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The 2009 Cone Consumer New Media Study, results of which were released on October 20, shows the continuing growth of consumer empowerment.

Cone, a strategy and communications agency that specializes in cause branding, looked only at users of “new media,” defined as “dialogue among individuals or groups by way of technology-facilitated channels” – social networks, blogs, games, message boards, and the like. Over one-third of the respondents use new media two or more times a week.

Highlights of the study include the following:

1.    Consumers are increasing their interaction with companies and brands online. Almost 80 percent of new media users interact with companies or brands via new media sites and tools. This is an increase of 32 percent from the 2008 study. More than one-third of users (37 percent) interact via new media at least once per week, up from about 25 percent last year. New media users “overwhelmingly believe companies or brands should not only have a presence in new media, but also interact with their consumers in this space,” says Cone. In addition, consumers “think more highly of companies or brands when they or their friends can interact with them in a new media environment.”

2.    Consumers believe they can influence businesses by voicing opinions online. Sixty-two percent of respondents believe they can influence business decisions by voicing opinions via new media channels. About one-quarter have offered their opinion on an issue or contacted a company directly. Consumers are also interested in and influenced by information they get online. A large majority of respondents (85 percent) want companies to tell them what is in products and how they are made. Three-quarters of new media users say new media channels are an effective way to learn about Corporate Responsibility efforts.

3.    Supporting causes is important to new media users. Seventy-nine percent of respondents believe companies and nonprofit organizations should use new media channels to raise money and awareness for causes. Eighty-five percent of respondents say new media provides them with an opportunity to learn about new issues. Eighty percent say new media provides another way to support their favorite causes. Sixty percent have used some form of online or new media to support a cause. However, only 18 percent of users have made a cash donation through new media. Why? Nearly 39 percent said they didn’t trust that their efforts would actually help the cause, and 31 percent said they’d rather support causes offline. While no single cause had a majority of attention, leading causes supported via new media include animal welfare (29 percent), health and disease (28 percent), education (23 percent), the environment (22 percent) and human rights/equal rights (21 percent).

New media users appear to be active, interested and engaged. They are influenced by information they get online – and they believe they can influence businesses by communicating with them online.

It is clear that Internet-savvy consumers have high expectations. They want businesses to use new media. This is good news for online marketers, but there is this cautionary note as well: Businesses need to be ever-vigilant about using new media appropriately, and they must be responsive to consumer inquiries and comments.

Read the rest here:
New Media Study Shows Increasing Consumer Empowerment

Good news for Net Neutrality. This administration has shown that they are committed to the principals of Net Neutrality based on language in the rules recently released for the broadband stimulus funding. The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) is offering grants for: deploying broadband infrastructure in un/under-served areas; enhancing broadband capacity in public computer centers; and promoting sustainable broadband adoption projects. The rules require all grant winners to follow the FCC’s 2005 Internet Policy Statement as well as specifically calling out neutral traffic routing.

This shows that Net Neutrality is not some impossible to understand arcane rules that is anti-consumer like the opponents try to make you think. Opponents talk about extra government regulation, bureaucracy, and confusion because nobody really knows what it means. If the government can explain it in a few sentences in a 121 page document, then how hard can this concept really be to understand?

These rules are specifically called out and described in the Interconnection and Non-Discrimination Requirements section (Page 113) where they require applicants to commit to five obligations (page 114):

1. Adhere to the principles contained in the FCC’s Broadband Policy Statement (FCC 05-151 adopted Aug. 5, 2005).
2. Not favor any lawful Internet applications or content over others.
3. Display network management policies in a prominent location on the service provider’s web page and provide notice to customers of changes to these policies (awardees must describe any business practices or technical mechanisms they employ, other than standard best efforts Internet delivery, to allocate capacity; differentiate among applications, providers, or sources; limit usage; and manage or block access to illegal or harmful content).
4. Connect to the public Internet directly or indirectly, such that the project is not an entirely private closed network.
5. Offer interconnection, where technically-feasible, on reasonable rates and terms to be negotiated with requesting parties. This includes both the ability to connect to the public Internet and physical interconnection for the exchange of traffic.

The second one is very specific here in the description where they say that:

This requirement ensures neutral traffic routing. Without a non-discrimination condition, network operators could give preferential treatment to affiliated services, or charge some application and content providers for “fast lanes” that would put others at a competitive disadvantage.

The document continues with text about the AT&T/Bell South merger requirements and notes that this is a more general version, allowing the carriers more room to cache, manage spam, deal with DNS attacks, etc.

Go a few more pages and on page 118 they continue with the justification:

Overall, these five requirements ensure that public funds will support the public goal of open networks. The standards chosen echo established FCC rules, but avoid detailed regulation and allow for flexibility when network management requires differential treatment or exclusivity.

The section concludes by noting that the rules apply for the life of the facilities and that failure to comply would likely be considered breach of their loan or grant agreements at which point one would assume the money would have to be repaid.

This really is great news. If the government is going to be spending our own tax dollars (stimulus funds) to improve broadband coverage across the country, then access should be equal to all for all content.

