Hey everyone, welcome to Meet The Pepperjam Team Video #23. This week we have a blast from the past, her name is Sarah Hohol. Sarah was here at Pepperjam as an intern for a pretty long time then she left to pursue other career opportunities (as you will find out in the video) but now she is back and part of our Sales Team. Sarah is in the process of moving closer to the love of her life Kris Jones, she will be living right down the street from him and Robyn Martin. Sarah also brings a very unique perspective because she was here early on in the life of Pepperjam, she knew it one way and one way only, she missed alot of the growth and you can tell she is absolutely impressed with what has happened here in the few months that she has been gone.

Sarah is a very cheerful person, a hard worker and very intelligent. She enjoys things such as interior design and eating exotic foods. We are all very happy to have Sarah back on the staff as she brings a lot to the table. She is incredibly outgoing and motivated, so without further ado here is the triumphant return of Sarah Hohol.

Meet Sarah Hohol:

For those of you who don’t know the “rules” behind the Meet the Pepperjam Video Series, here they are:

Every Friday Pepperjam will post a new video interview of a member of our staff - everyone will be included - affiliates managers, executives, search-engine marketing managers, directors, software engineers, assistants, online media buyers, and interns. The person being interviewed won’t know he / she has been chosen until about 30 seconds before the interview - this way you’ll get an unrehearsed, real world look at the employee…hopefully, this will make it interesting and non-corporate, which is what we are known and respected for across the internet marketing industry.

Why are we doing this? Well, I am proud of our team and I think you’ll find them as interesting and intelligent as I do. Also, I’m a student of viral video and the social media space and I want to test the waters as it relates to what corporate america is doing (and not doing) to spread buzz and build next generation work places.

Finally, I just thought it would be cool to put some people in front of a video camera that have never done so before, have a little bit of fun, and see if Pepperjam can spread some additional buzz about why we are the leader in online marketing.

FYI - all videos will also be posted to YouTube. If you think what we are doing is outside-the-box and interesting please blog about it and share the story with the world.

Our previous videos include:

Maura Goodwin
Tara Lou
Dean Karasinski
Kim Noler (dated YouTube founder)
Stephanie Yachim
Roxy (Pepperjam’s English Bulldog)
Kris Jones
Katharine Dempsey
Ken Mohn Jr.
Mandy Foley
Tara DeGiusto
Robyn Martin
Kate Sarnak
Aaron Baker
Michelle Foley
Mike Jones
Maggie Oldziejewski
Daehee Park
Leslie Stewart
Trevor Brennan
Brock Siegel

Other fun Pepperjam Vids:
“What would you do for a One Year Supply of Energy Drink”
Naked Crazy Man Video
Pepperjam Adds Ping Pong Table to Pepperplex
Roxy with the Tony Robbins Beach Ball

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I love Google maps and I have seen more interesting stuff on Google Maps than I actually ever thought was possible, whether it was naked rooftop sunbathers or businesses putting their logos on the rooftops there is always some interesting stuff to be seen. Recently Google added Google Maps Street View, which is very helpful when getting driving directions as it shows key landmarks. Everyone loved it and everything wasonce again right in the world of Google until this picture popped up.

What is it you may ask? Well, if you look close enough you will see that it is a picture of some ladies cat and the rest of the inside of her house which leads to the question who is Google working for and is protecting our privacy really in their best interest. Google has one of the worlds most extensive databases on human beings, if you have been online you are probably in that database, thats a pretty scary thought and yet we trust Google with that so it is up to them to keep up best practices and “Don’t Be Evil”. Now while it certainly isn’t illegal, because they are just photographing things that can be seen with the human eye anyway it is still unnerving in its own right. (The Picture Has Since Been Removed From Google Maps Street View.)

As long as Google uses these images in the way that they are supposed to be used I believe that they will do more good than harm and I also think that Google should make more public when their car will be driving by so that people can close their shades and windows if they don’t want the inside of their home photographed, regardless it didn’t seem like it was that big of a deal to get the image removed.

