Underwater on their mortgages and angry at banks, more borrowers are choosing to hand over the keys, even if they can afford the payments.

March 17, 2010|By Alana Semuels

Wynn Bloch has always dutifully paid her bills and socked away money for retirement. But in December she defaulted on the mortgage on her Palm Desert home, even though she could afford the payments.

Bloch paid $385,000 for the two-bedroom in 2006, when prices were still surging. Comparable homes are now selling in the low-$200,000s. At 66, the retired psychologist doubted she’d see her investment rebound in her lifetime. Plus, she said she was duped into an expensive loan.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/17/business/la-fi-walkaway17-2010mar17

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About

Jeremiah Owyang
SF, Silicon Valley

Partner, Customer StrategyAltimeter GroupColumnist forForbes CMO Network

Categories: Social Media Stats, Social Networking, Web UsagePosted on January 11th, 2009

If you’re seeking stats from 2008, I’ve compiled them on this similar post of 2008 social networking stats. Update, now see the 2010 stats.

Stats are important –but on their own, they don’t tell us much
Stats on social networks are important, but I’m going to need your help in creating a community archive, can you submit stats as you find them? I’m often asked, “What are the usage numbers for X social network” and I’ve received considerable traffic on my very old post (way back in Jan 08) of MySpace and Facebook stats, even months later. Decision makers, press, media, and users are hungry for numbers, so I’ll start to aggregate them as I see them.

How I interpret stats
Numbers don’t tell us much without insight and interpretation, in fact, you’re going to see conflicting numbers of usage from many of the agencies and social networks themselves. The key is to look at trend movements, don’t focus on the specific numbers but the changes to them over time. I put more weight on active unique users in the last 30 days vs overall registered, in fact, the actual active conversion rate will often range from 10-40% of actual users sticking around and using the social network, so don’t be fooled by puffed numbers. No single metric is a good indicator, you have to evaluate the usage from multiple dimensions, so you also have to factor in what are users doing, time on site, interaction, and of course, did they end up buying, recommending products, or improving their lives.

All Social Networks

Techcrunch has listed out comscore’s numbers across multiple social networks, Sources: Techcrunch via Comscore, Jan 1, 2009

Compete has released stats in Feb, comments by Cnet. Unique Visitors, Total Visitors and rank information. Cnet, Feb 10, 2009

Nielsen Online shows that: Social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular online activity ahead of personal email, Member communities are visited by 67% of the global online population, time spent is growing at 3 times the overall internet rate, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time, PDF, Nielsen Online, March

Nielsen reports that Social Networks 68% more popular than email 65% (but not by much), Nielsen, Cnet, March 2009

Techcrunch has an interesting application that shows which social networks dominate by country, June 2009

eMarketer has compiled stats from themselves and others on the different age groups of Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, July 2009

Ignite has data on a variety of social networks that includes traffic and demographic data. July 2009

Gender: Royal Pingdom compares social networks based by gender, in almost all cases, women dominate social networking sites over men. Nov 30, 2009 READ MORE

Boon Republic

Main article:

The Republic of Boon (Boon Republic, Boon) is a [[fictional world]] developed by Nyxent Inc. that launched on January 1st, 2010 and is accessible via the Internet. using any web browser. [[Boon]] is a digital world where all the social and business activities of it’s Residents are localized to the REAL cities where they live and work.

Summary

Boon enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through a simple 2D environment that includes a personal avatar or [[Gravatar]]. Boon endeavors to simplify the sometimes difficult task of finding new or old friends or connecting with potential new business contacts wether they are local to a residents real world city or are global in nature.

In Boon, Residents join and first create their REAL world name and define the REAL world city where they live, this allows not just the ability to make online friends but allows for the REAL world interaction with others connected to the same real world city. In Boon Republic that interaction may be just social but can also be business related.

Residents in Boon can explore any city in the Republic, meet and become friends with other Boon residents locally or globally. Find and establish business contacts, participate in individual and group activities, and create and develop a virtual property like becoming a mayor of their own city or developing their personal properties (blog or website) where they promote their products and services to people in their local city or provide and exchange services with one another. Residents can also become citizens of Boon employing themselves through The Boon Republic citizen program where you get paid for promoting Boon. They can also just travel around making real friends in the fictional world (which residents refer to as “Boon republic or just Boon”) of Boon Republic. Residents can be of any age but citizens must be of an age to legally work.

Localization

Most activities inside Boon Republic are localized to the city where they happen. Boon City the capital of The Republic of Boon reflects all the activities of all the cities in Boon Republic. In each city the start page of the city reflects all the public activities of the Residents of that particular city example: most of the activities of Residents of miami.boonrepublic.com are generated from the local  REAL city of Miami. The classifieds are local to the city, properties are local, groups are local.

Digital Property Ownership

Main article: Conceptually Boon Republic was built  from the start with the concept of allowing the purchase of Boon Republic Virtual Properties these virtual properties are defined as Boon Cities. Each city is a digital representation of a REAL world City and provides for the real activities of a local city.

There are Three types of digital property In The Republic of Boon; 1. A Boon Republic City, 2. Personal Land, which is a personal or business property and 3. Private Areas called BoonSpace.

1. A Boon Republic City

A Boon republic city is a Digital representation (example: Miami, Florida USA is represented by http://miami.boonrepublic.com on the web) of one of the real cities of the world. Boon allows anyone to become the licensee of a Boon Republic city and to share in the revenue with Boon as the exclusive license holder. When users register in Boon they become Residents and can define the real world city where they live, and as such come to be Residents in the digital representation of that city of Boon Republic.

2. Personal Properties

All Residents of Boon (anyone who uses Boon) are granted property rights in Boon. Every resident starts with 5 virtual properties that they can develop as they choose. Residents are allowed to expand their number of digital properties through  purchase and can even buy cities in Boon.