Go here to see the original:
Net Neutrality Mandated in $7.2 Billion Broadband Stimulus Funding

Here at Revenews we strive to provide content not previously published elsewhere. The following article by longtime Revenews author Brad Waller focuses on Net Neutrality. A timely and important subject worth revisiting.

This column is an outgrowth of a post made on our internal email list. A debate was started by a discussion of the Wall Street Journal article on Google looking to embed their servers with the various cable and network providers, and the intimation that this was a violation of “Network Neutrality.” As the discussion evolved, one participant wrote “This issue is so convoluted, it will require Stephen Hawking to sort it out.”

I’m not Stephen Hawking, but I am a Physicist…

What I get out of this is that Google wants to co-locate their servers inside the facilities of the Telcos so that the pages are served faster. They are asking to pay for this, and not to exclude anyone. This is a way to reduce latency and get better performance; this is not a fast track with preferential treatment. If Google were to ask for exclusive co-location, then there might be an issue. If the service providers were to downgrade everyone else who did not pay, that would be an issue.

Has anyone ever made claims that Akamai was violating Net Neutrality? They have servers located around the globe to optimize the delivery of their customers’ content and no non-customer has complained of unfair treatment when their content was not included for free.

The Net Neutrality issue is that the Telcos want to treat traffic differently by source. One video stream might be slowed down, while another might get the fast pipe. So I may be paying for 15/5 megabit service, but my ISP might decide to throttle some new company down to 1 megabit because they are not paying the extra fee for the best service. Maybe the ISP has their own video streaming service, and they want to charge the competition a dollar a bit to transmit the data, thus cutting everyone out. Maybe they want to charge a million dollars for the service, in which case the biggest services will be able to pay, and the up and coming services will not be able to afford it and fail because customers will see really slow file uploads.

This can be particularly stifling to new services that cannot compete with the established deep pockets and cable companies. What would Twitter do if they were asked to pay a fee for every tweet that gets passed through the network providers service, or risk being “managed” to the point where the real-time benefits are eliminated. Without a revenue stream they would just go away. How about Facebook? They are just starting to monetize their service and something like this might be enough to kill them off. I’m sure that is fine for the providers. But what about consumers?

This whole issue is one of doublespeak. Net Neutrality is really free and open access for all, yet the opposition calls it excessive regulation of the Internet. Senator Ted Stevens kicked this off back in 2006 when he said, “Until somebody tells me what net neutrality means, until they can give me a definition, I don’t want it in there. Right now, nobody knows what it means, so why put it in the bill?”

If nobody knew what it meant, then how did the FCC define it in an agreement with Verizon over their acquisition of MCI in 2005 where they agreed to “adhere to ‘network neutrality’” principles adopted by the FCC earlier this year? So Verizon had to agree to abide by Net Neutrality to get their merger approved, and now that agreement periods are over these companies are arguing that these same principles that they agreed to are confusing and impossible to define, as well as being unneeded government interference with free trade.

I think this issue is too simple for the government. Neutrality at is most basic means that ISPs pass through everything that comes in exactly the same, no matter the protocol (like Comcast) or source. Just treat all Web sites and services as equals with the same access to bandwidth. That way email, Web pages, music, streaming video, P2P traffic, and yes, Google, get the same access to bandwidth without any interference or additional charge.

An ISP or bandwidth provider must route all traffic and treat it equally. Act like a switch: data in, data out.

This article originally appeared in the newsletter for the Internet Oldtimers Foundation.

See original here:

Jeff Molander wrote a post for the new blog of the Advaliant affiliate network that is pure dynamite.

I agree with Jeff on many points, including the lack of innovation in the industry during the past five years. Why was there not much innovation you might ask yourself? In my opinion networks and also many advertisers did shift their focus and priority towards affiliate publishers who are not traditional affiliates in the first place. Those publishers use the affiliate or CPA tracking platform to handle the technical details of their relationship with the advertiser, but that is all what they have to do in common with real affiliate marketers. Yes, I am referring to incentive and cash-back sites and to some degree coupon sites as well. There is not much innovation necessary to keep those publishers happy, the rest of the publisher base was neglected and their needs ignored.

Affiliate Marketing is Not
Now those publishers make up the largest chunk of revenue through the affiliate marketing channel for many advertisers. Add to that the payment of the top tier commission to raise the cost, lower the margin and leave the program without the needed profit figures to convince management to invest money for even more profit in the future. Investments into traditional affiliate marketing usually tend to pay off exponentially, but growth in business with the large incentive sites result in either a linear growth in profits, but in many cases even a linear decline in profits. The publishers probably demand more commission for the additional business that they bring you. The increase is usually accomplished by special placement and promotion of the advertiser within the publisher’s member base. The higher premium on the other hand will be paid for all business referred and not only for those extra business that comes from the special placement.

Compare it with paying more for the entire display advertising inventory, if you increase the order volume. You buy more impressions and the eCPM is going up as a result of it. But display advertising does not work this way.

That is my take on the whole innovation issue. I only would like to add that I see things improve slowly, which is a good thing. Much more is still needed though.

