According to a report this morning on Morningstar, AOL Time Warner has offered $900 million U.S. to buy TradeDoubler. Reports conflict regarding whether or not there is enough support from TradeDoubler’s Board of Directors to approve the offer. Investors representing about 20 percent of TradeDoubler’s shares, including the company’s largest holder, Arctic Ventures, have said they will accept the offer. But Swedish pension group Alecta, which said it owns 10.01 percent of TradeDoubler, rejected the bid, saying it undervalued the company. AOL said the deal’s closing was conditional on 90 percent of TradeDoubler shares accepting the offer; therefore, it is possible the deal will be rejected. In addition, it is very possible that another company may come in and make a more lucrative offer, which is probably what Alecta is hoping for.

With Rakuten’s purchase of Linkshare in 2006, Doubleclick’s purchase of Performics in 2004, and ValueClick’s acquisitions of Commission Junction in 2003 and BeFREE in 2002, the “Big Three” traditional affiliate marketing networks are in the hands of deep pocketed parent companies.

Some would argue that AOL’s expected purchase of TradeDoubler is a good thing – for TradeDoubler it is, but what about for TradeDoubler publishers / affiliates? I would argue that what typically happens when a large parent comes in is that the original company quickly becomes corporate and loses its edge.

The nimbleness that defined the original company becomes muddied and innovation is placed on the back burner or just placed in the que. Also, getting in touch with the company becomes much more “corporate-like” and getting things done quickly with almost unachievable deadlines becomes something of the past. Moreover, the now larger company hires a bunch of new employees – but those new employees tend to lack the hands-on experience and drive that defined the former company. In addition, you find yourself talking to people who don’t have as much at stake and therefore aren’t as passionate as their former brethren.

Does my opinion mean that TradeDoubler is doomed if AOL buys them? No – TradeDoubler was already a publically traded company (UK) and in many ways was already very corporate – we have numerous personal experiences working with TradeDoubler that left us with a sour taste in our mouth.

However, the AOL buyout would signal an addition of even more red tape as it relates to working with TradeDoubler, but I still believe the story is the fact that performance-based marketing is global and presents an enourmous opportunity for entrepreneur’s and businesses alike.

At Pepperjam we request that employees spend up to 30% of their day reading blogs and staying in absolute tune with the online marketing industry. Our goal is that “water cooler” talk will center around someone’s growing pains with Yahoo’s release of Panama or some cool new tool released by Azoogle or CJ instead of whether or not so and so is dating so and so.

In this way, Pepperjam’s staff not only stays current with the industry but they are in a position to innovate and fully understand the complexity of the online marketing space. Say the names of leading blogs such as Shoemoney, Stuntdubl, SearchEngineLand or Revenews and chances are a Pepperjammer is prepared to have a discussion with you. The fact is the industry is changing as we speak and in order to keep up and be competitive you’ve gotta figure out a way to learn from others.

I’ve found Google’s Personalized Homepage to be key in staying in touch with the industry. If you use Gmail or have a google account you have the ability to create your own personalized homepage. What does this mean? Well, what you probably do now is either bookmark your favorite blog and use IE’s favorites menu to quickly retrieve it or you simply type the blog URL into your browser – this is very inefficeint and inconvenient. With Google’s personalized homepage you can add all of your favorite blogs and news sources to your page. In this way, all you have to do is make Google your homepage and stay current with what’s going on. Google also allows you to add other cool features like weather, “word of the day,” jokes, sports, etc. It’s not just for nerds like you and me who want to stay current – it’s also a way to stay current with whatever your heart desires.

Have fun and use Google’s personalized homepage.

As a 2006 Inc. 500 Company (No. 293) Pepperjam is an invited guest of this year’s Inc. 500 Conference and Award Ceremony, which will be held Friday (1/19/07) and Saturday (1/20/07) at the Fairmont in San Francisco. Michael Jones (Pepperjam’s COO / General Counsel) and I will attend the conference, which includes a black-tie awards ceremony on Saturday night. One of the most exciting things about this conference for me is meeting other Inc. 500 CEO’s from the 500 companies that graced the list – these are the fastest growing privately held companies in the U.S. so it’s like an entrepreneur’s dream in terms of networking opportunity and achievement. Speakers for the conference include Robert Scoble (Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger / Podtech.net), Jane Berentson, editor, Inc. magazine, John Koten, CEO, Mansueto Ventures and editor in chief, Inc. and Fast Company magazines, Yvon Chouinard, founder, Patagonia, and many more. Mike and I are very excited and honored to attend the event.

