You know how when someone types ‘LOL’ you know they’re not really laughing out loud? When I tell you that these three things make me literally LOL to the point of tears, believe it. I’m not exaggerating. Tears.

Dancing Ackbar

The first of two Robot Chicken clips. I can’t explain why, but Ackbar doing the running man at the end of this “commercial” gets me every single time. The other two lines, “It’s a trap!” and “Your tongues can’t repel flavor of this magnitude!” are hilarious as well.

What the Hell is an Aluminum Falcon?

The whole sketch has me cracking up, but two lines in particular really nail me. First, “what the hell is an aluminum falcon?!” and second, “get your seven-foot-two asthmatic ass back here or I’m gonna tell everyone what a whiney bitch you were about Padamame or Panda Bear or whatever the hell her name is!”

Heh-heh, that’s nice… MOOOOM!!!!

I could do a top 20 list and half of it would probably be clips from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (several from episode 303, Pod People). This is the best of the shorts, “Mr. B Natural”. The whole thing is made of awesome. The entire scene in Buzz’s bedroom is absolute gold.

This just in from the You Can’t Always Trust Google department…

One out of three ain’t bad, Google. If only you had more money to throw at this new-fangled “search engine” idea, who knows what could happen?!

An extra dollar's worth of love?

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. It was practically a staple on my old blog that I’d highlight some stupid thing that Papa Johns had on their website. I’m glad to see they are keeping up the fine tradition of not putting any thought into what they’re doing.

I love doing the occasional episode of Comic Book Fury with Tim Robinson and Mike Buechele. My third appearance on that show was recorded on Saturday, April 21st, with Tim (Mike was on assignment in the Savage Land). We focused a large portion of the show on what DC Comics is doing these days, now that they’re eight months into the New 52 relaunch. The industry fascinates me, it really does. We also chatted about Marvel and Image and my desire to sell off my collection (which I’ll be talking more about on next week’s episode of Geek Dads Weekly).

Click over to Comic Book Fury to listen. It’s a fun time.

We have a winner!

The contest has ended, and Michelle Duffey from Salem, Oregon is our winner! She will be receiving a t-shirt, set of Avengers buttons and an awesome pair of character 3D glasses. Congratulations, Michelle!

Thanks everyone who participated and made this our most popular contest to date with nearly 200 entries! We’ll be running more contests and giveaways in the near future; sign up for the QAQN Newsletter to get advance notice of them as well as site updates and exclusive offers!

[Below is the original contest blog post.]

While I would normally announce something like this on Geek Dads Weekly, I just got the notification about it this morning and I want to give you guys as much time as possible to participate!

QAQN has one special Avengers Prize Pack to give to a lucky fan! Check it out:

The Not-So-Fine Print

• The Avengers T-Shirt is available in adult sizes S, M, L and XL. Your choice.
• There are six Avengers buttons, one for each member of the team: Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Thor and Hulk. You’ll get all six.
• There are four 3-D Avengers glasses to choose from: Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America. You get one of ‘em.
• The contest closes at 12:01pm ET on May 4th – the release day of Marvel’s Avengers movie!

Ready? Let’s go – and don’t forget to read the Terms to learn more about how the contest operates. (Please be patient if the contest widget  below does not load super fast. The hamsters are running as fast as they can. Feel free to refresh the page to kick start ‘em.)

Don’t forget: QAQN is also running a contest to rename Geek Dads Weekly with a $100 prize!

Lastly – I will be checking to ensure that everyone plays fair. The contest requirements are not exactly unreasonable. If you can’t be bothered to leave a short comment or click a Like button to get a valid entry… well. When the contest is over, the randomly chosen entry will be checked for validity. Please play fair. It’s what Captain America would do.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Affiliate Summit is producing a series of interviews with speakers at the upcoming conference in Austin. I spoke with Affiliate Summit Ambassador Mary Poiley for just over twelve minutes, mostly about my session, Step by Step: Podcasting for Business (scheduled for 9:30am on Tuesday, May 15th). We also talked a little about my overall involvement and history in the industry. It was a fun interview, hope you enjoy it – and I hope to see you in Austin for Affiliate Summit Central 2012!

Nearly three and a half years ago, I launched the Geek Dads @ Home podcast with Sam Harrelson and Joe Magennis. In 2010, Joe and I rebranded the show as Geek Dads Weekly. It’s time for another change. The show has evolved past the “geek dads” theme. In fact, most of our shows these days, we don’t talk about the kids at all, or only in passing.

Your days are numbered, guys.

If you’re a current listener, you know the kind of show we do. If you’re new around here, check out the show notes from a few recent episodes to get a feel for it. Get yourselves up to speed because we need you!