Google Maps Street View is also a very fun tool, check out some of these other fun pictures that have been found courtesy of the hundreds of map crawlers out there.

Typical Guy
Crime In Progress?
Zoom In On The Guy and Girl On The Bench
Guy With Small Head
More Cats
Street Art

I did have A LOT more links but most of the pictures have since been removed either at the request of the people pictured or the fact that these were plastered everywhere and Google decided to squelch the backlash before it turned into something more serious. Either way I still love Google Maps but seriously watch out for the privacy issues and keep up the good work!!

Later…

 

Entertainment google google maps interesting stuff marketing new marketing technology search engine marketing social media optimization UncategorizedEntertainment google google maps interesting stuff marketing new marketing technology search engine marketing social media optimization Uncategorized

We are proud to announce that Pepperjam has signed on as a co-sponsor of of Affiliate Bash, which will be held at the Versace Mansion in South Beach Miami during Affiliate Summit. Details follow.

By the way, if you’ll be in Miami you’re invited as a Pepperjam VIP!

We will be featuring an open bar with top shelf drinks and passed hors d’oeuvres. Also, we have a couple of secrets up our sleeves that we may introduce during the party!!!!!!! Stay tuned!

AFFILIATE BASH DETAILS:

WHERE: Affiliate Summit - East
WHEN: Monday, July 9, 2007 (Affiliate Summit Official Party)
TIME: Party Starts at 9:00 p.m.
WHY: Because we can. We are proud to be co-sponsoring the event with WebmasterRadio.fm, Copeac and others and we look forward to letting loose and having a great time with industry friends, clients, and prospective clients.

Want to get on the Pepperjam VIP list, sign-up HERE!

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I recently did an interview for David Wilson over at social-media-optimization.com. HERE IS a link to Part 1 of a two part interview (the other part will be published tomorrow). Dave and I go into quite a bit of depth about how Pepperjam has successfully used Social Media to generate buzz and new business.

The interview is definitely worth the read, especially since I was asked some really great questions.

Also, a special thanks to Paul Sloan, Senior Editor at Business 2.0 magazine. Paul interviewed me for an article he did for this month’s Business 2.0 Magazine called “Working the Spread” - the article appears on page 50. We talk about search arbitrage and some other ways of making money using arbitrage techniques. At this point I don’t think they offer access to the article online so I can’t link to it….you’ll just have to pony-up the $4.99 to buy yourself a copy.

Lastly, if you haven’t watched Brock’s (VP of Bus Dev) Meet the Pepperjam video yet you must be crazy - he shaves his head and does an Indian dance.

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As I am sure all of you have noticed, last week was the first time in a LONG time that, we had missed a Meet The Pepperjam Team Video. In case you are wondering it was due to our massive office restructuring. We moved the entire place around to accommodate our 80+ employees here! Anyway we are back this week with another interview and this time it is none other than the famous Brock Siegel himself.

Brock has been with Pepperjam for around 3 years now and has gone from managing the affiliate marketing division to becoming the VP of Business Development. Brock is on his feet all day running around the office taking care of clients needs and concerns and we could not function as smoothly as we do without him. Not only that, Brock is one of the friendliest guys here so when he is not working hard he is always talking to people or giving fist pounds, but mostly playing ping pong. So without further ado.

Meet Brock Siegel:

For those of you who don’t know the “rules” behind the Meet the Pepperjam Video Series, here they are:

Every Friday Pepperjam will post a new video interview of a member of our staff - everyone will be included - affiliates managers, executives, search-engine marketing managers, directors, software engineers, assistants, online media buyers, and interns. The person being interviewed won’t know he / she has been chosen until about 30 seconds before the interview - this way you’ll get an unrehearsed, real world look at the employee…hopefully, this will make it interesting and non-corporate, which is what we are known and respected for across the internet marketing industry.