3. Private Areas

Boon has areas that are for private use that can be purchased for the use of any large organization or company and can be designed with the look and feel of that organization. (example: http://tradeusa.boonrepublic.com)

*Any digital properties must first be acquired from either Boon Republic or a private seller.

*Once a Resident acquires land, they may resell it freely and use it for any purpose that it is not prohibited by Boon Republic Terms of Service.

Users of Boon

MAYORS: (Mayors: Term for licensee of Boon)
Mayors are the term used by Boon Republic to describe those who license a city in Boon Republic. These individuals Work with Boon to develop and promote the city they have licensed, while they share in the revenue created by their city in The Republic of Boon. Prices of a Boon Republic Standard City is $499.99 license fee once a year for cities with less than a million people. A Premium City license fee is $999.99 once a year, for cities with more than a million people. There is also a maintenance charge for cities, of about $29.99 a month based on volume of traffic. As of March 1st, 2010 Boon had not charged the hosting fee for cities.

CITIZEN: (Citizen: Term for affiliates in Boon)
Citizen is the term used by Boon to describe an affiliate (where they promote Boon Republic and it’s products and receive residual commissions) in Boon. The price for citizenship in boon is $99.99 a year. Boon allows for the resale of this type of business from one Citizen of Boon to another.

RESIDENT: (Resident: Term for user)
Resident is the term used by Boon to describe anyone who registers as a user in Boon Republic. All Residents belong to the city where they really live and are able to interact socially or in business with other residents in any city in Boon. Residents can make a petition for a change of their home city, if they physically move from one city to another.

Residents of boon receive a package of FREE tools and services. All Resident of The Republic of Boon are given 5 Virtual Properties (website, blogs, groups) to develop as a package of FREE products and services. Create and easily manage your properties and even turn them into a business.

VISITOR: Term for Visitor to Boon)
Visitor is the term used by us to describe anyone who visits Boon Republic. Visitors are allowed to view public areas including the cities and their properties, buy in the classified area of a city but they cannot sell. We invite all visitors to join us and become Residents of Boon.

There are others in Boon [[SEE HERE]]

Why Boon?

The hope of the founders of Boon Republic was that people all over the world would want to become part of the “The Republic of Boon” and through common effort many unemployed and underemployed would see in Boon Republic a better way to acquire the economic security that they wanted.

Boon Republic allows people to secure an economic future in a way that is cost-effective, beneficial to all concerned, and rooted in the basic notion of sharing and equality. Furthermore, because most of Boon Republic is free, a whole new world opens up making it easy to discover new possibilities and ideas that they might not have otherwise become known.

Features of Boon

Basic Features of Boon Republic

City

Boon Republic is divided into areas called cities that are digital representations of the real cities of the world. In Boon there are no countries or states other than for localization. Licensing a city in boon is how one becomes a mayor.

Friends

Residents can meet new people and make friends and find business contacts with the press of a button on Boon by inviting others to connect with you.

Personal Property

Every Residents of Boon is granted 5 digital properties that they can develop. these properties can be a blog, a website, part blog part website, static home page, these properties can be personal, family, business, interest, or anything else that a resident decides as long as it does not violate the terms of Service of Boon.

Messaging

Messaging works like the email system of Boon allowing you to contact any resident of a city in Boon privately. Off-course any resident can decide to block your private messages if they so desire.

Wire

Residents and visitors can leave comments and feedback on different content with a city of Boon. Members profile, Groups, Photos, Links, etc.

Activity Streams

Activity Streams allows for the aggregation of activity in the cities of Boon. Individual activity, group activity and site wide activity.

Groups

Groups are like a micro community inside a larger city, a smaller community of people with a specific topic of interest, niche activity, smaller area of the city, language group, school, a corporation, organization. Groups can be Private, hidden or Public and can be created by any resident of a city of Boon Republic.

Directories

Directories are searchable and filterable city wide directories they work with Groups, Properties such as blogs or websites, Residents.

Cities

Directory of Boon Republic cities.

My Boon

Affiliate and Licensee area of Boon Republic specific to Mayors and Citizens of Boon. This is the place to track their business activity and where they can pick up their Boon Global ID (Personal Link) called a Passport to promote Boon Republic. The link tracks their residual sales in Boon Republic.

Classifieds

The Classified section is a free area for residents, and provides local jobs, housing, for sale, personals, services, local community, and events. Each Classified section is specific to a city in Boon.

Market

Directory of Boon Republic Products and Services. These are the products that Citizens of Boon are paid on.

Comparisons with Boon

Comparison With MySpace

Boon Allows for a very sophisticated website/blogs built on the Wordpress platform and is extensible, meaning there are at this moment about 8,250 plugins (plugins are small applications that extend the basic functions of the platform) that extend the abilities of the virtual properties of Boon. The virtual properties can be managed from a private dashboard and can be themed based on Widget based themes that are also easy to develop.

Comparison With Facebook

One is the simplicity and the level of customization. Boon allows users to create a personal profile to connect people together, for social as well as business interaction. Boon allows the development of interconnected cities where the Resident (Boon user) can create personal virtual properties that can be used not only for the creation of personal or family spaces but can be equally used for business ventures in their REAL world local city or as part of the web’s global economy.

Comparison With Craigslist

All activities in Boon are localized to the REAL city where these activities take place. Including the classifieds section. Boon has many features not found in craigslist. In Boon all features are focused on localizing the functions and activities of each Boon Republic City to the the corresponding REAL world city.

Platform of Boon

Boon Republic is built over the [[Opensource]] platform of [[Wordpress]], and as such provides an API for software developers to create apps called plugins and widgets. Boon also uses themes that can be basic themes that are free or premium paid themes. Boon also provides a services for custom made themes in Boon.  Boon Republic is built on open standards allowing great flexibility for applications that developers are able to create. Boon is preparing an area for developers. Developers will be able to submit their applications to the Boon Republic Marketplace for acceptance in Boon. Boon will keep a 30% of the sales of these Plugins and 70% will go to the developer.