Help us rename the show! Here’s how it’s going to work.

1. Leave a comment with your suggestion(s) below.
2. I, along with Greg and Drew, will choose the new name.
3. The newly renamed show will debut shortly after we decide on the name and can finalize the new artwork.
4. The person who suggested the name will be awarded one hundred genuine American dollars.

Slow down, now. Don’t comment just yet, there are a few rules.

1. There will be only ONE winner. If the name we choose is suggested by more than one person, we will have a random drawing to determine who the award will go to.
2. Only people with a PayPal account may participate because that’s how we’re awarding the money.
3. The name should be short, evocative of the show that we do, and must be free of profanity and references to gender (i.e. no “dads” no “men” or things like that). Also, we’d like to not use “geek” in the name anymore.
4. We might not choose any of the names suggested. This is not a “best of the suggestions” kind of thing. If we don’t like any of the suggestions enough to use, we will either extend the entry period or choose a name on our own.
5. This is an open-ended contest. After trying to put a deadline on it, we realized that it was more important to find just the right name than settle for something on an arbitrary date. There will come a point where you guys suggest something that Drew and Greg and I all like. At that point, we will announce a one week deadline for additional submissions. After that, we will declare a winner and award the money.

Sound good? There’s $100 in it for you. Name the show!

The sessions from Affiliate Summit East 2010 have just been posted to YouTube! This session was a first for me; it was my first session that had been planned and submitted ahead of time. We called it Podcasting 101 and described it thusly:

Speakers:

- Lisa Picarille, Consultant, LisaPicarille.com
- Daniel M. Clark, Owner, Host, Geek Dads Weekly
- Trisha Lyn Fawver, Client Support, For Me To Coupon
- Joe Magennis, Principal, Baseballisms

Session description: In this era of self-publishing, anyone — including you — can produce a podcast (and make money doing it!) Come learn the basics of producing, monetizing, hosting and promoting your very own podcast.

Experience level: Beginner
Target audience: Affiliates/Publishers
Niche/vertical: Podcasting

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/affsum/1d-podcasting-101

Note: the companies and positions listed above were current as of the time of the conference. Some of this information may have changed since then.

Note: in the video, my Twitter ID is listed incorrectly. I changed over to @QAQN last year. At the time, QAQN wasn’t even an idea yet!

Last week I created a silent auction (of a sort) to sell my unneeded Full pass to Affiliate Summit Central 2012. The event is sold out, and since I will be getting a Speaker pass (Step By Step: Podcasting for Business, Tuesday, May 15, at 9:30am is my session), I no longer needed the pass that I bought back in January.

I asked interested people to email me bids, the maximum amount they’d be willing to pay for the pass. The highest bid would win the pass, and the winner would be announced on Friday, April 13th.

Last Friday I announced on Twitter that the winning bid was $300, and that once the payment was finalized and all the details were worked out, I’d blog about it, which brings us to today!

The winner of the Full pass to Affiliate Summit Central 2012 is Taylor West of WP Engine, a WordPress hosting company.

The AMGB team at Colorado's walk in 2010

As I said when I created the auction, every dollar over the pass price of $249 would be donated to Affiliate Marketers Give Back and the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer to support breast cancer research. I also said I’d throw in another $50 on top of whatever the winning bid was. That brings us to a donation of $101, which I made last night. If you watch the scroll on Missy Ward’s donation page, you will see “Daniel M. Clark and Taylor West” listed as a donator. While you’re on that page, how about kicking over a few bucks?

I would like to thank Taylor West and everyone who participated in the auction. Every bit we can raise to help AMGB helps a great cause.

See you in Austin!

[Read the original auction details post right here.]

As if we needed more proof of just how supercool Missy Ward is…

Back in February I published a little blog post called Affiliate Marketing: Just Like Porn, Apparently. It got a little attention, and everyone that I heard back from agreed that OneLoad.com was wrong to lump affiliate marketing in with network marketing, MLM, phishing and pornography in their Terms of Service. Originally, the OneLoad.com signup page included this:

Phishing, I get. But porn? That's crossing a line.

Section 4e of the original Terms of Service said this:

Also defined as “spam” are any videos involving affiliate marketing, network marketing, cash gifting, multi-level marketing, phishing, or any videos that a reasonable person would consider to be a scam or misleading.

Missy Ward

Missy Ward, whom you probably know as a co-founder of Affiliate Summit, reached out to TubeMogul/OneLoad.com but was met with resistance to the suggestion that maybe affiliate marketing shouldn’t be included on such a list. Certainly there is nothing inherently scammy or misleading about affiliate marketing – respectable companies have been successfully recruiting affiliates to help advertise their products for the better part of 15 years.