Burned by SEO and PPC?
Jeff also talks about SEO and PPC advertising and that advertisers have been burned by affiliates who were and are using SEO and PPC as well as by the search engines themselves. Okay, he says that this is what he believes what advertisers think, which is hard to refute. However, I can and do refute the statement that affiliates and search engines burned advertisers in the past.

Affiliates did PPC and SEO when there was not even anything that came even close to be called a search marketing industry. GoTo.com pioneered the PPC based bidding for ranking and placement model in 1998 and Google launched AdWords in 2000. Nobody had an idea back then how big this would become. There were also no stats and figures available widely that tell you about user behavior and how users interacted and experienced the search engines. Everybody knew as much or as little about the dynamics that make PPC work as the guy next to him.

I stumbled about the weird results that you get, if you happened to bid on an advertisers brand and trademark name in 2002 I believe. It was not just any brand term that caused the weird results, but brand names that are generally known brands with memorable names and owning the .COM domain for their brand name. Who in the world would type into a search engines search box the term “Dell Computers” or worse “Dell.com” and then click on the sponsored result on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page(s))? It was like a guy asking for the directions to city XYZ while standing directly before the welcome sign of that city. The dynamics to understand odd user behavior like this were not 100% understood from day one. The business overall was still too small and the marketing channel too new and uncertain to have any large advertiser care a bit and spend even one minute on it. Big brands had bigger fishes to fry, such as the large CPM inventories of those web-portals that grew more expensive every day until the bubble burst in 2000 and 2001. Search grew quickly after the crash, but advertisers were slow to see what happened. It was still new, unknown and risky. Affiliates took the risk, maybe burned themselves at first, but reaping in the rewards later.

There was a short period of grand payback for affiliates between 2003 and 2005, where business exploded, but advertisers still undecided. When search grew to a size that could not be ignored, even by big brands, advertisers learned that their affiliates were already there and have been there all along. For them was everything old stuff from yesterday, what was for the advertisers new and mint-fresh as if it just came into existence the day before.

Not Been Burned, Left Money on the Table
Advertisers today catch up to a large degree with where affiliates have already been for five or more years. Some advertisers still were not able to catch up to this day.

Advertisers have not been burned; they left money on the table for too long. That should not make them angry at their affiliates, but at themselves. Traditional affiliate marketers are risk takers and experiment at the frontier of technology and society. They went niche before advertisers even knew that there was one. They did and do local marketing before talk about local search came up only about 2 years ago. They worked the long-tail before Chris Anderson wrote a book about it and gave it a name.

Affiliates can go where no Advertiser has gone before!
This is what affiliates do. They go where the advertiser cannot go himself. But things change and the advertiser might be able to enter the space that his affiliates have entered long before him. Booting off those affiliates and punishing them for finding the pot of gold first is not the right practice. Affiliates are naturally the weaker link and will move way if the advertiser moves in. Channel conflicts should be accepted as part of business and they will only increase over time. Work them out, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath-water.

Instead of using the torch is it more productive and mutual beneficial, if borders are staked clearly and taken away pieces from the affiliates will be compensated by giving them some leeway that they can venture off and explore the new unknown and small niche that is too small, too new, too uncertain and too risky for the big advertiser who has to worry about his brand and spend his day in internal political battles and overcoming power struggles rather than exploring the unknown.

There are Black Sheep in the Whitest of Families
There are always folks who break the rules that were clearly set. There always have been and will be thugs and thieves, who are in it for the quick buck. Not only affiliates, but also from the advertiser’s side. You have to watch out for them and try to keep their fingers out of your valet. Assuming that your affiliates are guilty until proven innocent is an unhealthy method of handling these matters. Doing so has proven itself wrong in the society and social life time and again. Not much good can come out of it.

Putting a stack of money on the table that can be publicly seen through the window and then keeping the doors unlocked and you distracted is also not the smartest thing to do. You don’t want to tempt the ones who are usually honest people by inviting theft; at least would you do so in a capitalist society.

Affiliate Marketing is not, Part II
Affiliate marketing is not display advertising and also not traditional off-line marketing, not even off-line direct marketing. Affiliate marketing allows businesses to reach into markets that are too small, too diverse and disperse, too new, too unknown or too risky in order to try them out and be active there itself. Affiliates take the risk and are also the ones who act faster to new developments because the traditional affiliates of yours are not big and huge businesses. Affiliate marketing is the realm of individuals and small to mid-size businesses. If an affiliate grows beyond that, it becomes a publishing or distribution partner and compensation should be done as it is common for such kind of relationship.

Flexibility, not Card Blanche
What you have to offer your affiliates in the field is flexibility. Flexibility does not mean Card Blanche and giving up your brand message and control entirely. You should care about your brand message remaining intact, by being flexible when it comes to the specific ways this message is being transmit to prospects by your affiliates. Affiliates will take things into their own hands, if a program shows potential, but lacks the needed flexibility and that is when it gets dangerous and the risk high, that your brand message gets deluded or changed in an unfavorable way.

