A blog focused on helping bloggers and online retailers make more money online.

So what went on last week, everybody?

I guess this little post wouldn’t be the same without it’s weekly Facebook update, so let’s begin there. Finally, Facebook has admitted to their multitude of indiscretions with regards to user’s privacy. This admittance was delivered by frontman Mark Zuckerberg in both private and public arenas, and in my opinion is one step in the right direction towards building amends with their users and rebuilding that trust. It’s not bad, actually I’m slightly impressed. In a private email conversation with blogger Robert Scoble, Zuckerberg admitted Facebook “made a bunch of mistakes but [his] hope at the end of this is that the service ends up in a better place and that people understand that our intentions are in the right place…” Earnest, it seems. In his public message, Zuckerberg admitted to knowing that Facebook users want more control over their privacy settings, quoting that “people want easier control over their information.” So what happened then? What did Facebook actually do?

Facebook headed to DC for a Congressional briefing on user privacy and finally, changed user’s privacy settings to make information sharing more controllable by the user. Great. I like it. Maybe now we can all move on.

I may have spoken too soon. So, we caught wind of a new issue this week, doted as people searching (isn’t this just like Googling?) and it’s raising eyebrows big time. People Search sites like “…ZabaSearch, BeenVerified, and Spokeo…[show]…not just personal data. It is personally identifiable (and often free). You can find people’s names, addresses and income — regardless of whether they’ve ever signed on to these sites. But people search sites aren’t stealing this info. They’re gathering it from publicly available sources.” Yikes. That’s not something I wanted to know existed.

What else, well…Twitter was in the news this week, making changes to ad networks usage of the service. And a big day, that was! COO Dick Costolo was quoted as saying “We will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API.” What did this actually mean? An attempted boost in tweet integrity, but also the end for startups like Ad.ly, and Sponsored Tweets, “while giving more prominence to Twitter’s own ads, called ‘Promoted Tweets.’” I feel like this was a big move for Twitter, I hope that they continue to take steps to clean up the twitter feed. Hope to see more of the same.

We were reminded, again, that ad spending is seeing sunny days. This time, with the help of the Olympics no less, we saw a “5.1% improvement over the first three months of 2009.” This news isn’t anything new (in fact, I seem to see the same type of headline pop up week after week), but I figured it would be worth mentioning as something to go back to in future weeks as we start to see results from Q2 unveil.

I’ve been wondering when this would happen! Skype Video…meet the Android! I love the fact that “a Skype mobile application that will hit the marketplace with video functionality ‘later this year.’” That is great, just great. However, we were also told that a study found that kids are more likely to own a cell phone than a book. Sigh.

Back on a happier note, there was another great announcement this week; AffinityClick went live! We turned on our services to our users and started to activate accounts. This was a great week for us here, and we’re so excited to see results churn in the weeks to come! If you haven’t already signed up for our contextual and social product placement service for your blog or website yet, now’s your chance! Check it all out here: www.affinityclick.com.

So quick recap! Yesterday’s blog post was a bit of an intro on product reviews for bloggers. I gave a little synopsis on Rob Sutton’s blog post named “How To Get Free Products To Review On Your Blog“. Rob touched on why providing product reviews on your blog is a great way to beef up your SEO efforts, grow your audience and subscribers as well as earn some additional cash. None of which are bad reasons to give it a shot, I’d say! But just how do you go about doing this? Ah. A great question. Let’s explore.

The important thing to remember at the beginning is that you have to put your time in just like every other rookie. How does that work? Rob Sutton says “[r]eview everything you can get your hands on.” And this is pretty much exactly like getting started in any segment. You just have to keep producing, and continue to plug away at it as it’s laying the foundation for things to come. If you write reviews on things you find in your house, in your friends houses, nights out on the town or anything along those lines without inquiring for a kickback, you’ll build credibility with vendors and retailers and will give them a sense of ease when it comes time for you to actually approach them for further products to review. “No one is going to send you their money (in the form of inventory) if they aren’t reasonably sure what they are getting into”, Sutton puts it. It’s so true. Put yourself in the retailers shoes here, and really make a conscious effort of building up a “portfolio” of great – and pro bono – reviews. Keep in mind your time isn’t being lost along the way, you’re still increasing your blog’s value with added SEO-rich content and interesting anecdotes for your readership.

