Affiliate Marketing Blog by James Little

Just before Christmas I got one of the new ipod nanos and it’s fair to say that they are very, very good - it’s the first time I’ve got an ipod as I’ve always had an alternative manufacturer and up until boxing day it was all going well.

Then a disaster happened - I didn’t take the ipod out of my trousers before my wife put them in the wash and… you’ve guessed it, around the washing machine it went. Iit wasn’t until the clothes were put out to dry before finding out what had happened - my ipod was destroyed.

Today I booked an appointment at the ipod clinic at our local apple store in London and showed the problem to a friendly apple technician - he explained that it looked like water had got to the unit (no, really?!) and said that while he was not meant to replace units damaged like this (as putting it through the wash is not covered by the warranty) he was in a good mood and did it anyway.

So thank you apple - I promise that I’ll make sure it is kept safer in the future and that my wife doesn’t get near it!

I feel like posting a Thursday funny to mark that it is almost the end of the week.  A few minutes ago I received a piece of blog spam on the Altogether Ads blog.

The spam was from someone who I will call “The Considerate Spammer” and was about, believe it or not, a penis enlargement (apparently her boyfriend had tried it out & it was amazing).

Anyhow, here’s the piece of spam:

 <a href=”http://urlremoved” rel=”nofollow”>penis enlargement</a> had my boyfriend try them out. All I can say is WOW…
Vanessa Stevens

I’ve made the important part of this bold. The reason on this occasion that I am calling this person “The Considerate Spammer” is of course because they have been kind enough in their blog comment to add a nofollow tag.

Someone obviously needs to send Vanessa on the Spamming for Dummies course.

In my previous role at St. Minver I had a blog installed to keep our affiliates up to date with the latest news and promotions - the systems were all tied up so I didn’t have FTP access to be able to get it up and running myself and it meant that no spamming filter was put in place, but comments were moderated.

This week the new affiliate manager started and one of the guys I used to work with sent me a message asking if I could remember the login details so they could start to use it again.

I attempted to login to get the username and password and noticed the following:

If there ever was a good reason to install Akismet then I suspect this is it.  Unfortunately it does show how bad the dark side of the industry is - especially when I only left about 3 months ago!

A funny Friday story from ABC News

ANTIGO, Wis.

Three-year-old Robert Moore went fishing for a stuffed replica of Sponge Bob and ended up trapped in a vending machine. The toddler’s adventure began with a Saturday evening shopping trip with his grandmother, Fredricka Bierdemann, and three siblings.

Bierdemann ended the trip by giving each child a dollar and telling them to have fun in a retailer’s game room.

A stuffed Sponge Bob in a vending machine’s bin caught Robert’s eye. He tried without success to fish it out with a plastic crane.

“I told him I could get it for him,” his grandmother said. “He’s a character. He said, ‘Oh no, I can get it.’”

When she turned her back to get another dollar for a second try, Robert took off his coat and squeezed through an opening in the machine. He landed in the stuffed animal cube.

“I turned around and looked for him, and he said, ‘Oma, I’m in here,” Bierdemann said. “I thought I would have a heart attack.”

Store employees couldn’t find a key to the machine, so Robert waited while the Antigo Fire Department was called.

“He was having a ball in there, hugging all the stuffed animals,” Bierdemann said. “He was so good-natured, but I was shaking like a leaf.”

Firefighters broke one lock but then spotted two latches inside the plastic cube. They passed a screwdriver to Robert.

“He stacked up all the stuffed animals and used that screwdriver to open the latch,” his grandmother said. “You should have seen him go.”

Eventually, Robert freed himself. But his mother, Marie Moore, and grandmother said they were lucky that he remained calm when another child might not have. He went home safe but without a stuffed Sponge Bob.

Seeing as these vending machines are a complete rip off (I’ve tried hundreds of times to win and it never happens) it’s nice to see a child use some initiative but sad to see he didn’t get the Spongebob after all his efforts.

A friday funny for you all.

See if you can spot the hard part of this journey from London to Chicago (point 37 if you get a bit lost along the way).

Every so often I find something I’ve created in the past and put it online again.  This time it’s Sul n James - a stick figure series that was created out of pure bordom around 7 years ago.  It was a colaberation between myself and Sul, who I went to college with.

This is probaly the best of the lot.

Perhaps I used to have a slightly warped mind.

The other week I got an interesting voicemail from Peter Dickenson (Affiliate Future employee) and I’ve finally found a way to get it off my voicemail and online.

Enjoy the recording; I have suggested going to audition at X-Factor this year and I’m sure you will agree that he would certainly add something “special” to the show.

Listen Now

I read a fantastic article in yesterdays G2 Magazine that I’ve managed to find replicate online.

I hate Macs by Charlie Brooker

Two of the best quotes from the piece:

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC).

Myst, the most pompous and boring videogame of all time, a plodding, dismal “adventure” in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modelled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-’em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac’s relationship with “fun”.

As pretty as Macs may be it still irks me that everyone throws themselves at them these days.   The iPod is inferior compared to other makes on the market but people buy them because they are the rage.  Someone who I work with has a Creative and still calls it an iPod and that tells you everything you need to know about them.

Sure - the iBooks are nice and if I was after a laptop (and had money to throw away) I’d certainly look at them before buying an Alienware laptop for the same price.

I’ve ranted about this topic enough for now - the article above says it all for me.

This is quite possibly the most elaborate hoax that YouTube has created and extremely well put together.

The video claims that by sending a link to your gmail account and logging in and out for an unspecified amount of times, you will get past the “easter egg” and be able to access the Google TV Beta service to watch programs like Prison Break & The OC online.   Some of the comments on YouTube are excellent.

I have been going at this for about an hour.. If anyone can help.. Please reply too this thanks

I tired in excess of 300 times, at home and work. Can anyone send an invite? kylereilly at gmail dot com

So i haven’t been able to get it…been trying for like an hour…this is quite depressing.

I hope someone kills this guy.

SOLUTION: Turn computer off. Wash out, with eather soap and water(windex will do fine).
WAIT- for the computer to dry off 1-2 hours.
AFTER- you will instantly notice an increase in your compouters speed.

It’s official - there are definitely some pervy bloke on MySpace.

After the launch of my new site about Unfair Bank Charges, I decided to have a look at the marketing opportunities of MySpace and see how much traffic it could drive though to the site. I installed a MySpace bot and had a little play.

Resulting MySpace Profile

I needed a profile to start the bot with, so I found a thread on sports related forum that I visit and added him & started off the process adding around 40 people.

Within 12 hours I have 24 friends and a couple of hits from using the demo version of the software, so I may well register for it.

The crux of this post is that I have received a few messages from MySpace members since I added their profile, and thought I’d share a few of them.

Firstly we have Chris, who sends the following:

So you are a single 27 year old, on here, for a persuit of more customers and a rich sugur daddy, to help him spend his hard earned cash? So what else mystery woman? What are your interests, what music do you like, and do you where thongs, or knickers?

A bit forward for our first exchange of messages I thought, until the next one I got, this one from Brett

hey there my sexy
how u been?
i miss u soo much?
reply soon
i will always love u x

How random - maybe it’s someone who thinks they know me. Then another from Brett comes though:

Hey I hope you dont mind me messaging you? I just saw your profile and wondered if you would like to get to know one another? Brettxx

Sorry about that last message my friend thought it would be funn xx not happy xx sorry xx

Who says romance is dead. I now need to decide if I start to wind them up or not - any suggestions?