Mission of Boon

“To bring a timely blessing or benefit”

Social Program

Boon is testing (by invitation only) a social program called [[Boon Social]] for  Boon Citizens. The  mission of Boon Social is to facilitate the self employment of those who are unemployed or underemployed through a special Boon Grant.

Boon in Beta

While Boon is still in BETA. To date Boon Republic has licensed over 200 cities in the Republic. The functions of the cities are localized to the REAL city where people live. Example: the people who live in Miami, Florida belong, socialize, do business, buy and sell in the Boon City of http://miami.boonrepublic.com.

Consider the following pieces of evidence:

Facebook surpassed Yahoo to become the second most visited Web site in the country.

In January this year it drew some 133.62 million unique visitors, while Yahoo came in just behind with 132 million.

That left Facebook second only to Google in terms of internet popularity.

Consider the possibilities for your career—or your business—that exist in a place where more than 130 million people regularly congregate to share information and ideas. In the U.S. alone: worldwide, Facebook now has more than 400 million users (including a certain career information Web site).

If you’re not already on Facebook, the only question that remains is: why not?

Holding out at this point is akin to being the last guy in the office in the ’90s to switch from typewritten memos instead of email, all the while maintaining that this PC thing was just a fad. Even if you’re not planning on using Facebook for networking yourself, having a passing acquaintance with something a third of the country—including most of your current colleagues and competitors and everyone you’re likely to hire in future (at least in the 35-and-under demographic)—can hardly be a bad thing.

The new director of BBC Global News has mandated that journalists working under him either “get with the social media program or get out.” Socialmediatoday reports that he told the Guardian, “This isn’t just a kind of fad… I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary.”

More specifically, the Guardian report says that:

“Aggregating and curating content with attribution should become part of a BBC journalist’s assignment; and BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand.

Horrocks, formerly head of the BBC’s multimedia newsroom, finds clear words for it: ‘If you don’t like it, if you think that level of change or that different way of working isn’t right for me, then go and do something else, because it’s going to happen. You’re not going to be able to stop it.’” (Emphasis added).

Anyone think that the section emphasized above will only apply to the media field? Me neither. And even if it does, major media organizations shifting their models to account for social media means two things: first, that they’ve seen the writing on the wall for traditional aggregation and distribution models and, second, that anyone who’s hoping to keep up with events relevant to their industry in this age of information overload would do well to follow where the most trusted names in media are leading.

Where would a discussion of social media be without Twitter? Billboard reports that Twitter’s traffic increased some 8 percent from December to January. The 73.5 million unique visitors it drew in January means the company “can boast year-over-year growth of more than 1,000%, as it had only 6 million unique visitors in January of last year.”

Look around you.

The only other thing still expanding in this economy is bonuses for bankers, and even they’re nowhere near 1,000 percent gains in a single year. The only place that Twitter—and the rest of the major social networking tools—are going is deeper and deeper into our psyche and culture.

If you’re not sure where to start in the social media realm, sign up for an account with both of the tools listed here: they’re free, after all, and require you to invest nothing more than a little bit of your own time. From there, do some digging. If you’re interested in what the tools can do for your business, check out what your competitors are doing. Google some best practice tips. Above all else, get involved: that’s what all these tools are there for, and you can’t start getting anything back from them until you put something in. So go on: you have nothing to lose but your inhibitions.

More Executive Strategies on CNBC.com: Where To Find A Job Now Boomers Now Tune In & Turn On to Social Networking Executive Career Strategies

________________________________
Phil Stott is a staff writer at Vault.com in New York. Originally from Scotland, he has also lived and worked in Japan, South Korea and Eastern Europe. He holds an MA in English Literature and Modern History, and a Masters in Research in Civil Engineering, both from the University of Dundee.

Comments? Send them to executivecareers@cnbc.com

© 2010 CNBC.com
URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/35541110/

What is the Internet?

While most people use the words ‘internet’ and ‘web’ interchangeably they are really two different things. The internet is all the hardware and software that connects millions of computers to one another including private areas called intranets. The world wide web, or web is just one of the services available over this network of computers. Most of what we talk about the Internet is actually about the web.

Watch this video to learn about the history of the internet.

How does the web work?

While you don’t need to know all the technical details, understanding a little bit about how the world wide web actually works can be a big advantage. Watch this Common Craft video which explains the World Wide Web in Plain English:

The web is a collection of millions of different pages of information. These web pages are written is a special code called HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language). This code has a collection of special phrases and characters that tell your web browser how the web page is supposed to look. You can see what the HTML for this page looks like by clicking on the ‘View’ menu and then selecting ‘View Source’ or ‘Page Source’ (some browsers may be different). While it can look pretty complicated, you will notice that a lot of the code is actually just simple English words that have peculiar punctuation and characters around them.

Web pages can also have other kinds of content on them including video, audio and pictures. In this case there is special code in the HTML that tells your browser where it can find the picture or video so it can then play it.

How do you find stuff on the web?

With so many web pages out there, finding what you want can be pretty difficult. In the early days of the web, there use to be massive lists of websites called directories that listed all the different sites. However as the web got bigger these lists got longer until it was hard to even find something in the directory! While there are still some directories available today like the Yahoo Directory or theODP, most people search the web using a search engine.

A search engine is a web site that finds other websites for you based on the words you enter into a text box. When you put in a search term, the search engine compares the words in the box which are called keywords to it’s database of websites. Then using a special computer program called an algorithm, it gives you a list of web sites that relate to your keywords.