Secondly, build out your contacts and relationship network within your desired niche(s) so that you bring more value to the table when you approach a vendor. This makes absolute sense as your inherent worth will increase immensely if you can produce more qualified buyers as part of your audience and community. Sutton suggests that you look for forums related to the niche you are writing for. There could be forums out there looking to increase their content value with dedicated and targeted bloggers in exchange for the invaluable relationships that could be built. Sutton makes the great point of saying “[s]earch out forum sites in your niche and if they don’t already have a program like this…pitch the idea to them. This will allow you to start a long term relationship with another large website in the industry, but…more importantly…it will gain you a huge amount of credibility that you couldn’t have done that quickly on your own.”

So once you feel you’ve built a solid portfolio of great reviews, and have developed and nurtured a community of targeted purchasers, then comes the dirty work – get in touch with your top retailers. You can’t sit back and expect the retailer to find you. I’m sure it does happen to some, however the proactive approach is absolutely necessary. So, contact them! Email, snail mail, whatever works. Sutton makes the great point of warning you to never, ever, create cookie-cutter letters or anything that looks like it’s in bulk. What happens to those? DELETE. Sutton suggests to do some research, and make your correspondence personal. Include:

• The name(s) of the products and why you want to review them
• An outline what you want to do and how you are going to do it
• Any companies you have worked with in the past (or reviews that you have already done)
• Some simple traffic numbers (subscribers, uniques per month, page views per month)
• A thanks for their time and let them know you look forward to hearing back from them

If you start out sending an email, Sutton also makes the great suggestion of following up with a snail mail version of your letter. This will bypass the spam filters, or delete buttons and will make you look like you’re serious about what you’re asking. Do a little research on specific contacts to reach out to within the company you are looking to provide reviews for. Google someone specific in their marketing department, and I’d suggest giving Jigsaw.com a try. It may be worth it to purchase a specific contact and address your correspondence specifically to them. Sutton suggests throwing a business card or logo in the letter. Not a bad idea. Heck, I’d say pick up the phone if you’ve got the time to do it. Why not?

Finally, a really great and key point that Sutton makes is this: “Ideally, you need to provide enough return out of this partnership that the product manufacturer had a bigger return on their time investment than you did as the blogger”. How do you do this? Deliver on what you say you’ll deliver on and kick in a little extra. Sutton suggests that you not only link back to the merchant’s website through you review, but also on other areas of your blog. In this day and age, it’s important to go above and beyond what is expected of you in a business relationship. This is how you get noticed and this is how you are remembered.

Finally, be patient. As with all things, this will take time. Slowly you will start to see a greater ROI but just remember the other added bonus’ of doing these types of posts.

Speaking of patience, I hope you stick around for our next post on this topic coming your way shortly. I want to give you the opposite perspective on this subject! I’ll touch on some companies that have seen the light and are helping retailers harness the power of consumer reviews, as well as some things that retailers are thinking about when looking to recruit bloggers like you!

I wanted to talk a little bit about providing product reviews on your blog today as part of our series of the Top Ten Ways To Help Monetize Your Blog for 2010. However, after some research I realized that there are a ton of great resources that already exist online that point you in the right direction of how to do this efficiently. One of the best pieces that I discovered were on Rob Sutton’s blog, in a post from January of ’09 titled “How To Get Free Products To Review on Your Blog”. He went into great detail about the reasons why providing product reviews on your blog are great, as well as steps to take to get free products in for your review. I’ll do a brief recap today of his reasons why bloggers should consider providing product reviews on blogs (as well as a few thoughts of my own). In my next post I’ll talk about the ways you can go about approaching retailers to review their products, as well as a post to take a peek at a merchants point of view and where they see the inherent value in a blogger’s reviews of their products!

So according to Sutton, one of the reasons blogger’s should review products on their blog because it adds huge weight from an SEO standpoint. He states that “[i]f you are in a product heavy niche and you want to rank high in Google and other search engines, product reviews are the fastest way to accomplish your goals”. This absolutely makes sense because your review posts are guaranteed to be chalk full of keywords related directly to the niche you are targeting, for example, Rob’s niche was mountain biking. So your best bet would be to do a little keyword analysis of the terms related to the niche you are targeting, and make sure to tailor the review to center around those keywords. Try to pick long-tail keywords that are easier to rank against, for example: “inexpensive mountain bikes” vs “bikes”.