So, Friday and Saturday I’ll be in San Fran. Early A.M. on Sunday morning I’ll be flying from San Fran to Las Vegas to attend the Affiliate Summit. On Tuesday from 3:30 – 4:30pm I’ll be speaking on the issue of “The Confluence of Search and Affiliate Marketing.” At past conferences I’ve discussed this issue from the perspective of the merchant, this time around Shawn Collins asked me to address affiliates so my presentation will be part of the “Affiliate Track” – this will give me an opportunity to dish some money making “secrets” using search arbitrage tactics that I’ve been using over the last 7-years to become one of the largest affiliates in the world – if you enjoyed my podcasts with Shoemoney, you’ll definitely find this presentation valuable.

I certainly won’t be the only Pepperjammer at the Affiliate Summit since there will be nine (9) of us flying into Vegas on Sunday morning. Flying from Pennsylvania in route to Vegas Sunday morning will be Pepperjammers Brock Siegel (VP of Business Development), Aaron Baker (VP of Sales & Marketing), Robyn Martin (Director of Affiliate Marketing), Maura Goodwin (Assistant Director of Affiliate Marketing), Tara DeGiusto (Senior Affiliate Manager), Kate Sarnak (Senior Affiliate Manager), Kim Noler (Senior Affiliate Manager) and Megan Rogan (Senior Affiliate Manager). I can tell you that we are all looking forward to some serious networking (partying – Vegas style!!!!) with all of our Super Affiliate and industry friends. Please approach us and we’ll buy your drinks (maybe even dinner!) – no kidding – no questions asked – just introduce yourself as an affiliate and we’ll buy you a cold one or three.

Lastly, I should mention that Pepperjam will have a booth in the Affiliate Summit Exhibit Hall throughout the conference and a table at the Affiliate Meet Market & Vendor Showcase – make sure to stop by and say hello.

With the release of the iPhone, Apple has a huge opportunity on their hands. Think about this, what company wouldn’t kill to be able to go to one area to find out everything they ever wanted about their users. With the iPhone Apple could assign each of their users who opted in for web browsing functionality a numeric ID, track the behavior of that user ID and serve ads based on the users behavior. You would most likely to be able to figure out the users age range, sex, hobbies etc… all without ever asking them because, although it won’t be perfect, you will be able to infer all of the demographical traits just based on how they browse the internet.

Apple and their network of partners could serve ads, through not only regular mobile advertising but through iTunes and other media outlets. For example, say you are listening to one of your favorite artists, Apple or their partners could serve an ad for a music artist that is similar to the one you are listening to. They will be able to target your choices in music with artists that are similar to your tastes which could prove to be very effective. Surfing the web and being served ads that are relevant to you is not only good for you but VERY good for online media companies

Cheers Apple, Don’t mess this up for all of us!

Chris Sherman from over at SearchEngineLand.com posted an interview published over at the ZDNET BLOG of Jim Lanzone – the CEO of Ask.com – Very interesting read – check it out.

With all the attention focused on Google taking over the world, Yahoo being acquired by MSN, and Linkedin taking over the social networking space for geeks like you and me [Herein is my linkedin profile page], does Ask.com suck or are the monkey commercials just not working?

Have search-engine marketers forgot about ASK? To be honest, I have, but ZD Net’s interview and the monkey commericals continue to catch my attention. Shortly after Barry Diller spoke to Danny, ASK launched a series of really cool evolution commercials with funny looking monkeys (see pic below.)

The commercials were / are great, but has it made an impact on how we perceive Ask? Is Ask worthy of some space in my favorites file? Besides the Bloglines acquisition way back in early 2005, has Ask lost it’s competitive luster? Should we even reference Ask.com when referring to search-engine marketing leaders like Google and Yahoo?

From my perspective I’m impressed with the Ask.com search-engine, especially it’s ability to integrate the user experience with AJAX and similar Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies. However, I haven’t been compelled to use it. The products I use on a daily basis include Google search, Google maps, Google / Yahoo news, Google images, and Technorati / Google Blog Search are far superior to anything offered by Ask. Therefore, at this point I just can’t find a good reason to use ask….again, other than the fact that the commercials are interesting.

What are your thoughts? Does Ask.com just suck or am I missing something?

In case you haven’t heard all the buzz from today (of course you haven’t you sub-human rock dweller) Apple, you know the company that brought us iPod; they have now officially announced the Apple iPhone. First, let’s look at the Pics and the specs:

Hardware Features
- 3.5″ Widescreen touch-sensitive display
- 11.6 mm thin
- 2 megapixel camera
- proximity sensor, accelerometer, and ambient light sensors
- Quad-band GSM/EDGE + WiFi + Bluetooth 2.0
- Battery Life: 16 hours audio, 5 hour talk/video/browse time

Software Features
- Runs version of OSX. “Full desktop-class applications”
- conference call support with up to 3 participants
- multiple SMS session support (iChat-like interface)
- Safari: first fully useable HTML browser on a phone
- “coolest photo management app ever”
- Widget support
- Yahoo IMAP mail
- Google Maps (with satellite image) integration

The phone will be offered exclusively through Cingular in the US in June, and will come to Europe in Q4 2007, and Asia in 2008. A 4 GB model will be offered for $499 with a 2 year contract, and an 8 GB model will fetch $599 with similar contract provisions. The phone can be purchased through Cingular’s website or via the Apple Store.