Search engines use special programs called robots or spiders to find new web pages. These robots crawl around the web jumping from page to page using the links. This way the robot not only finds new web pages, but it also can figure out how important that web page is by how many other web pages are linking to it.

How do I use a search engine?

Using a search engine is an essential skill if you want to get the most out of the web. Below are some videos that will help you get started searching the web, especially Google. The best idea though is just to go to Google.com and start searching. If you use the techniques outlined below you will be searching like a pro in no time!

Watch this Common Craft video for a great introduction to using search engines.

What kind of content is there on the web?

When the web first started, there was only plain text web pages. But as internet speeds got faster, people could put more different kinds of content on the internet. Now there are pictures, videos, music and interactive applications available to access on the internet – all right from your browser!

Although the internet can be a really great place to find information and entertainment, it’s important to remember that anyone can put anything on the internet. This means that the stuff you read on the internet may not always be 100% accurate, and it’s also why there is some very offensive material on the internet. This is usually pretty easy to avoid, and some browsers even allow you to select what kind of content you want to be able to see (important if you have kids using your computer). But as long as you are aware of what’s out there, the internet is an amazing collection of the interesting, the funny, the bizarre and the entertaining!

Examples of content and services available on the internet:

Business and Money:

• Online banking (talk to your bank about how to access your account from the internet)

• Investing e.g. www.scottrade.com

• Buying online, e.g. www.amazon.com (see ecommerce section)

• Selling online e.g. www.ebay.com (see ecommerce section)

Education and Learning and Current Affairs:

• Encyclopedias e.g. www.wikipedia.com

• Learn languages: e.g. www.rocketlanguages.com

• Qualifications (search google for available courses in your region/country)

• Questions and Answers e.g. answers.yahoo.com

• News: news.google.com

Entertainment:

• Music: last.fm

• TV Shows and Movies: www.hulu.com (US only)

• Video: www.youtube.com

Communication and Socializing:

• Email: www.gmail.com

• Instant Messaging: http://www.google.com/talk/

• Phone and Video Calls www.skype.com

• Social Networking: www.facebook.com (see Social Media section for more information)

• Blogs: www.blogger.com & http://blogsearch.google.com (see Social Media section for more information)

• Forums http://boardreader.com/

What is social bookmarking?

When you find a web page that you find interesting, instead of having to remember the address of the webpage, you can simply save the address as a ‘bookmark’ in your browser (some browsers call them favorites). Social bookmarking is like saving favorites on your browser, except you’re saving to a website that you can access from any computer in the world. But the part of social bookmarking is the ’social’ part. Everyone can look at everyone else bookmarks. This means that you can browse and search through content that other people have already decided is worth looking at.

This can be much better than a search engine, which just uses a computer program to decide what’s relevant and what’s not – with social bookmarking sites, all the content has been picked by actual people. You can also see how good different content is by how many times it’s been saved by different users. Most social bookmarking sites will display a number next to the content indicating how many times it has been saved by another user. These sites also show a continually updated list of popular web pages. This can be a great way of finding interesting content that you might not otherwise come across.

Here is a great video guide to Social Bookmarking by Common Craft:

]]> http://boonrepublic.com/2010/02/21/internet-basics/feed/ 0 http://boonrepublic.com/2010/02/20/new-support-area/ http://boonrepublic.com/2010/02/20/new-support-area/#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:26:25 +0000 admin http://boonrepublic.com/?p=160 The new support area has been created FIND IT HERE. to start there are number of videos to see, that walk you through the creation of  a website/blog Virtual Property. Start with the introductory video and then go on to see all the others. These videos will help you to understand how to start developing your Virtual Properties.

We will continue to add to this area but the videos now here will give you a good understanding of how to use your administrative area called a dashboard.

A Boon to You

Admin

A man in Ohio grew so angry at his bank for refusing to work with him to keep his home that he bulldozed it. He told WLWT News, “As far as what the bank is going to get, I plan on giving them back what was on this hill exactly (as) it was. I brought it out of the ground and I plan on putting it back in the ground.”

Terry Hoskins owed $160,000 on a mortage on the home, which was valued at $350,000. Hoskins says the IRS placed liens on his business property and home after his brother, a former business partner, sued him. He says the bank then claimed his home as collateral and refused to accept a $170,000 buyout offer on the mortgage, telling him they could get more from it at auction.

He says he might bulldoze the commercial property next.

“Frustrated Owner Bulldozes Home Ahead Of Foreclosure” [WLWT.com]

Can you trust national averages? As bad as the jobless data you hear are, you have not been told the whole truth. If you think the terrible impact of America ’s Great Recession is shown by an official unemployment rate of about 10 percent, think again.

Economic inequality and the myth of Reagan trickle down logic are shown by new data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston . The report noted: “What has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets.” The researchers found a correlation between household income and unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2009: Look carefully at these numbers and see how unemployment rises as income drops:

$150,000 or more, 3.2 percent
$100,000 to 149,999, 8 percent
$75,000 to $99,999, 5 percent
$60,000 to $75,000, 6.4 percent
$50,000 to $59,000, 7.8 percent
$40,000 to $49,000, 9 percent
$30,000 to $39,999, 12.2 percent
$20,000 to $29,999, 19.7 percent
$12,500 to $20,000, 19.1 percent
$12,499 or less, 30.8 percent

Ten times worse unemployment in the lowest class than in the highest class! Truly amazing and disheartening, don’t you think? And you can also infer that in some hard hit geographical areas the poorest people and people of color are being even more adversely impacted. And don’t think for a minute that things have really improved in 2010.

The report summed up the situation: “A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom…of the income distribution; a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top.” People at the top remain winners no matter how bad the whole economy. Why? The wealthy Upper Class controls so much of the political system and benefit from countless government policies. They may lose something in an economic meltdown but not enough to suffer significantly.