Why are we doing this? Well, I am proud of our team and I think you’ll find them as interesting and intelligent as I do. Also, I’m a student of viral video and the social media space and I want to test the waters as it relates to what corporate america is doing (and not doing) to spread buzz and build next generation work places.

Finally, I just thought it would be cool to put some people in front of a video camera that have never done so before, have a little bit of fun, and see if Pepperjam can spread some additional buzz about why we are the leader in online marketing.

FYI - all videos will also be posted to YouTube. If you think what we are doing is outside-the-box and interesting please blog about it and share the story with the world.

Our previous videos include:

Maura Goodwin
Tara Lou
Dean Karasinski
Kim Noler (dated YouTube founder)
Stephanie Yachim
Roxy (Pepperjam’s English Bulldog)
Kris Jones
Katharine Dempsey
Ken Mohn Jr.
Mandy Foley
Tara DeGiusto
Robyn Martin
Kate Sarnak
Aaron Baker
Michelle Foley
Mike Jones
Maggie Oldziejewski
Daehee Park
Leslie Stewart
Trevor Brennan

Other fun Pepperjam Vids:
“What would you do for a One Year Supply of Energy Drink”
Naked Crazy Man Video
Pepperjam Adds Ping Pong Table to Pepperplex
Roxy with the Tony Robbins Beach Ball

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The annual Linkshare Symposium and Golden Link Awards are taking place tonight and tomorrow in New York City - the host hotel is the Hyatt with the actual conference taking place at Chelsea Piers, Pier 60. The Golden Link Awards take place tonight at the ultra-posh, Cipriani. Rumor has it that the Cipriani is where P. Diddy, Jay-Z and other music celebrities have thrown parties after the MTV Music Awards.

Linkshare throws the most high-end and classy events in the affiliate marketing industry - it’s not even close. Attending a Linkshare event is like flying in first-class and eating a five-star dinner all in the same day, for two days straight. The event(s) are by invitation only and include executives and senior managers from some of the top companies in the world, including American Express, Wal-Mart, Cingular / AT&T, and Dell.

We look forward to meeting-up with many of our existing clients, as well as prospective clients, and spending some quality time with industry friends.

If you’ll be attending the event and see a pepperjammer please stop us and say hello.

On the Pepperjam front we’ll have the following executives & senior managers attending the events (click the link to learn more about the person):

Me, President & CEO
Michael C. Jones, Esq., COO & General Counsel
Aaron Baker, VP of Sales & Marketing
Brock “Taco” Siegel, VP of Business Development
Ken Mohn, Jr., VP of Search-Engine Marketing
Robyn Martin (soon to be Robyn Jones!), Director of Affiliate Marketing
Maura Goodwin, Assistant Director of Affiliate Marketing

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Shoemoney & Dillsmack, the developers behind the incredibly successful AuctionAds affiliate marketing widget won the uber prestigious eBay Star Developer Award at EBay DevCon last week.

I’ve provided an interview below conducted by eBay directly after they accepted the award.

The award was given out last week in Boston as part of EBAY Live and EBAY DevCon.

Everyone at Pepperjam would like to congratulate Shoemoney Media Group on the success of AuctionAds and on the incredible success the system has had since launch….

With over 17K users and hundreds of millions of impressions AuctionAds is the most successful affiliate marketing widget ever.

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In college and for most of my life I was what you called a “Night Owl”. I was always up late just doing stuff, playing video games, learning, reading, whatever I could get my hands on. As any other night owl knows being up that late, you get to see a lot of interesting infomercials and I would like to consider myself something of an infomercial onnoisseur. Yes, we all have our favorites whether it is the Ron Popeil “Set it And Forget It”, The Magic Bullet or the Jack LaLanne Juicer, but recently I stumbled upon not only the most interesting SET of infomercials that I have ever seen but also one of the most attention grabbing marketing ploys ever.