Affiliates rather have the advertiser provide the exact message and media (creative or whatever is used) than the affiliate spending time to create something on their own. They will have tons of ideas that require different designs and slight change of focus of the marketing message. Providing affiliates with what they need here is what I referred to when I talked about flexibility.

Brand is good for Everybody
A brand is a marketing tool affiliates can, should and will leverage and it is stupid if an affiliate tries to reinvent a big brand by itself and by doing so effectively damage the brand and is most likely also not generate much commission for the affiliate. But some advertisers have a different idea of what their brand is than it is in reality and seem by their customers and ordinary people. Some advertisers wish that their brand is seen a certain way, but this wish is only a fantasy that has nothing to do with the real world. Affiliates usually know the real world and are confused about the unrealistic way how advertisers see their brands and would like to be represented to the people.

Friends when you need them most
What affiliate marketing was doing on a small scale is now happening en large without any active two-way business relationships in place. Something much tougher to control, the outspoken and self-aware customer who becomes an unpaid evangelist for the brand or a product or the equally unpaid disgruntled ex-customer who made it his quest to take your business down with his last breath, if he has to. Look at the evangelists and pass ideas and message along to your affiliate partners and work together with them to address the anti-evangelist. You should address the valid complaints made by your companies’ personal enemy and surround what is left with positive examples for similar cases that show that you are willing and able to deal with those issues, but that it always requires the commitment of both parties to solve a problem once and for all.

Conclusion
Does all this sound not easy scalable and labor intensive to you? Good, because it is, but the payback is exponential if done right. Leverage the strength of affiliate marketing even more by integrating it into your overall marketing mix. Work together with your affiliates and not against them. Most affiliates also prefer to work together with an advertiser than snitching on him and watching their back that they will not be back-stabled either.

What I wrote might sounds nice and good, but here is where Jeff is absolutely right and hitting the nail on the head. At the end of the day does it only matter what the advertisers thing, believe and feel. It is irrelevant if that believe or feeling is wrong or correct, because the advertiser will act on it as if it is right, in either case. The education of advertisers to understand the dynamics, issues, hot-spots, potentials and approach that should be taken to run a successful affiliate program is the most important thing to do.

Call to Action
This education needs to be done not just by the affiliate publishers, but all parties involved, including networks and any third party service vendors and services. Pointing fingers at each other does not solve any of the problems and it does not make advertisers better educated about the reality they operate within. It only confuses them even more and mistrusts the industry as a whole. The loser will be all of us. The winner would be the thieves and thugs who were forgotten over all this and were able to take advantage of the situation undetected.

What is your take on this? Feel free to provide your comments below. Thank you.

Cheers!
Carsten Cumbrowski
Marketer, Affiliate, Entrepreneur, Blogger
Find No BS Internet Marketing Resources here

Lack of Innovation and the Rejection of the unwanted Child called Affiliate Marketing

The class action filed against ValueClick subsidiaries CJ.com and BeFree has taken a new turn with ValueClick proposing a $1,000,000 settlement fund to be distributed to members of the class action suit.

The lawsuit was originally filed against CJ after the legal team for the class action determined that CJ allowed software publishers to highjack commissions due to other publishers using methods including downloadable toolbars, purchase helpers and other hidden software.

Terms of the settlement as outlined on http://www.cjsettlement.com are not only financial, but force CJ to have independent reviews and audits done on their practices & systems for managing network quality.

A settlement of this nature, if accepted by the courts, opens the doors to further similar class actions against other networks. I expect to see more lawsuits being filed against both CPA and Affiliate networks.

Interestingly enough an excerpt of the settlement agreement states:

“After deducting for payment of any money awarded by the Court in connection with representation of the Class in this litigation and settlement (for example, Incentive Awards made to the named plaintiffs, consulting fees, certain costs of class settlement administration, and related expenses), the balance of the Common Fund shall be allocated 70% to the Publishers and 30% to the Advertisers in a Publisher Fund and an Advertiser Fund.”

A review of the attorney’s fees, administration fees and other costs show that the biggest winners will indeed be the lawyers that filed the claim. They stand to get up to $500,000 of the settlement.

You’ve got to love America

Read more:
CJ proposes $1 Million settlement over Malware Class Action.

The class action filed against ValueClick subsidiaries CJ.com and BeFree has taken a new turn with ValueClick proposing a $1,000,000 settlement fund to be distributed to members of the class action suit.

The lawsuit was originally filed against CJ after the legal team for the class action determined that CJ allowed software publishers to highjack commissions due to other publishers using methods including downloadable toolbars, purchase helpers and other hidden software.

Terms of the settlement as outlined on http://www.cjsettlement.com are not only financial, but force CJ to have independent reviews and audits done on their practices & systems for managing network quality.

A settlement of this nature, if accepted by the courts, opens the doors to further similar class actions against other networks. I expect to see more lawsuits being filed against both CPA and Affiliate networks.