Ok so that is pretty impressive, but what does it all mean? Well it means that Apple has once again, single handedly, revolutionized another industry. This is all great and we are all excited, but let’s delve a little deeper and look at the implications this has for marketing and more specifically internet and affiliate marketing. There are about a million possibilities that could come from this a few that first come to mind are:

The End Of Ringtones… Maybe: With the iPhone having iPod integration what use do we have for joining ring tone services when we can simply use the real song? What use could we possibly have for wallpaper services when we can use the FULLY FUNCTIONAL BROWSER!!!! and just download our own background of anything we want. (no more predetermined images for us to “express” ourselves with). Blackbeard wrote a nice article on this.

The End Of Mobile Advertising… Maybe: Since there will be a fully functional browser integrated what use will SMS messaging be for advertising when we can just go to websites and see the same ads? It is all the more reason for us not to pay attention to some new form of crappy advertising that was an “overnight sensation”. With iPhone and all its functionality mobile advertising will become as useless AltaVista.

iPhone Will Control The Cell Phone Industry With 80% Marketshare… Maybe: This is probably a blatant lie that I just made up but seriously it is going to make a huge dent, and to all you other cell phone makers out there, you had best get your act together and put out some really cool phones that shoot lasers or make holograms the new way of communication. iPhone is going to reshape the way people make and use cell phones. Look out RAZR, BlackBerry, Stylus, Pocket PC, Palm Pilot, etc…

Apple Will Become The Google Of The Tangible World… Maybe: Think about it, Apple has been slowly creeping their way into people’s lives ever since their first computer. Apple’s first really mass market (and I mean mass as in MASS) product was the iPod; it has become one of the hottest products and probably one of the best inventions in a long, long time. Now they are moving on to cell phones. So think about all the areas they are delving into, handheld hardware, music services, cell phones, and possibly cell phone services and hell I’ll even throw in the rumor about their “gaming system”. Now that is a diverse portfolio.

This is going to be something to keep an eye on, can you imagine a team-up between Google and Apple to deliver exclusive YouTube content over iPhone or a daily video blog delivered to your mailbox so that you can watch it every morning (now that’s real RSS). As I said earlier the possibilities are endless, especially with the open source widgets, the amazing amount of user generated content will making for some interesting applications. (changing stoplights from your car with your iPhone >: )

While I am on this tangent about how iPhone is going to completely change the face of the earth lets visit how it actually will. iPhone will be the first step toward the goal of a handheld computer, that little digital piece of hardware that we see in all the Sci-Fi movies and movies about the future is finally becoming a reality.

And as any good essay ends… and that’s what I did on my summer vacation

A district court just came down with a decision that makes sense…and simply put… I love it.  As it related to PPC and meta tagging, trademarks are fair game…and why the hell not?

When you walk through a shopping mall on your way to footlocker to buy a new pair of Pumas, should Payless be banned from exposing their corporate logo or special offers to you simply because your initial intention was to buy from Footlocker?  As a consumer, don’t you have the right to change your mind and go with Payless even if you are a few steps, or in our case a ”click” away from Footlocker?

 How are search engine results any different than your local mall? When I type a merchant’s trademark into the search box aren’t I taking that first metaphorical step in the mall towards that merchants store in search of my Pumas?  The SERP’s are merely the halls of your local mall and the keyword trigger is merely your inetention.  That intention is not a binding contract to shop at the initialy expressed trademark store. It is only an intention, and intentions can change on a whim.

Let me the consumer see the deals on similiar products or services that Google, Yahoo and MSN permit in 25 characters or less available on a PPC ad, even if I have expressed interest to shop elsewhere with my search query. 

Way to go U.S. District Court! You finally got one right.

This story seems to be gaining some traction on Revenews and on Digg.

It was announced today that MyBlogLog was purchased by Yahoo for $10 million. Danny Sullivan over at SearchEngineLand does a nice write-up about the MyBlogLog service and acquisition HERE, while Shoemoney, who has said that he will be more modest in 2007, compares himself to Nostradamus HERE by successfully predicting the buyout.

I joined MyBlogLog a few months ago after seeing it on ReveNews.com , my second favorite affiliate marketing blog – at first I thought joining was like admitting that I’m some kind of sick voyeur with an addition to hitting the refresh button on all my favorite blogs…but aside from me coming to terms with the fact that I’m an avid blog reader (voyeur) I was super impressed with the viral, social nature of MyBlogLog.

