Just in time for Affiliate Summit East 2011!

Pick up your official gear from your favorite New York team (or any team in any sport of your choosing) at Fanatics.com and help fight breast cancer.

Fanatics.com Will Donate 10% to the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Shop at Fanatics.com between now and August 31 and Enter the code “GIVE10” on checkout and Fanatics will donate 10% of your order (less tax and shipping) to the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Let’s Go Yankees!

A trip to Affiliate Summit East is not complete for me without going to a Yankee game. And, that’s where you’ll find me on Tuesday night, August 23rd as the Yankees take on Oakland.

Fanatics.com has a great line of women’s fan gear and I’ve already picked up mine.

I’ll be rockin’ this Yankees look and helping to fight breast cancer at the same time:

A Special Bonus to Affiliate Marketers

Any affiliate marketer that decides to join the Fanatics.com Affiliate Program on ShareASale as a result of reading this blog post, Fanatics.com will pay 12.5% on sales (instead of 10%) through the end of September. [You must use this link to join.]

Support Your Favorite Team & Help #SaveTheBoobies at the Same Time!

Shop Fanatics.com Today.

Media Breakaway, owners of affiliate.com (and fellow teammates in this year’s Affiliate Marketers Give Back, Avon Walk for Breast Cancer later this month) just launched a new division called, TheParkingPlace.com.

Media Breakaway, LLC Announces the Launch of TheParkingPlace.com

WESTMINSTER, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Media Breakaway, LLC, a pioneer in the performance-based marketing industry, announced the launch of TheParkingPlace.com today. This new domain parking solution will revolutionize the domain parking industry by taking domains beyond traditional PPC monetization methods.

TheParkingPlace.com is in a prime position to become the leading domain parking solution. By optimizing domains based on offer performance and traffic analysis, clients can expect to see revenue numbers increase by up to 400%. TheParkingPlace.com is able to optimize on all traffic from international countries which is the key to increased RPM for their clients.

Read more here.

Leo Steiner was the co-owner and front-man for the Carnegie Deli back in the late-70′s through the mid-80′s. He was known for doing crazy things like carving a Statue of Liberty out of chopped liver, and entertaining his patrons with comedy; all geared towards raising Carnegie Deli’s brand awareness.

Leo became very popular after his TV commercials for Arnold’s Jewish Rye Bread came out, immortalizing his famous line, “It makes a nice sandwich… a nice sandwich”.

I was reminded of Leo today, when I read about the disclosure changes that Ted Murphy of Izea implemented to Social Spark yesterday.

Ted reminds me a lot of Leo.  Not only does he take pride in his businesses and does nutty things to promote his brand, but he also clearly has a passion for sandwiches.

Introducing The SocialSpark Sandwich

The SocialSpark Sandwich was used to demonstrate the new Disclosure changes that Ted implemented, which now mandates participating Bloggers to include  a new Disclosure Text Message along with the previously required Disclosure Badge, as shown below.

I think it’s a great move on his part to implement the additional requirements given the need for transparency and the recent FTC changes in Disclosure requirements.

To find out more information on the new SocialSpark Disclosure Requirements, please visit http://izea.com/disclosure-socialspark-today/.

********************

As I’ve previously disclosed on my blog, I do sit on the Advisory Board for Izea, .  That being said, the above opinions are mine.

10/21/09 Update: As a Diamond Sponsor of Audience Conference, I have received 5 Complimentary Passes to give away. If you’re interested in attending, please register here using discount code “Missy”. First 5 lucky readers get them.

(PS – If you are not 100% sure that you can make it, please do not take an opportunity away from someone else. The conference has a limited capacity for attendees and the folks that want to be there will be angry with you)

(Originally published on August 22, 2009.)

Successful marketing is not a numbers game. If you think that your circle of influence is defined by the number of folks that follow you on Twitter, think again.

Smart marketers understand that no matter how large your audience is, if you can’t get them interested and give them a reason to listen, you might as well be sending direct mail.