Conversely, those at the bottom of the economic system with no political power are experiencing something as bad as the Great Depression, with no end in sight.

What pundits don’t emphasize is that government policies that do not target lower income groups are a failure and disgrace. Worse than destroying the middle class, we are creating a Lower Class like that found in third world countries. Indeed, compared to places like China and European nations, America ’s poor are suffering about as badly as anyone on the planet, except for a few dismal places like Haiti . Needing food handouts, losing homes, missing health insurance, and lacking jobs mock the American Dream.

Wait; there is even more bad news. When underemployment is factored in — part time workers that want to work full time, and those who have stopped looking but want a job — the picture gets even worse. In the lowest group, the underemployment rate was 20.6 percent, compared with just 1.6 percent in the highest group. So the total in the lowest class is 51.4 percent (3.7 million people) compared to 4.8 percent in the wealthy class (530,000 people). Also consider that last November nearly 20 percent of all men between 25 and 54 did not have jobs, the highest figure since the labor bureau began counting in 1948.

Now you know why the constantly noted official jobless rate for the nation of 10 percent and 17 percent when underemployment is counted are a joke, or is it a purposeful deception, like a truth bubble?

How can jobs be created for the lower economic classes? You hear very, very few new ideas from politicians. It comes down to federal spending that better targets job creation to the lower income groups, and waiting for more general consumer spending, especially by the more affluent, to create more low level jobs, mostly in service areas. But we need specifics and better legislation.

Consider this green energy fiasco. A huge amount of federal stimulus money provided for building wind farms. It is creating jobs in Chine to build wind turbines, not in America . In fact, 80 percent of such federal funding is going overseas. All because Congress and the White House did not ensure a made-in-America requirement. Was a backroom deal made to keep China happy so that they would keep loaning us money?

When the poorest people suffer so disproportionately as compared to the wealthiest, perhaps only violent revolution will fix America ’s dysfunctional, broken and delusional democracy. Will President Obama cite the above frightening data in any public forum to make the case for stronger federal efforts? What do you think?

The high numbers for the lower income people mean that no amount of government action, in even five years or more, will solve jobless problem, because no amount of economic growth can possibly create enough new jobs. The US would have to produce 10 million new jobs just to get back to the unemployment levels of 2007 – impossible for many years. So, politicians will keep making things look better by citing the national average.

Illustration of the concept of affiliate marketing

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. It is an application of crowdsourcing.^{[citation needed]} Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’), the network, the publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate’) and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertisingmethods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. ^[1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers’ marketing strategies.^[2]

[edit]History

[edit]Origin

The concept of revenue sharing—paying commission for referred business—predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commercehappened almost four years after the origination of the World Wide Web in November 1994.^{[citation needed]}

The consensus of marketers and adult industry insiders is that Cybererotica was either the first or among the early innovators in affiliate marketing with a cost per click program.^[3]

During November 1994, CDNOW launched its BuyWeb program. With this program CDNOW was the first non-adult website to introduce the concept of an affiliate or associate program with its idea ofclick-through purchasing. CDNOW had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors may be interested in purchasing. These websites could also offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNOW to purchase the albums. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose because of conversations with music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists’ CDs directly from its website, but did not want to implement this capability itself. Geffen asked CDNOW if it could design a program where CDNOW would handle the order fulfillment. Geffen realized that CDNOW could link directly from the artist on its website to Geffen’s website, bypassing the CDNOW home page and going directly to an artist’s music page.^[4]

Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate program in July 1996. Amazon associates could place banner or text links on their site for individual books, or link directly to the Amazon home page.^{[citation needed]}

When visitors clicked from the associate’s website through to Amazon and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to become widely-known and serve as a model for subsequent programs.^[5][6]

In February 2000, Amazon announced that it had been granted a patent^[7] on all the essential components of an affiliate program. The patent application was submitted in June 1997, which predates most affiliate programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com (October 1994), AutoWeb.com (October 1995), Kbkids.com/BrainPlay.com (January 1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others.^[3]

[edit]Historic development

Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005.^[8] MarketingSherpa’s research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs such as Google AdSense.^[9]

Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, and retail industries.^[10] The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors.^[10] Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix.^[10]

[edit]Web 2.0

Websites and services based on Web 2.0 concepts—blogging and interactive online communities, for example—have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. The new media allowed merchants to become closer to their affiliates and improved the communication between them.^[11][12]

New developments have made it more difficult for unscrupulous affiliates to make money. Emerging black sheep are detected and made known to the affiliate marketing community with much greater speed and efficiency.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Compensation methods

[edit]Predominant compensation methods

Eighty percent of affiliate programs today use revenue sharing or cost per sale (CPS) as a compensation method, nineteen percent use cost per action (CPA), and the remaining programs use other methods such as cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (CPM).^[13]

[edit]Diminished compensation methods

Within more mature markets, less than one percent of traditional affiliate marketing programs today use cost per click and cost per mille. However, these compensation methods are used heavily indisplay advertising and paid search.

Cost per mille requires only that the publisher make the advertising available on his website and display it to his visitors in order to receive a commission. Pay per click requires one additional step in theconversion process to generate revenue for the publisher: A visitor must not only be made aware of the advertisement, but must also click on the advertisement to visit the advertiser’s website.

Cost per click was more common in the early days of affiliate marketing, but has diminished in use over time due to click fraud issues very similar to the click fraud issues modern search engines are facing today. Contextual advertising programs such as Google AdSense are not considered in the statistic pertaining to diminished use of cost per click, as it is uncertain if contextual advertising can be considered affiliate marketing.

While these models have diminished in mature e-commerce and online advertising markets they are still prevalent in some more nascent industries. China is one example where Affiliate Marketing does not overtly resemble the same model in the West. With many affiliates being paid a flat “Cost Per Day” with some networks offering Cost Per Click or CPM.