MyBlogLog has generated a lot of viral buzz because it is social – it allows both blog owners, as well as blog readers to build social blog networks. You can see who reads your blog, which not only leads to the inevitable “ego boost” when you find out that Danny Sullivan is reading your blog and the conclusion that you must be putting out solid content, but it incites interest in seeing who your readers are and what other blogs they read. Aside from the occasional ego boost, which is nice, MyBlogLog is a great resource for finding other cool blogs and for building a community of blog readers – it also has a feature allowing you to see what other blogs each member contributes to…thereby giving you the opportunity to connect with and learn more about the author.

If you haven’t joined MyBlogLog you should by clicking HERE.

The Apprentice – Los Angeles debuted tonight on NBC. Trump and his daughter Ivanka (both Wharton grads – one of Pepperjam’s clients) are in LA to watch 18 candidates duke it out for the title of apprentice to Donald Trump. I’ve watched the last few seasons off and on. In past years The Apprentice has featured some internet entrepreneurs, including David Karandish a professional SEO who got kicked off the show by Martha Stewart.

This season Trump features another supposed “internet entrepreneur,” James Sun, CEO and founder of start-up social network Zoodango. I figured I would join Zoodango and start building my network – what I found was a website with a pathetic userbase (under 100) and minimal functionality.

Who is James Sun? Here is his Bio from the NBC Website:

_______________________________________________________________

James, 29, immigrated from Seoul, Korea to the United States when he was four years old, and grew up in Houston, Texas and Seattle, Washington. He started a technology investment fund at age 18 with just $5000 and turned it into over $2 million at age 23, while earning his degree in business and computer information systems from the University of Washington, from which he graduated cum laude. After graduating college as a multi-millionaire, James joined one of the largest business consulting firms in the world, offering management consulting services to Fortune 500 companies. He currently lives with his wife and two children in Seattle, where he is the CEO and founder of an internet company that provides a unique approach to professional and online social networking at www.zoodango.com. James feels he should be the next Apprentice because, he says, “I bring a strong balance of Fortune 500 experience and the initiative and drive of a true entrepreneur, and I’ve already proven myself by achieving the ‘American Dream’ since I started with nothing to build everything I have today.”
________________________________________________________________

REVIEW OF ZOODANGO

I went ahead and joined Zoodango and was pretty disappointed to find that the website has few users and limited functionality. Zoodango is supposedly a social network for professionals, [I guess] similar to Linkedin.com where I am a member, but at this point Zoodango falls short from being ready for primetime and unworthy of a plug from Donald Trump…

Zoodango’s key features:

FIND EVENTS: This tool provides users the ability to “find local events and network with people attending the same event.” The problem here is too few users. As far as I can see Zoodango only has a hundred members or less, including several of the contestants from the Apprentice, which makes joining the website a bit interesting. However, this feature lacks because there are too few events because there are not enough users.

FIND PEOPLE: This tool provides users with the ability to “find people and invite them to meet at an event or meet over coffee.” Without the userbase this feature is almost useless. Moreover, I thought it would be cool to try to add some of the Apprentice candidates as “connections,” but this feature doesn’t seem to work. When you attempt to add someone as a connection you simply get an annoying “Coming Soon” message. If this part of the website is fixed and I am able to get James or one of the other Apprentice candidates added as a connection I’ll share it with you.

POST EVENTS: This tool provides users with the ability to “post events and increase attendance and networking.” Well, I thought I would post a happy hour event for the upcoming Affiliate Summit in Vegas, but this feature is “Coming Soon” as well.

James Sun is supposedly an internet exec. However, I’ve gotta admit that James Sun missed a great opportunity here – definitely dropped the ball – he debuted on the Apprentice…held himself out as an internet exec and doesn’t even have a functioning website. Listen – I know what BETA is all about, Pepperjam’s Comparison Engine has been in BETA since Summer 2006 – but the Zoodango website doesn’t even admit they are in BETA…so it leaves you with the impression that the website should function.

Maybe I’ll look back and proudly say that I was one of the first 100 members to join Zoodango; however, at this point the website lacks the userbase to make the website worthwhile.

The Search Engine Journal announced today the results of the Best Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2006! And the winner is: Shoemoney.com. I consider it a victory when you end up ranked the #2 Affiliate Marketing Blog of the Year when there is a kickass blog like Shoemoney.com in play – I consider the shoemoney blog and his radio show – Net Income – on WebmasterRadio the bible of affiliate marketing, contextual advertising, and search arbitrage. In addition, I’ve developed a close friendship and have a tremendous level of respect for THE rockstar celebrity internet marketer – Jeremy Schoemaker (aka, Shoemoney).

A special thanks to Loren Baker from Search Engine Journal for coordinating the awards. Congratulations to Shoemoney for winning first place – it is well deserved!

Click here for the results of all categories, including Best SEO Blog, Best SEM Blog and more!