Interestingly enough an excerpt of the settlement agreement states:

“After deducting for payment of any money awarded by the Court in connection with representation of the Class in this litigation and settlement (for example, Incentive Awards made to the named plaintiffs, consulting fees, certain costs of class settlement administration, and related expenses), the balance of the Common Fund shall be allocated 70% to the Publishers and 30% to the Advertisers in a Publisher Fund and an Advertiser Fund.”

A review of the attorney’s fees, administration fees and other costs show that the biggest winners will indeed be the lawyers that filed the claim. They stand to get up to $500,000 of the settlement.

You’ve got to love America

CJ proposes $1 Million settlement over Malware Class Action

Merchants are often desperate for any excuse to run a promotion or distribute a coupon. “Groundhog Day is coming? Let’s put out a coupon for that: the more shadow the higher the discount!” With such a mindset typical in most marketing departments, I am very surprised that the Olympics are starting next week and there has been barely a flutter of notice in the affiliate industry.

Now I realize association with China is still a risky proposition for American retailers. Not that the International Olympic Committee hasn’t put forward the effort to make everything seem hunky dory. The multimillion dollar campaign focusing on peeking behind the wall is slick and inviting. It makes the Beijing Olympics seem shrouded in mystery and splendor. It emphasizes China’s celebrated history and infers that despite the horrendous tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake the country has recovered to proudly host these Games.

That sentiment is not reflected in the advertising campaigns I have seen online from retailers. This is not like the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta where advertisers jumped to make sure they were part of it (although, of course, in ’96 the focus was offline). Certainly if the 2008 Olympics were being held by a Western nation both the coverage and the retail merchant involvement would be far greater.

For example, Staples is listed as an exclusive supplier of office furniture for the Beijing Olympics. The move makes sense; the $30 billion dollar office product market in China is very appealing and this could be a big first step into that market. Staples does have an affiliate program on Commission Junction. Now obviously office supplies don’t have a direct connection to sports. I would hardly expect Staples to put out a bunch of banners showing athletes hurdling over desks. But how about at least a small line that says “Proud Sponsor of the Beijing Olympic Games”? Nothing. Not a single mention on the 192 pieces of creative they have posted on CJ, nor on the homepage of their website.

I decided to look at a sports retailer who is a far bigger sponsor of the Games, someone like Adidas. After all, the Olympics would tie in nicely with their creative and they also have a program on Commission Junction. Again, of their 76 pieces of creative on CJ not one mentioned the Olympics, although they did have a section of merchandise that one the store portion of their website that was “Made for Beijing” which is available if an affiliate is looking within that data feed.

The Chinese government does of course have a massive human rights problem which might cause retailers to think twice about sponsoring international events in China. After all, the majority of news articles these days are less about the Games themselves and more about China’s inability to play nice. The news ranges from the Monty Pythonesque blocking of internet access to international reporters who are covering the Games to the much more totalitarian repression of people who are outspoken against Chinese governmental policies. The hosting of the games was granted to China by the IOC after assurances were made those human rights issues would improve. It should come with little surprise that they haven’t magically improved. Old habits are difficult to break.

But I am skeptical that companies like Staples or Adidas who signed what Adidas officials referred to as the “the biggest sports marketing deal ever in China” are boycotting putting up advertising creative mentioning the Beijing Games due to human rights concerns. Unfortunately concerns about human rights rarely come before corporate profit.

This is not to give an impression that no creative has been developed around the games. Adidas does have an ultra slick set of commercials focusing on a Chinese audience for the games:

It is not the kind of placement you will see on American television. The high production value in the ad could be designed for an American audience and could be reproduced in collateral for affiliate banners. But Adidas chose not to. This lack of engagement within the affiliate channel and other online marketing channels seems like a tactical choice on behalf of their respective PR departments. The sentiment seems to be, let American buyers focus on our products rather than our sponsorship of the Olympics.

It looks like the majority of the affiliate industry will be indeed boycotting the Beijing Olympics but perhaps not for the right reasons.

Read the original:
It’s not our Olympics: Retailers omit mention of sponsorships in American advertising

Today I received a MyPoints BonusMail email message with the unusual subject line “Tell Congress to Protect Seniors’ Medical Benefits.” That subject line immediately piqued my interest because of its political nature. I was, however, immediately troubled because I knew the focus of MyPoints is to award consumers points for their clicks and actions. Even worse, I quickly saw this email was lobbying a specific political agenda and rewarded consumers for contacting Congress and sending them a suggested message.

What follows is some basic information on MyPoints and a detailed walk through this specific BonusMail message and its call to action. I have included full quotes and a few screen captures for details.

As stated on their company information section of their website, MyPoints:

[P]rovides advertisers with an effective means to reach a large online audience with targeted marketing campaigns. The MyPoints program also enables consumers to earn points-based rewards by responding to email offers, completing online surveys, shopping online and engaging in other online activities. Rewards points are redeemable in the form of third-party gift cards and other benefits from over 60 merchants, including retailers, theaters, restaurants, airlines and hotels.

The body of the BonusMail message MyPoints sent me today contained the following message personalized to me:

Mike, Congress made a solemn promise to America’s seniors to supply more affordable medical care, but now they’re limiting seniors’ access to doctors, making it harder for them to get the care they need. Tell Congress to protect seniors’ access to doctors.