[edit]Performance marketing

In the case of cost per mille/click, the publisher is not concerned about a visitor being a member of the audience that the advertiser tries to attract and is able to convert, because at this point the publisher has already earned his commission. This leaves the greater, and, in case of cost per mille, the full risk and loss (if the visitor can not be converted) to the advertiser.

Cost per action/sale methods require that referred visitors do more than visit the advertiser’s website before the affiliate receives commission. The advertiser must convert that visitor first. It is in the best interest for the affiliate to send the most closely-targeted traffic to the advertiser as possible to increase the chance of a conversion. The risk and loss is shared between the affiliate and the advertiser.

Affiliate marketing is also called “performance marketing”, in reference to how sales employees are typically being compensated. Such employees are typically paid a commission for each sale they close, and sometimes are paid performance incentives for exceeding targeted baselines.^[14] Affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose products or services they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers’ internal sales department.

The phrase, “Affiliates are an extended sales force for your business”, which is often used to explain affiliate marketing, is not completely accurate. The primary difference between the two is that affiliate marketers provide little if any influence on a possible prospect in the conversion process once that prospect is directed to the advertiser’s website. The sales team of the advertiser, however, does have the control and influence up to the point where the prospect signs the contract or completes the purchase.

[edit]Multi-tier programs

Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms, publisher “A” signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher “A” attracts publishers “B” and “C” to sign up for the same program using his sign-up code, all future activities performed by publishers “B” and “C” will result in additional commission (at a lower rate) for publisher “A”.

Two-tier programs exist in the minority of affiliate programs; most are simply one-tier. Referral programs beyond two-tier resemble multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing but are different.Multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing have more requirements/qualifications to get paid a commission. Whereas affiliate programs do not.

[edit]From the advertiser perspective

[edit]Pros and cons

Merchants favor affiliate marketing because in most cases it uses a “pay for performance” model, meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are accrued (excluding any initial setup cost).^[15] Some businesses owe much of their success to this marketing technique, a notable example being Amazon.com. Unlike display advertising, however, affiliate marketing is not easily scalable.^[16]

[edit]Implementation options

Some merchants run their own (i.e., in-house) affiliate programs using popular software while others use third-party services provided by intermediaries to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates (see outsourced program management). Merchants can choose from two different types of affiliate management solutions: standalone software or hosted services, typically called affiliate networks. Payouts to affiliates or publishers are either made by the networks on behalf of the merchant, by the network, consolidated across all merchants where the publisher has a relationship with and earned commissions or directly by the merchant itself.

[edit]Affiliate management and program management outsourcing

Successful affiliate programs require significant work and maintenance. Having a successful affiliate program is more difficult than when such programs were just emerging. With the exception of somevertical markets, it is rare for an affiliate program to generate considerable revenue with poor management or no management (i.e., “auto-drive”).

Uncontrolled affiliate programs did—and continue to do so today—aid rogue affiliates, who use spamming,^[17] trademark infringement, false advertising, “cookie cutting”^{[citation needed]}, typosquatting,^[18]and other unethical methods that have given affiliate marketing a negative reputation.

The increased number of Internet businesses and the increased number of people that trust the current technology enough to shop and do business online allows further maturation of affiliate marketing. The opportunity to generate a considerable amount of profit combined with a crowded marketplace filled with competitors of equal quality and size makes it more difficult for merchants to be noticed. In this environment, however, being noticed can yield greater rewards.

Recently, the Internet marketing industry has become more advanced. In some areas online media has been rising to the sophistication of offline media, in which advertising has been largely professional and competitive. There are significantly more requirements that merchants must meet to be successful, and those requirements are becoming too burdensome for the merchant to manage successfully in-house. An increasing number of merchants are seeking alternative options found in relatively new outsourced (affiliate) program management (OPM) companies, which are often founded by veteranaffiliate managers and network program managers.^[19] OPM companies perform affiliate program management for the merchants as a service, similar to advertising agencies promoting a brand or product as done in offline marketing.

[edit]Types of affiliate websites

Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (i.e., advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers.

• Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers’ offers (i.e., search arbitrage)
• Comparison shopping websites and directories
• Loyalty websites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back
• CRM sites that offer charitable donations
• Coupon and rebate websites that focus on sales promotions
• Content and niche market websites, including product review sites
• Personal websites (This type of website was the reason for the birth of affiliate marketing; however, such websites are almost reduced to complete irrelevance compared to the other types of affiliate websites.)^{[citation needed]}
• Weblogs and website syndication feeds
• E-mail list affiliates (i.e., owners of large opt-in -mail lists that typically employ e-mail drip marketing) and newsletter list affiliates, which are typically more content-heavy
• Registration path or co-registration affiliates who include offers from other merchants during the registration process on their own website
• Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparisons, or other features based on information that changes frequently, thus requiring continual updates
• Cost per action networks (i.e., top-tier affiliates) that expose offers from the advertiser with which they are affiliated to their own network of affiliates
• Websites using adbars (e.g. Adsense) to display context-sensitive, highly-relevant ads for products on the site

[edit]Publisher recruitment

Affiliate networks that already have several advertisers typically also have a large pool of publishers. These publishers could be potentially recruited, and there is also an increased chance that publishers in the network apply to the program on their own, without the need for recruitment efforts by the advertiser.

Relevant websites that attract the same target audiences as the advertiser but without competing with it are potential affiliate partners as well. Vendors or existing customers can also become recruits if doing so makes sense and does not violate any laws or regulations.

