The BBC hasn’t a clue

I was amazed today to see this story on the BBC website complaining about the issue of spam. Now I hate spam as much as anyone but there is a huge difference between unsolicited commercial email and email you have requested.

The well respected Free UK Stuff affiliate site operates on a best practice policy for email. Basically if the user signs up and requests offers and can prove that it really is their email account then they will be sent the offers they have requested.

However in what appears to be a thinly veiled advert for McAfee the BBC have run such a poorly researched piece that in the video they even include the user completing the double opt-in process on Free UK Stuff and then they call the messages which they requested spam! Then they continue to allege that email addresses are sold to less reputable companies down the line.

I strongly suggest that someone even slightly technically competent gets involved in their technology stories in the future before they make any more blunders like this one.

More on the story from site owner Clarke Duncan.

• This week has seen the launch of Affiliate Bitch which looks like it could be very interesting. My only thought it that on the about page it says
  

  You chose the job you do, so do it, and deal with the crap, moaning about it won’t make it better. The deed has already been done.

  Which I totally agree with but then a few of the posts so far just seem to be a good old moan Certainly one to watch though.

• Moose on the Loose has written about the various departures from buy.at as only a poetic Moose can and again it’s going to be an interesting situation to watch and see how AOL take buy.at forward.
• I started to write a piece like this and then realised Nadeem did it much better than I ever could a few months ago. Out With the Old and In With the New – The Fifth Age of Affiliate and Online Marketing Has Just Begun. I’ve been thinking recently that I don’t seem to enjoy the affiliate marketing industry as much as I used to and I can’t quite put my finger on which age I stopped having fun

Podcast 31
In this podcast I’ve been speaking to Doug Scott of ASAP Ventures. I recorded this podcast a couple of weeks ago but it’s taken me till now to find time to catch up and get it edited and properly produced. I’ve really just been waiting for Doug to post that photo so you have more idea what he looks like before you listen to him

We talked about a variety of topics including some of ASAP Ventures current projects like Fly.co.uk(this one cost £87.5k), Recycle(this one was £152,000!), Car Rentals & Self Catering Breaks. We also discussed automating and scaling an affiliate business, PPC closed groups, transparency and building relationships with merchants. All in all there is some great advice for affiliates looking to move forwards with their business.

Have a listen and leave any feedback or questions below.

 

 Standard Podcast [41:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (467)

I’ve been far too busy recently so it was great to take on a new assistant who recently entered into discussions with an unmentioned affiliate network which led to this follow up email..

Hello,

It was good to speak to you earlier regarding Merchant X, I’m glad to hear you’re keen to give them a bit of a push over the coming months!

I was amused to get this email as my new assistant is an answering machine. No idea how good it is at SEO but I’ll be impressed if it can register a domain name

I’m off to the a4uawards. Keep in touch with the news on twitter.

http://twitter.com/fraseredwards

No sooner had I posted about the a4uawards deadline than Chris at Existem started hassling me to let you know that the a4uexpo early bird rate closes on Saturday and then it will cost you £100 more after that. The expo is a definite in my affiliate calendar and so it makes sense to save a bit of cash and register now.

And yes that’s an affiliate link Considering signing up for the expo through that link if you’ve ever listened to one of the podcasts and enjoyed it!

Just a quick reminder that the deadline for voting on the a4u community awards is 3pm this afternoon so make sure you take the time to vote before then!