With over 3.2 million baby boomers becoming eligible for Medicare in three short years, and a government-predicted shortage of 85,000 doctors by 2020, doctor payment cuts will create an access-to-care crisis for America’s seniors.

If Congress doesn’t act soon, Medicare doctor payment cuts will hurt America’s patients. Doctors will be forced to defer the purchase of new medical equipment and information technology; seniors will have a harder time finding medical and surgical specialists and will have to travel greater distances to see a doctor; and more Medicare patients will be forced to go to expensive emergency rooms for routine care that could have been treated in a doctor’s office.

S. 2785, The Save Medicare Act of 2008, has been introduced in the Senate. This bill would stop the Medicare physician payment cuts for 18 months, long enough to begin working on a long-term solution to the broken payment system. In addition, the bill will not increase the cost of permanently fixing the fatally flawed Medicare physician payment system. Urge your U.S. senators to co-sponsor this legislation and tell all your representatives in Congress to stop doctor payment cuts.

Following this message there was a prominent “get your points” section as shown below (click image to enlarge):

Clicking the “get points” button illustrated above brings one to a form page shown below (click image to enlarge) with a simple message urging readers to contact Congress on behalf of the American Medical Association as shown below. (Strangely the stock photos do not contain pictures of seniors. The most prominent image is that of a pregnant woman.)

Filling out this form and clicking the “go to step 2 – to send a letter to Congress” button shown above produces a list of both my Senators by name and my Representative by name. The following instructions are provided:

Tell Congress to make good on their promise to America’s families today! Call Congress using our toll-free grassroots hotline at (xxx) xxx-6200. Or, you can send an e-mail to their offices by clicking below.

Please note that MyPoints points are only awarded for sending the email. Below these instructions are two email messages. The first email is for my Senators and is ready for me to click and send. It reads as follows:

On July 1, doctors and their patients will be hit by a 10 percent Medicare cut—with an additional 5 percent cut coming a mere six months later—unless Congress acts now.

These proposed cuts are a huge problem for patients—and for many families—because they will prevent doctors from taking on new Medicare patients, discourage many from investing in new health technology and make some think about closing their medical practices altogether.

Please—do not delay. Take action now to ensure that doctors and the patients who need them do not suffer from more cuts to Medicare payments. Take care of our doctors so they can take care of us.

The second email is for my Representative and reads as follows:

Did you know that an American Medical Association survey found that 60 percent of physicians said a projected 10 percent Medicare payment cut will force them to limit the number of new Medicare patients they can treat?

Further, about 25 percent of Medicare patients seeking a new primary care physician already have problems finding one, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the group that advises Congress on Medicare. Couple that fact with a government-predicted shortage of 85,000 doctors by 2020 and the first wave of baby boomers turning 65 in three short years, and the future for Medicare patients’ access to care is bleak, unless we take steps to turn the tide.

I know you’re aware that a deep, 10% Medicare physician payment cut is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2008. Please, I implore you to make sure these cuts don’t go through, for fear that more doctors discover they can no longer take care of those who need it most.

Our doctors are always there to take care of us – shouldn’t we finally return the favor?

At the bottom of this page there is a “Take Action!” button to send the emails. I noticed that the email messages are user-editable so readers could presumably write their own letters or edit the default wording. I didn’t see any subject line listed or way to edit one.

MyPoints members are awarded 5 points for visiting the AMAj’s Patients’ Action Network page shown above. If a member takes action by sending the emails to Congress they will receive 50 points.

I’m all for citizen input and contacting Congress and making our voices heard. I also support group efforts to mobilize concerned citizens around focal issues. However, I’m concerned about this incentivized procedure undertaken by MyPoints and the American Medical Association. I’ll explain below.

MyPoints is part of the Classmates Media Corporation and reported that “as of September 30, 2007, more than 8.8 million members were registered with MyPoints, 6.0 million of whom were registered to receive email marketing messages from the company.” As such, MyPoints owns a large database of consumers motivated to receive points for actions. Combine this with the lobbying efforts of the American Medical Association and you have a potentially powerful force of compensated letter-writers influencing public policy along a specific agenda.

Members of Congress know most people don’t write or voice their opinion. I’ve been told they tend to assume that for every one person’s input there are probably 100 or so others who are in agreement and feel strongly along the same lines but simply didn’t write or call about the issue. The American Medical Association knows this too and is using the MyPoints database and incentive structure to generate potentially millions of emails to members of Congress in an effort to influence public policy in their favor. Assuming one only fills out the form and clicks all the required buttons, the MyPoints/American Medical Association process takes only about 45 seconds to complete. The result is 55 easy points earned by the member action (5 for reading and 50 more for sending the emails).

I feel it is disingenuous for anyone or any organization to drum up “public support” using such tactics and the American Medical Association should be ashamed for pulling this stunt on Congress and ultimately the taxpaying public. To an unknowing outsider or member of Congress, the incoming emails may look like democracy in action and a flood of public support; however, in my opinion, this process is more like bribery in action and trickery by a powerful lobbying organization with a self-serving political agenda.