So, in a world overloaded with extraneous information and overwhelmed with banal obligations, how does one cut through the clutter and not only reach; but engage, retain and establish a loyal audience?

Herein lies the reason for attending Audience Conference, 2009.

The Audience Conference is a place to learn from those who really understand audiences today. Bringing together some of the most exceptional people in a unique format riding the cusp of performance and conference while keeping you informed and entertained in equal measure. From the entertainers who engage audiences directly to the statisticians who measure them, to the technologists building tools to help us reach new and larger audiences and engage with them.

On tap are some tremendous names already scheduled to speak, including Dan Farber of CBS News, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, Brian Clark of Copyblogger, Ethan Kaplan of Warner Bros. Records, Rae Hoffman of SugarRae.com, Loren Feldman of 1938 Media, and so many more.

The Audience Conference is taking place at the Hudson Theater in NYC on Friday, November 6th. There will also be a limited opportunity to attend the VIP dinner with the speakers on Thursday, November 5th.

The scheduling of the event couldn’t be any better timing as so many marketers will already be in New York City for Ad:tech, earlier in the week.

Affiliate Summit is proud to be a sponsor of what is sure to be a phenomenal event.

Registration is just $399.

But wait, there’s more.

I have negotiated a special 10% discount off the registration price

Click here to register for Audience Conference
Discount Code: AFFSUM

Seating is limited for this event, so if you’d like to secure your spot and take advantage of the discount, I suggest you register early.

If you still think it’s good enough to build up a large amount of Twitter followers and blast out boring corporate messages or irrelevant nonsense, not only is this event not for you, but you’re also missing the point and the huge opportunity.

Will I see you at Audience Conference?

Just got back from IZEAFest, which was extraordinary…. but MUCH more on that later.

I was one of the folks who had the fortunate opportunity of taking the Dolphin Spotlight Tour at SeaWorld Orlando yesterday and I’m still jazzed up about how awe-inspiring it was.

Michael Gray, Chris Heuer, Zena Weist and Amanda Stewart were also on my tour group, which I knew would make for an even more awesome time.

While I do live in Orlando and have been to SeaWorld dozens of times with my family, I’ve never been on the Dolphin Spotlight Tour before.  The idea of going behind-the-scenes at SeaWorld and being able to get up close to the animals was something I really was looking forward to doing.

And, it did not disappoint!

The Dolphin Spotlight Tour at SeaWorld is a 1-hour walking tour that took us backstage of the Whale and Dolphin stadium where we got an overview of what is involved in training and taking care of the headliners of the Blue Horizons Show, which is my personal favorite at SeaWorld. No matter how many times I see it, I’m still blown away at how visually spectacular it is.

While I don’t want to say that I took for granted how much work goes into take care of and training the dolphins, I now realize how much I underestimated it!

We then went over to Dolphin Cove where we got to become “Dolphin Trainers”. We were shown the commands to use to interact with the dolphins including the signal to get a little dolphin love. That just blew me away and is a moment that I will cherish forever.

I’d like to thank IZEA and SeaWorld Orlando for making it possible for me to participate in the Dolphin Spotlight Tour. I can’t wait to go back and take my li’l guys on it.

Here are the pictures that were taken by SeaWorld photographers during the tour, which were made available to purchase on a thumb drive immediately following.

Click Photo to View All Pictures.

I spend a good portion of my week talking about the features and benefits of Thesis for WordPress and their affiliate program.

Recently, DIYThemes put out some great videos on Thesis – the most innovative and user-friendly, SEO-optimized WordPress framework available on this great planet of ours.

In the video below, Brian Clark of DIYThemes and Copyblogger discusses why Thesis is more than just a WordPress theme and touches on the SEO benefits, design flexibility and support that users of Thesis receive.

Brian references additional videos that are available to review which can be accessed below:

If you’re on the fence about taking the Thesis plunge; if these videos or my personal endorsement don’t make you do it, I’m really not sure what will.

There is no better WordPress framework out there.

Get Thesis Now!

