-specific description and other details.

This was probably because froogle would, at the time, crawl e-stores for price and product information and the index was anything but accurate. Since introducing google base, the product search engine has stopped crawling the web for product info, it instead relies on data-feeds submitted by merchants – in a manner much similar to Shopping.com, Shopzilla and other price comparison sites. Despite the added accuracy, few people actually use google’s product search feature independently of the top-three product listings that appear within universal search.

Now, again, google seems to be experimenting with the price comparison engine format, complete with one description, and product specs per product – which is great news shoppers – there is now a real price comparison engine that includes more buying options than any other out there. As for merchants, most of whom already have their datafeeds uploaded to google base, This would be one of the few price comparison sites that is completely free – merchants don’t pay for clicks or sales, and if your store offers competitive prices, all the better, expect additional traffic!

Not all searches are showing up as price comparison results, but more SERPs are changing their skin real quick. Probably not very long before the transition is completed.

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GoldenCAN kills the “powered by goldencan” link

Affiliates who use GoldenCAN to enable dynamically updated coupons and products from merchant programs will no longer need to display a “powered by goldencan” link on pages with goldencan’s code. Good Move!

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yahoogle / goohoo

Yahoo testing “Ads by google” with US search queries http://tinyurl.com/5q4hyb

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Text Amazon to buy it

In what is a giant leap in it’s mobile-commerce offerings, Amazon launched “Amazon TextBuyIt” yesterday – Something that will let customers find, and make purchases via something as simple as text messages.

“With today’s launch of TextBuyIt, any Amazon.com customer can now use any mobile device to shop and buy from Amazon.com, at anytime, anywhere they are”

How, Simply text a message to “AMAZON” (262966), with the name of the product (or UPC/ISBN, if you have those), search results – with product name, a single digit code, and prices – are immediately texted back to your phone. Reply to amazon’s reply with the single digit code amazon sent for the product that is to be purchased. That’s it! If it’s the first time you’re using the number to buy something you are asked your amazon.com account details from where amazon picks up your shipping and billing info, and calls you up to confirm the order)

There is a discussion going on here about the new service, the first few reviews seem positive. One of the comments made me think, we’re already into the ‘future’. “Imagine when you are wandering inside a BestBuy or circuitCity Store and really like some item and begin to wonder if you will find a better deal on Amazon… well, now you can just send an SMS and Voila!”

More on Text Buy It:
FAQs
Press Release

Update: Discussion also at Techcrunch

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Amazon EC2

Amazon’s EC2 servers get more usable for smaller web developers with static ip addresses now available, Elastic IP Addresses -> Amazon

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Social Shop on Facebook with Amazon’s latest apps

It’s the social-shopping week, it seems. I already wrote about two new social shopping apps on facebook that launched this week. Now, it’s e-retail giant Amazon’s turn to get facebook users to social-shop.

“By combining Amazon’s vast selection of products with Facebook’s millions of users, we are able to make activities like gift-giving more efficient and rewarding for Facebook users.”

In a news release earlier today, Amazon announced the launch of two new facebook applications – Giver and Grapevine. “Giver” lets users view their friends’ Amazon wishlists and share their own, “Grapewine” populates the user’s facebook feed with their activity on amazon.com (one gets choose what type of activity to share upon signing up).

“Use Amazon Giver to let your Facebook friends know and buy what you wish for, as well as gift suggestions, and Amazon Grapevine to show your friends what you’ve been up to on Amazon.com, such as writing Customer Reviews, adding items to your Wish List, and tagging products”

It would have been even more awesome if amazon had somehow added an affiliate marketing element to their facebook suite of apps. Say, if someone buys something on your wishlist by clicking on it – for someone else – you get the standard amazon associates revenue-share on the sale credited to your affiliate account. something like that would boost their apps’ usage and make social-shopping recommendations on facebook a lot more fun.

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Europe Clears Google’s DoubleClick Bid

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BIG NEWS: AOL gets into affiliate marketing, buys buy.at. [Via Cost Per News]

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