What do you think? Should something be done about this MyPoints/American Medical Association partnership? Should MyPoints incentivize public policy actions?

The rest is here:
Should MyPoints Award Points for Political Action?

Performance Marketing Alliance 

I just received an e-mail from Rebecca Madigan, from AffiliateClassroom.com, about the Performance Marketing Alliance and I urge people to get involved with this project. I plan on it and I am pleased to see names like Brook Schaaf, Lisa Riolo, and other veterans getting the ball rolling. Let me know how I can help.

The e-mail:

“We’re on our way! After talking to over 40 industry leaders, there is overwhelming support to start a performance marketing professional association, with the strategic objective of bringing visibility and credibility to the performance marketing industry.

We have a lot to do yet to get this started. There is a fine balance between gathering enough input and support from the industry, and getting traction by taking action. While we continue to solicit feedback from a broad base of performance marketing professionals, we’re also moving forward with the nomination of a formation advisory board, and a call for volunteers for working groups who will develop organizational and policy recommendations that the advisory board will approve.

To communicate our efforts and track our progress, we’ve started a website: www.performancemarketingalliance.com. There are links to interest surveys on this site, so please forward this URL on to all your performance marketing friends and colleagues. We will need the support of as much of the affiliate community as we can muster, and we’ll be successful by meeting the needs of the industry and individual members. “

Lessons From the Past- Affiliate Union

Now I get to show my age- almost forty. The Affiliate Union (circa 2000) was a good idea, with great grassroots representation. Unfortunately it became bogged down in politics and hassles over certification.  I strongly urge you to visit this post from a couple of years ago as I muse about the Affiliate Union at the turn of the century. Carsten Cumbrowski, Fraser Edwards and Brian Clark provide some good dialogue in the resulting comments. You can also find the Draft of September 11, 2000 (Status: Approved) in the post above.

The primary goal was contract reform because affiliate contracts were horribly lopsided and affiliates, many amateur or new business people like myself, were new to the “contract thing”. I didn’t know what was a good contract or a bad contract. Having something like the Affiliate Union got me up to speed fast.

The biggest hurdle was perhaps the name, but that was the name selected by democratic vote. Some merchants interpreted it as “a labor union” and not a union between affiliate and merchant. Thus I love the name “performance marketing alliance”. It is long overdue for the disparate parties in affiliate marketing to come together as an alliance and work towards mutually beneficial goals.

I know the parties can get together, since I chaired the New York Summit on Adware and trust me things cannot get much more hostile than that meeting- I do not hesitate to add that The Code of Conduct and other outcomes were the products of the networks- not this mediator. Hopefully this time around, almost eight years later, with real industry maturity, we will see something work. I do offer up the Affiliate Union contract draft not only as a lesson in online politics, and the process but also because there is some good material in the working draft. Get involved. It is your industry. This goes for networks, merchants, agencies and of course- affiliates and publishers.

Bootstrapped in late April, 2000, the “Affiliate Union” is ongoing series of planning discussions between Affiliates and Merchants United : Welcome to Affiliate Union affiliates, merchants and affiliate technology providers aimed at developing both a “certification standard” for affiliate merchants and the organization to implement those standards. It is a completely volunteer online organization in the spirit of early Internet “open standards committees.” This effort needs the participation and support of merchants — especially those merchants who run well-thought-out legitimate programs. After all, much of the mud churned up by the more abusive affiliate merchants gets splattered on their faces.

This effort needs the participation and support of affiliate directories. They have heard many of these horror stories first hand and are more like affiliates than merchants anyway. They will need to be the first line of education to the affiliates on these efforts — the ones saying, “Don’t sign up for any program that doesn’t run the emblem.” Or maybe they should be saying we won’t even list them if they don’t.

This effort needs the participation and support of affiliate solution providers. Every single affiliate network makes their merchants adhere to terms of service — some even provide template “affiliate agreements” to their merchants. They will be an important part of bringing these standards back to the merchants and, at the same time, they can provide the group with insight from the collected experiences of hundreds of merchants.

And, of course, this effort needs the participation of affiliates — lots of affiliates. The kinds of horror stories that affiliates tell each other in discussion groups now have a use: they give us the real world examples to wrestle with when planning the criteria. From each horror story we can derive a new certification criteria. 

Read the original post:
Performance Marketing Alliance

Breaking news as first reported by Linda Buquet at 5StarAffiliatePrograms.com, Internet retail giant Overstock who most recently dismissed their estimated 3,400 New York affiliates from their affiliate program which I had written about in a previous post Overstock.com Terminates All NY Affiliates has recently filed suit with the Supreme Court to fight the New York Tax Law, which went into affect June 1st 2008.

