New York Wins First Round

In what hopefully will not be a “one and done” situation New York Supreme Court Judge Eileen Bransten handed down separate dismissals against Amazon and Overstock. Essentially Bransten granted New York State’s position that affiliate presence within the state gave Amazon and Overstock a nexus that could be taxed. The so called “Amazon Tax” would set a dangerous precedent, as written it is tortuous in structure and in essence violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Hopefully Amazon and Overstock will take the fight to the New York State Court of Appeals.

Layoffs Continue

With the Holidays and the New Year for a moment it was almost possible take one’s mind off the layoffs. Circuit City’s announcement this week that is closing all 567 of its stores brought everything back to harsh reality. The closure impacted the jobs of over 30,000 employees.

Recent other layoff announcements include:

Motorola – Had the biggest other announcement this week cutting 4,000 jobs an undisclosed amount of its workforce
AMD – Eliminated 1,500 jobs about 9% of its staff
Google – Let go of 100 jobs about 1% of its workforce
Federated Media – Cut 7 jobs about 7% of its staff

Century 21 Shifts from TV to Online

According to AdAge, Century 21’s Senior VP of Marketing Beverly Thorne stated the company was making a strategic move shift its advertising efforts online. The shift came as an effort to ensure maximum return for our brokers and agents. Media agency Beyond Interaction will be leading online campaigns for Century 21.

More Signs of Dropping CPMs from Pubmatic

Ad service Pubmatic reported a 48% drop in year-over-year CPM rates throughout its network partners. Rates fell from a $.50 eCPM to a $.26 eCPM in Q4 of 2008.

Affiliate Summit Announces Pinnacle Award Winners

Last Monday, Affiliate Summit held the Annual Pinnacle Awards gala. This year’s winners are:

  • Affiliate of the Year – Mike Allen (Shopping-Bargains.com)
  • Affiliate Manager of the Year – Angel Djambazov (JonesSoda.com and Keenfootwear.com)
  • Exceptional Merchant – CelebrateExpress.com (Managed by Renee O’Banion)
  • Affiliate Marketing Advocate – Melanie Seery (Who put together the initiative to support New York Affiliates)
  • Best Blogger – Scott Jangro (Jangro.com)
  • Affiliate Marketing Legend – Kellie Stevens (AffiliateFairPlay.com)

Congratulations to the winners of Affiliate Summit’s Pinnacle Awards.

Games Boost Mobile Transactions on Social Networks

Want that virtual shotgun for MobWars? Well you are going to have to pay real money for it. So who is powering those transactions? Well while US companies and carriers are figuring out the mirco-transaction game two European companies already have pretty good traction with the social network market. Mobillcash and Zong power many of the transactions on such platforms currently. It will be interesting to see how advertisers take advantage of such platforms, how fast US firms will move to fill the space, and how bad the fraud against consumers will get.

Read more:
Cashing Out: Week of January 11-17th, 2009 in Online Marketing News