Almost any website could be recruited as an affiliate publisher, although high-traffic websites are more likely interested in (for their own sake) low-risk cost per mille or medium-risk cost per click deals rather than higher-risk cost per action or revenue share deals.^[20]

[edit]Locating affiliate programs

There are three primary ways to locate affiliate programs for a target website:

1. Affiliate program directories,
2. Large affiliate networks that provide the platform for dozens or even hundreds of advertisers, and
3. The target website itself. (Websites that offer an affiliate program often have a link titled “affiliate program”, “affiliates”, “referral program”, or “webmasters”—usually in the footer or “About” section of the website.)

If the above locations do not yield information pertaining to affiliates, it may be the case that there exists a non-public affiliate program. The most definitive method for finding this information is to contact the website owner directly.

[edit]Past and current issues

Since the emergence of affiliate marketing, there has been little control over affiliate activity. Unscrupulous affiliates have used spam, false advertising, forced clicks (to get tracking cookies set on users’ computers), adware, and other methods to drive traffic to their sponsors. Although many affiliate programs have terms of service that contain rules against spam, this marketing method has historically proven to attract abuse from spammers.

[edit]E-mail spam

In the infancy of affiliate marketing, many Internet users held negative opinions due to the tendency of affiliates to use spam to promote the programs in which they were enrolled.^[21] As affiliate marketing matured, many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming.

[edit]Search engine spam

As search engines have become more prominent, some affiliate marketers have shifted from sending e-mail spam to creating automatically-generated webpages that often contain product data feedsprovided by merchants. The goal of such webpages is to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, also known as spamdexing. Each page can be targeted to a different niche market through the use of specific keywords, with the result being a skewed form of search engine optimization.

Spam is the biggest threat to organic search engines, whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users. Google’s PageRank algorithm update (”BigDaddy”) in February 2006—the final stage of Google’s major update (”Jagger”) that began in mid-summer 2005—specifically targeted spamdexing with great success. This update thus enabled Google to remove a large amount of mostly computer-generated duplicate content from its index.^[22]

Websites consisting mostly of affiliate links have previously held a negative reputation for underdelivering quality content. In 2005 there were active changes made by Google, where certain websites were labeled as “thin affiliates”.^[23] Such websites were either removed from Google’s index or were relocated within the results page (i.e., moved from the top-most results to a lower position). To avoid this categorization, affiliate marketer webmasters must create quality content on their websites that distinguishes their work from the work of spammers or banner farms, which only contain links leading to merchant sites.

Some commentators originally suggested that Affiliate links work best in the context of the information contained within the website itself. For instance, if a website contains information pertaining to publishing a website, an affiliate link leading to a merchant’s Internet service provider (ISP) within that website’s content would be appropriate. If a website contains information pertaining to sports, an affiliate link leading to a sporting goods website may work well within the context of the articles and information about sports. The goal in this case is to publish quality information within the website and provide context-oriented links to related merchant’s websites.

However, more recent examples exist of “thin” Affiliate sites which are using the Affiliate Marketing model to create value for Consumers by offering them a service. These thin content service Affiliate fall into three categories:

• Price comparison
• Cause related marketing
• Time saving

[edit]Adware

Although it differs from spyware, adware often uses the same methods and technologies. Merchants initially were uninformed about adware, what impact it had, and how it could damage their brands. Affiliate marketers became aware of the issue much more quickly, especially because they noticed that adware often overwrites tracking cookies, thus resulting in a decline of commissions. Affiliates not employing adware felt that it was stealing commission from them. Adware often has no valuable purpose and rarely provides any useful content to the user, who is typically unaware that such software is installed on his/her computer.

Affiliates discussed the issues in Internet forums and began to organize their efforts. They believed that the best way to address the problem was to discourage merchants from advertising via adware. Merchants that were either indifferent to or supportive of adware were exposed by affiliates, thus damaging those merchants’ reputations and tarnishing their affiliate marketing efforts. Many affiliates either terminated the use of such merchants or switched to a competitor’s affiliate program. Eventually, affiliate networks were also forced by merchants and affiliates to take a stand and ban certain adware publishers from their network. The result was Code of Conduct by Commission Junction/beFree and Performics,^[24] LinkShare’s Anti-Predatory Advertising Addendum,^[25] and ShareASale’s complete ban of software applications as a medium for affiliates to promote advertiser offers.^[26] Regardless of the progress made, adware continues to be an issue, as demonstrated by the class action lawsuit against ValueClick and its daughter company Commission Junction filed on April 20, 2007.^[27]

[edit]Trademark bidding

Affiliates were among the earliest adopters of pay per click advertising when the first pay per click search engines such as Goto.com (which later became Overture.com after being acquired by Yahoo! in 2003) emerged during the end of the 1990s. Later in 2000 Google launched its pay per click service, Google AdWords, which is responsible for the widespread use and acceptance of pay per click as an advertising channel. An increasing number of merchants engaged in pay per click advertising, either directly or via a search marketing agency, and realized that this space was already well-occupied by their affiliates. Although this situation alone created advertising channel conflicts and debates between advertisers and affiliates, the largest issue concerned affiliates bidding on advertisers names, brands, and trademarks. Several advertisers began to adjust their affiliate program terms to prohibit their affiliates from bidding on those type of keywords. Some advertisers, however, did and still do embrace this behavior, going so far as to allow, or even encourage, affiliates to bid on any term, including the advertiser’s trademarks.

[edit]Lack of self-regulation and collaboration

This section’s tone or style may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia’s guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (August 2009)

Affiliate marketing is driven by entrepreneurs who are working at the edge of Internet marketing. Affiliates are often the first to take advantage of emerging trends and technologies. The “trial and error” approach is probably the best way to describe the operation methods for affiliate marketers. This risky approach is one of the reasons why most affiliates fail or give up before they become successful “super affiliates”, capable of generating US$10,000 or more per month in commission. This “frontier” life combined with the attitude found in such communities is likely the main reason why the affiliate marketing industry is unable to self-regulate beyond individual contracts between advertisers and affiliates. Affiliate marketing has experienced numerous failed attempts to create an industry organization or association of some kind that could be the initiator of regulations, standards, and guidelines for the industry.^[28] Some examples of failed regulation efforts are the Affiliate Union and iAfma.