The company, Blendtec, makes blenders (Duh!) and in order to promote their product they decided that making some viral videos for YouTube would be the best route to promote their product (OK, so not the only way, perhaps a branding campaign or supplemental traffic). Regardless, these videos caught on HUGE, of the 25 or so, most of them have over 700K hits. Apparently Blendtec had a small budget, and by small I mean $50. These videos helped them to create brand awareness but also increase their sales five times over. Pretty Amazing!

Here are a few of my favorites:

Watch as he pulls a fast one with the crowbar

You can see the rest of them here.

Anyway I found this to be an pretty interesting phenomenon and it just goes to show the power of viral videos.

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EBAY is Crazy - let me tell you why.

When we were children and we didn’t get what we wanted (like a toy or our mother’s attention) we would do silly things like bite, hit, scream, and protest.

Acting like a child is fun, but from a business standpoint, it’s stupid.

In fact, rarely if ever in the business world is there any benefit to bitting, hitting, screaming, or protesting.

Well, the business news is abuzz with reports that EBAY is PROTESTING Google because Google was going to throw a party protesting EBAY.

Sounds kinda silly, huh?

In short, EBAY LIVE is going on in Boston this week so Google decided to coordinate and promote a GOOGLE party protesting EBAY because Google is upset that EBAY disallows users to use Google Checkout to process transactions.

Kind of a cool idea by Google…gutsy yes, but arguably a strong statement to EBAY users who should without question be able to process transactions however they wish.

But, get this, EBAY is now protesting Google by pausing all their Google Adwords paid search in the United States.

EBAY is a huge advertiser, yes, but they represent less than 1% of all of Google’s revenue.

EBAY IS CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who wins here? Google.

It’s not even close. Yes, EBAY got Google to cancel their party, but they are still protesting as a sign to Google that maybe they have bigger muscles or a bigger…

Who loses here? EBAY and EBAY’s shareholders….not to mention EBAY’s users if they don’t allow the Google Checkout payment option.

During the Adwords outage EBAY will lose millions upon millions of new registrations and orders.

This is just crazy. Not to mention that this move by EBAY comes off the heels of a decision by them to greatly minimize search-engine marketing affiliates within the EBAY affiliate program…a move that in and of itself was crazy.

Long GOOG. Short EBAY.

Just my two cents.

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A few days ago we were notified by Happenings Magazine that we were named one of the best places to work for in Northeastern, Pennsylvania (NEPA).

NEPA has a population of over 1 million people and hundreds of cool businesses, it just so happens that Pepperjam is apparently the best place to work for!

Pepperjam is honored to be recognized as a kick-ass place to work.

Honestly, I’ve travelled the country numerous times and visited some of the coolest work environments ever, including several trips to the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA, and there is nowhere else I’d rather come to work everday than Pepperjam.

In a company press release Michael C. Jones, Chief Operating Officer of Pepperjam said, “In traditional work environments, employees drag themselves into work everyday and have fun and relax on weekends. Not at Pepperjam. At Pepperjam we have consciously created a work environment where people can have fun and enjoy life all the time.”

Happenings Magazine cited a ping pong table, a stocked refrigerator of Who’s Your Daddy Energy Drink, and a Nintendo Wii in the Pepperjam lounge as only a few of the reasons why Peppejam employees love coming into work everyday.

The magazine noted that Pepperjam gives all employees free membership to the YMCA, free pizza every Friday, and has a relaxed dress code that includes jeans, flip flops, and baseball caps. Also noted was that on any day of the week, Roxy, a two-year old English Bulldog, can be found running around the office playing with or begging for a treat from any of Pepperjam’s 80-plus employees.

Happenings Magazine, published since 1969, chronicals local and regional history, tourism, and events in Northeastern, Pennsylvania. The publication is free and has been one of the most read magazines in Pennsylvania for over 38 years.

This is the picture the magazine used when announcing our award:

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