The second reason that providing product reviews is smart for your blog is that reviewing products in your specific niche will help grow your unique visits and subscribers faster than any other method. “Your readers want to know what works and what doesn’t in your specific niche…solid positive and negative reviews”, Sutton states. He also warns against what he calls “glorified advertisements”, so beware that you are not reviewing products thinking that only positive and inflated reviews are going to guarantee that a vendor continues to ask you to review their product. You need to make sure that your reviews are written with integrity and honesty. After all, this is what your community expects of you and why they value your insight.

The third and fourth reason that Sutton discusses is how product reviews provide income; which is evidently one of the most important reasons to pursue this line of review. First, product reviews provide an alternative for affiliate ad income. “A solid review with a source for purchase can bring your residual income for years to come,” says Sutton. This method is obviously a little more work-intensive, however with the added bonus of quality and keyword-rich content the payoffs can be huge. Additionally, Sutton suggests that product reviews could potentially turn into a second income! There are no guarantees I must add, but it is definitely possible given the value of word-of-mouth advertising to retailers. Finally, one of the best points Sutton makes is that “[i]n many cases, you are able to keep the product that you review. You can use this product as a giveaway to increase subscribers and traffic, or you can use it personally for other reasons.” Can’t argue with that! With that, why wouldn’t it be one of the best ways to help monitize your blog for 2010!

I have been doing a lot of deep thinking lately (for those of you who are familiar with me, you’d know I do a little too much of it!). It really hit me yesterday when my Mother made a comment to me while I was watching TV at her place. The new iPad commercials have started airing, and after one was over my Mom turned to me and said “You know what? Just stop and think about that. Did you ever imagine you’d have a device that could do all of that? I mean, really…we didn’t have a microwave when you were growing up! This is INCREDIBLE!” I laughed. My mom doesn’t exactly flock toward new technology, and the fact she was gawking over this particular device made me grin. But what came to mind next was just how right she was. So much change has been produced in my lifetime, and I feel that at times I’m immune to the transition from one era of technology to the next. Or maybe it’s just that our generation is really good at adapting to the flux. I’m not sure. But I set out to deliberate some more. Here’s what surfaced:

Having grown up as a borderline “millenial”, I am of the generation that had the unbelievably fortunate opportunity to experience life both with and without the power of internet connectivity and access to endless bounds of information. Simply because of when I was born plus the fact that during my adolescence, my Father decided to retrain in computer networking prior to the average or even above average household having a personal computer, I was lucky to participate in the evolution of the personal internet and it’s infusion in social networking right from the beginning. And way back in the ’90′s, I and all of my siblings had our own personal computer with a separate phone line for the internet (networked, to boot!). We could discover what we wanted as it was happening on the world wide web. We were the guinea pigs, the beta testers, the ground breakers…and it was awesome.

It brings back such fantastic memories of growing up with the ability to instantaneously connect with my friends outside of school hours and without the use of the phone. I remember my ICQ number, I remember my heart skipping a beat whenever I’d log in and having bright yellow envelopes flashing at me from all of my friends and crushes. I remember getting my first Hotmail address (and managed to be smart enough not to include words like “princess”, “extreme”, “69″!). I remember the birth of MSN Messenger (that’s where our crafty little handles lived well before we could upload profile pics!). Napster made burning CD’s for my boyfriends an inexpensive yet so completely personal gesture! Mixed tapes? Gone. Blogs were popping up and being managed by different pockets of friends at school, it became one of the first method of “creeping” and because we could post pictures! Good old Geocities. I remember the chat forums, the countless hours spent talking to people across the globe just for the sake of trying it. I remember slowly watching the number of laptops appear in my university courses, and the amount of hand written papers decreasing just as rapidly. Text messaging popped up somewhere in there, I remember it well (I’d also managed to have my own cell phone in high school which was virtually unheard of). Not to mention that an internet browser magically appeared on my cell phone! At an exorbitant rate, I could check my email pretty much anywhere as long as I was OK waiting 5 minutes for it to load and the formatting looking like a train wreck!