Online forums and industry trade shows are the only means for the different members from the industry—affiliates/publishers, merchants/advertisers, affiliate networks, third-party vendors, and service providers such as outsourced program managers—to congregate at one location. Online forums are free, enable small affiliates to have a larger say, and provide anonymity. Trade shows are cost-prohibitive to small affiliates because of the high price for event passes. Larger affiliates may even be sponsored by an advertiser they promote.

Because of the anonymity of online forums, the quantitative majority of industry members are unable to create any form of legally binding rule or regulation that must be followed throughout the industry. Online forums have had very few successes as representing the majority of the affiliate marketing industry. The most recent example of such a success was the halt of the “Commission Junction Link Management Initiative” (CJ LMI) in June/July 2006, when a single network tried to impose the use of a Javascript tracking code as a replacement for common HTML links on its affiliates.^[29]

[edit]Lack of industry standards

[edit]Certification and training

Affiliate marketing currently lacks industry standards for training and certification. There are some training courses and seminars that result in certifications; however, the acceptance of such certifications is mostly due to the reputation of the individual or company issuing the certification. Affiliate marketing is not commonly taught in universities, and only a few college instructors work with Internet marketers to introduce the subject to students majoring in marketing.^[30]

Education occurs most often in “real life” by becoming involved and learning the details as time progresses. Although there are several books on the topic, some so-called “how-to” or “silver bullet” books instruct readers to manipulate holes in the Google algorithm, which can quickly become out of date,^[30] or suggest strategies no longer endorsed or permitted by advertisers.^[31]

Outsourced Program Management companies typically combine formal and informal training, providing much of their training through group collaboration and brainstorming. Such companies also try to send each marketing employee to the industry conference of their choice.^[32]

Other training resources used include online forums, weblogs, podcasts, video seminars, and specialty websites.

Affiliate Summit is the largest conference in the industry, and many other affiliate networks host their own annual events.

[edit]Code of conduct

A code of conduct was released by affiliate networks Commission Junction/beFree and Performics in December 2002 to guide practices and adherence to ethical standards for online advertising.

[edit]Threat to traditional affiliate networks

Cost per action networks can be viewed as a threat to “classic” affiliate marketing networks. Traditional affiliate marketing is resource-intensive and requires continual maintenance. Most of the maintenance includes managing, monitoring, and supporting affiliates. The goal of affiliate marketing is directed toward long-term and mutual beneficial partnerships between advertisers and affiliates. Cost per action networks, however, eliminate the need for the advertiser to build and maintain relationships to affiliates, as that task is performed for the advertiser by the cost per action network. The advertiser makes an offer, almost always CPA-based, and the cost per action networks handle the remainder of the process by mobilizing their affiliates to promote that offer. Cost per sale and revenue sharing are the primary compensation models for classic affiliate marketing, and are rarely found in cost per action networks. Affiliate marketers typically avoid the topic of cost per action networks; however, if it is being discussed, the debates can become heated and explosive.^[33][34][35]

[edit]Marketing term

Members of the marketing industry are recommending that “affiliate marketing” be substituted with an alternative name.^[36] Affiliate marketing is often confused with either network marketing or multi-level marketing. Performance marketing is a common alternative, but other recommendations have been made as well.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Sales tax vulnerability

In April 2008 the State of New York inserted an item in the state budget asserting sales tax jurisdiction over Amazon.com sales to residents of New York, based on the existence of affiliate links from New York–based websites to Amazon.^[37] The state asserts that even one such affiliate constitutes Amazon having a business presence in the state, and is sufficient to allow New York to tax all Amazon sales to state residents. Amazon challenged the amendment and lost at the trial level in January, 2009. The case is currently making its way through the New York appeals courts.

[edit]Cookie stuffing

Cookie stuffing involves placing an affiliate tracking cookie on a website visitor’s computer without their knowledge, which will then generate revenue for the person doing the cookie stuffing. This not only generates fraudulent affiliate sales, but also has the potential to overwrite other affiliates’ cookies, essentially stealing their legitimately earned commissions.

[edit]Click to Reveal

Many voucher code web sites use a click to reveal format, which required the web site user to click to reveal the voucher code. The action of clicking places the cookie on the website visitor’s computer. The IAB ^[38] have stated that “Affiliates must not use a mechanism whereby users are encouraged to click to interact with content where it is unclear or confusing what the outcome will be.”,

[edit]Affiliate services

• Affiliate programs directories
• Affiliate networks (see also Category:Internet advertising services and affiliate networks)
• Affiliate manager and Outsourced Program Management (OPM or APM) (manages affiliates)
• Category:Internet marketing trade shows

[edit]See also

• Broad: Internet marketing, online marketing, online advertising, Website monetizing
• Advertising methods: Web banner, ad filtering, ad serving,central ad server, pop-up ad, contextual advertising
• E-Mail advertising: E-mail spam, e-mail marketing, spamming
• Marketing tactics: Guerilla marketing, marketing strategy and guerrilla marketing warfare strategies, evangelism marketing, word of mouth marketing
• Search engines: Search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click, click fraud, paid inclusion
• Industry calculations: Click through rate (CTR), cost per action (CPA), cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPI), cost per mille (CPM), effective cost per mille (eCPM)
• Compensation/Pricing: Compensation methods, Category:Compensation, Category:Pricing

[edit]References

[edit]External links

• Affiliate Programs at the Open Directory Project
• Website Affiliate Programs at the Yahoo! Directory
• Affiliate Programs at the BOTW Directory