Additionally, as many of you know, I also manage their affiliate program on a performance basis for charity. There is no better time for you to become an affiliate than now. Between the crazy sales of the new 1.5 release, the marketing tools available to you and the promotion for free passes to Affiliate Summit; really, what are you waiting for?

Hit me up with any questions!

There is no doubt in my mind that Chris Brogan epitomizes all that is good with Social Media and as far as I’m concerned, his resume speaks for itself.

That is why I asked him to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming Affiliate Summit East 2009 this coming August, in New York City.

For those who need a brief backgrounder on Chris, here it is.

Aside from being one of my favorite social media peeps, Chris has a new business book coming out soon, co-written by Julien Smith entitled “Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust“.

As Chris describes it, the book is about “people who use the web in a very human way to build influence, reputation, awareness, and who can translate that into some kind of business value.”

In a nutshell, I gather that they will talk about how to effectively build meaningful connections using social media and how to monetize those relationships.

Since Chris is an expert in this area, I can say with utmost certainty, the the $21.40 pre-order price through Amazon is going to be money well spent.

I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy! Congrats Chris and Julien.

Super-busy time for us at GeekCast.fm with all the new podcasts and vidcasts, we’re bringing on….

Below are the three that launched last week. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Geek Dads @ Home Podcast: Covering issues that geeky, work-at-home and stay-at-home Dads go through day-to-day. Hosted by Daniel M. Clark, Sam Harrelson, Scot Jangro and Joe Magennis.

Affiliate ABC’s: Discussing everything Affiliate Marketing. Hosted by Deb (Loxly) Carney and Vinny (NYFalcon) O’Hare.

E-Commerce Success Show: Free Online Advice for your e-Commerce Business. Hosted by Scott Fox.

Listen to Geek Dads @Home, Affiliate ABC’s, E-Commerce Success Show and other GeekCasters at http://geekcast.fm/.

Also, be sure to subscribe to the GeekCast RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Update: 1/31/09 — *Upgraded to Thesis 1.4 today. It took 1/2 an hour which included updating all my plugins. I’ll be tasting all the new yummy goodies included with this release over the next week.  I’ll save those comments for another post.

Around 5:15am EST this morning, while I was working (yes, I’m battling with insomnia again), Chris Pearson’s tweet below hit my Twhirl and I couldn’t wait to find out more.

I have MissyWard.com and GeekCast.fm running on Thesis v1.3 now and I adore it. It’s super-flexible, easy to customize and SEO-optimized.

I’d read about the highly-anticipated upgrade about to happen, but, I really didn’t think I needed anything else.

Well, from the looks of it, Thesis v1.4 does not disappoint. Here’s a list of some of the new features:

A new multiple-instance sidebar widget that allows you to display posts from any category.

All-new post editing options that replace the need to use cumbersome custom fields. Also, inline documentation and tips make these new options intuitive and easy to use.

Post images and thumbnails, two new image-based features that add an unbelievable amount of visual flexibility to your site.

Reorganized and improved options pages that are more usable, more information-rich, and more intuitive than ever before.

A feature box, which is a hookable element that you can position in various places around your layout.

A fantastic new home page layout called Features & Teasers. Features are displayed just like normal blog posts, but teasers are a completely new and customizable way to display your posts.

and more.

I’ll be setting some time aside this week to upgrade — likely somewhere between 4am and 5am until I crack the nut on this insomnia

Congratulations Chris, on the new baby girl. She’s beautiful.

On a side note, Thesis also offers an affiliate program here. I am a new affiliate of the program. The money that I earn from the sales of this program is being donated directly to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

The last time I saw AC/DC was eight years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I thought it was the best concert that I had ever been to.

That has now changed.

The AC/DC Black Ice tour came to Tampa yesterday and I had the pleasure of sitting only 11 rows from the stage. While my ears are still ringing and my head it still pounding, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The boyz still have it — and they may be even better than they ever were.

The only thing that sucked was that they didn’t allow cameras into the venue. So, the pictures that I did manage to sneak were not taken with a flash (so as to avoid being busted and thrown out).

Enjoy!

Click photo to view album