And then came Facebook. I remember seeing the word “Facebook.com” in a MSN messenger status of one of my friends. I thought, weird name. I’m curious. Let’s check it out…Available only to students in university? Cool. I fit that bill…I wonder who else is on here? Wow, not many. Niceeeeee…I’ll ride it out.

And just like that, Facebook and I will be having our 5 year anniversary later this year and now my life story is completely accessible to virtually anyone I’ve been close to all along. Unbelievable. Can’t get over how fast five years has flown by. And now Facebook, Twitter, all these social bookmarking services (heck, cell phone apps) endlessly track and publish our daily experiences and thoughts. The technological advances just keep on accelerating. It’s unreal. I haven’t even gotten as far as talking about the iPad, checking email on your TV, having all your music and pictures stored in one slick looking device…now the possibility of your own owned social networking pod. And when I think about it collectively, it blows my mind.

But it’s funny. I still really do miss those old times. I wish I could have kept those old ICQ conversations; I wish those blogs weren’t abandoned, I wish text messaging was a novelty, not the default. That was my youth, my growing up. It was so innocent, pure. And now it’s so…produced.

I can’t get over the fact that at one point in my lifetime we were wanting and waiting for technology to speed up, become more instantaneous, more public. And then, somewhere along the way, we got there…and now we can’t slow it down. Everything has changed. How do we keep up? What tools or services do we abandon? How do we create personal connections in a now default impersonal world? Is it really a social good that our lives and experiences are being documented in a world where everyone can access it? I’m not sure. But what I do know is that my kids aren’t going to know any different. How will that make them different from what we were like in our coming of age?

I keep thinking, this must be something like what our grandparents felt when cars, trains and airplanes overtook horse and buggy and boats as primary method of transportation. The acceleration of highways and skyways must have blown their minds too. I wonder what will be the advancement to blow our children and grand-children’s minds. I can’t even imagine.

Can you?

So although this week seemed slightly less dramatic with fewer Facebook-bashing articles, there was no shortage of interesting developments. In my opinion, within a week we are starting to see other major online players making moves. I’ll start with Hotmail. I can honestly say that my first Hotmail address is over 10 years old. My second Hotmail address, slightly younger which I only just started to let die. I just found Hotmail was too bubbly and dated, buggy and spammy. Interestingly enough though, and after long enough, the folks at Hotmail decided to take a leap forward, with threaded messages, auto-complete search boxes, and a sleeker and faster design with “powerful weapons against inbox overload”. Good for them. Too late, in my opinion. But still…progress is progress.

What else. Well, one couldn’t miss the buzz (ha!) around Google TV and it’s debut. Finally, it was officially announced and we got a glimpse of what this puppy looks like. Not to mention, what was introduced was a fun little platform called “Lean Back”,  being dubbed “a way to gain access to YouTube’s entire video library on your television in a format ‘that you can just lean back and enjoy.’” Wow, now that could be cool. Not bad timing considering YouTube surpasses two billion views per day. Guess that number will soon be expected to explode, again.

Noticed anything different yet since last week’s post? Haven’t mentioned or linked to anything Facebook yet! I could have linked to parody videos, hate articles, the whole “Quit Facebook Day” on May 31. But I’ve held back. There are other things going on in the world aside from Facebook and their quest for world wide (web) domination. Like this great little ditty: we can now purchase our favorite Proctor & Gamble household items online! My goodness. The things we can do now…

…Alright, I just can’t help it. Facebook is still in the news, I can’t deny it. It never ends. So, although we’ve been told that Facebook has plans to simplify privacy options, we’re still being fed updates like “New Tool Highlights Facebook Users Disregard for Privacy“, or this morning’s “WSJ: Facebook, MySpace & Others Share Identifying User Data With Advertisers“. Heck…even The Wall Street Journal is jumping on the hate Zuckerberg bandwagon with this gem: “Facebook Movie Paints Zuckerberg As Sex Crazed Nerd“. Although I have to credit by friend Dan Stratton over at Radian6 for mentioning that many of these posts are in fact “just another article trying to get readership by including the words Facebook & privacy together.” Well said. We can’t slam ‘em for being opportunistic, but it’s sure worth noting. I guess it remains to be seen whether the trend will continue. I have no doubt it will.