The Overstock press release is quoted as follows, “Overstock.com, which is based only in Utah, has no operations in New York, and sells exclusively through the internet, views the new law as unconstitutional under both New York and federal constitutional provisions, including due process clauses under both constitutions and the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution as well.” [Overstock May 30th press release]

Mark Griffin Overstock.com general counsel stated in the press release, “I am confident of our position in the suit.” [Overstock May 30th press release]
Overstock’s commitment to fighting this tax is a positive step in assisting the strength of the Amazon complaint which was filed on Friday May 2, 2008, as written in The New York Times. Amazon filed a complaint in State Supreme Court in Manhattan objecting to the law, which was approved as part of the $122 billion state budget that Gov. David A. Paterson has already signed and which went into affect yesterday.

Rallying up the Affiliate Marketing Community

Peter Bordes Jr. who is a founder, CEO, and chairman of the board of MediaTrust, Inc and an ardent blogger at www.relevantlyspeaking.com was on the recent IAB public policy meeting on the new Can-Spam legislation. In the last segment of the meeting MediaTrust’s CMO Trip Foster and ValueClick opened the affiliate tax discussion and Peter has some interesting things of note which he mentions in his post here as well is calling for petitions to be sent in to affiliatepetition@gmail.com.

Linda Woods President of PartnerCentric.com and host of Affiliate Marketing Insider a popular radio show on WebmasterRadio.fm is joining with other industry leaders and thought provokers on her Webmaster Radio show this Thursday at 12n PST/3pEST to discuss the New York Tax issue.

Brian Littleton President of ShareaSale.com a top affiliate network is commenting on the topic from a network perspective on the ShareaSale blog. ShareaSale is the only network I know of to date to offer New York affiliate sales reporting for their networks.

Cecily Lancit President of Affiliopolis.com has been spearheading communication attempts directly with the New York State Tax office representatives. In one of my recent posts Interview with Members of the New York State Tax Department I mentioned the phone conference we were supposed to have with the representatives from the New York Office but at the last minute the NY office stated they would prefer written questions, many persons from the industry submitted questions to Cecily to pose to the New York Office and they have responded with a time line for response of up to one month. Special thanks to Wade Tonkin of GTOManagement.com who also submitted some insightful questions along with others!

Linda Buquet of 5StarAffiliateprograms.com has been a champion concerning ensuring news and information from all around the affiliate community is disseminated to those who need her timely information by accessing her popular affiliate blog and forum.

Shawn Collins the Affiliate Marketing Industry legend and co founder of AffiliateSummit.com also has been spearheading communications of information throughout the community and taking a positive stand in support of Overstocks efforts on his popular blog AffiliateTip.com

New York Affiliate Tax Issue – What’s next?

As the President of PaulsonManagementGroup.com where we manage many affiliates programs in multiple networks, I can tell you that this issue has many of us all rechecking out processes and strategies moving forward. The discussions and emails are going around concerning the development of an affiliate industry association which we are all hoping will be established sooner rather then later. What’s next? Well we need to be prepared to answer that question, let’s hope it is not too late.

Where to register for a Sales Tax Certificate of Authority: http://www.nys-opal.com/ (click the “‘on-line applications” link on the left-hand margin and go from there.)

Excerpt from:
Overstock Files Lawsuit w Supreme Court to Fight New York Tax Law

A serious post concerning the possibility of affiliates sales tax collection for affiliates based out of New York recently went up (April 17th 2008) on the internetretailer.com website. Due to the downtrodden economy Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York revived a plan to enhance New York’s tax revenue. Much of the buzz online considered that once Mr. Spitzer was out of the scene that this plan would eventually die down and fall to the way side. However, Gov. David Paterson is expected to sign the budget bill, making it effective June 1, according to the state budget office.

The bill which is expected to be passed June 1 is an effort to raise $50 million in tax revenue from online retailers; the fear here is that other states might also consider increasing internet sales tax collections to extend to affiliates collecting sales via their online sites and or properties within their respective states.

“The provisions would amend a sales and use tax law on the books since 1965. That law requires New York state residents who purchase items outside of the state to pay New York a “use” or sales tax if they were not charged sales tax in the state of purchase. Following similar procedures in other states that charge sales tax, the law also requires out-of-state retailers to collect and remit sales tax on products sold to New York residents if the retailers maintain a physical presence, or nexus, in the state.” (internetretailer.com)

“New provisions proposed for a New York State sales tax law, if signed by the governor, would require online retailers based outside of the state to collect and remit sales tax on customer orders received through affiliate web sites based within New York.” (internetretailer.com)

Linda Buquet at 5Star heralded an important comment that other states might be caught up in a ripple effect and impose sales tax collections from affiliates as well. Her full post can be seen here. Affiliate sales tax is a topic which will concern any affiliate in the affiliate marketing space and is causing a great deal of discussion amongst community members. InternetNews has an incredible post concerning this issue which they as well as others online are calling the “Amazon Tax” due to Amazon and it’s affiliate program being the nexus for the revival of the tax plan.

This is a matter that the affiliate community as a whole could be impacted by. As the industry grows more attention from big brother concerning how they can grab their piece of the pie will be inherit with that growth, we can only hope that if this bill passes it will stop with New York.
Internetretailer.com full article can be viewed here

Read more from the original source:
New York Collecting Sales Tax from Affiliates?