The breakthrough in this story came in March, when Affiliate Summit had a booth in the same aisle as TubeMogul at SXSW. Missy visited the TubeMogul booth and spoke with CEO Brett Wilson. After a post-show follow-up, the Terms of Service were updated to remove affiliate marketing from the list of prohibited content. Sort of.

The current Terms of Service have been changed, with Section 4e now saying this:

Also defined as “spam” are any videos involving network marketing, cash gifting, multi-level marketing, phishing, affiliate marketing with low quality content or any videos that a reasonable person would consider to be a scam or misleading.

The new account signup page still simply says “affiliate marketing”, but I’m sure that is just an oversight that will be corrected.

I am satisfied with the result, though I wouldn’t mind seeing references to affiliate marketing removed completely. I do feel that this change is enough to protect affiliates who create worthwhile videos that incorporate affiliate links. They’re trying to prevent spam, and I can respect that. If you’re producing low-quality content, I’m not going to be the first in line to defend you, to be honest.

Read the whole story in greater detail at Missy’s blog, and if you’d like to sign up for a OneLoad account, go for it. It’s a good way to easily distribute video to multiple sources.

Affiliate Summit Central 2012 is officially sold out. If you haven’t secured a pass yet, you’re pretty much out of luck… unless you want mine.

During Summit West back in January, I bought a Full pass to Central. As soon as the event was announced, I pounced on the pass because I knew it would be a smaller show and it would sell out quickly. I didn’t know at that time if I would be getting a Speaker pass or if I would have to use the pass I was purchasing. Well, it turns out that I did get a Speaker pass, since my session, Step By Step: Podcasting for Business was picked up (more details on that session soon).

I have a Full pass that I no longer need. I’d like for you to have it, but… I’m going to make this interesting. Interesting and noteworthy, I hope. Here’s how this is going to work.

I will sell this pass for a minimum of $249, which is what you would pay if you bought the pass on-site the day of the event.

My favorite charity is Missy Ward’s Affiliate Marketers Give Back, and I try to encourage donations when I can. Like right now. We’re going to do this sort-of silent auction style. If you’re interested in this pass, email me with a bid of at least $249. On Friday, April 13th, I will announce the name of the person who bid the highest amount and won the pass. Every dollar over $249, every dollar, will be donated to Affiliate Marketers Give Back in our names, yours and mine.

On top of that, I will throw in another $50.

Here’s an opportunity to donate to a very worthy cause, get your pass to the sold out Affiliate Summit Central 2012, and feel good doing it. Ready for the email address?

daniel at qaqn.com

There ya go. Shoot me an email with what you’re willing to pay for the pass (at least $249). I’d love to hear from you.

Note: in the event that multiple people bid the winning amount, I will award the pass to the first person to make the bid.

It’s hard to believe it’s been this long, but four years ago, I created a website that would forever change the face of internet commerce, internet marketing, and the wearing of money skirts the world over.

The most trustworthy site on the internet.

Okay, it did none of those things – but wouldn’t it have been awesome if it had?

The concept behind Earn a Million a Day was pretty simple. I was attending ShareASale Think Tank in 2008, and I found myself with a little bit of down time between meetings. I was thinking about things I hated about affiliate marketing for some reason. Someone must have said something that got me thinking in that direction. I’ve always hated squeeze pages. Excessively long, filled with faux yellow highlighter and giant red text… horrible. Never one to shy away from taking a clever shot at something I don’t like, I decided to whip up a parody site. I spent maybe 3 hours before bed at Think Tank and another day or two at home afterward finishing it up.

Were I to do it again today, I’d simply use OptimizePress for the layout and fill in the content. Back then, I didn’t know of any options like that, so I coded it by hand. I tried to use every stupid cliche I could think of. Over the top title? Check. Lots of cash money graphics? Check. I created a character, Charles MacGregor, a… trillionaire, I guess. At a rate of a million a day, he’d have to be. The product is never specified because it’s completely worthless – just like 99% of the products you’ll find on any given squeeze page. I used a lot of testimonials collected from a person named Johnny Franklin. Lots of Johnny Franklins, actually. There were many, many bullet points that utilized silly checkmarks.

This is not Photoshopped in any way.

When I unveiled it in the weeks after Think Tank, it was very well received. The feedback on it was overwhelmingly positive. In the years since, it has come up a few times in conversation – usually me asking “did you ever see that squeeze page parody I did a few years ago?” to whoever I’m talking to. Recently, I showed it to Eric Schwarzer, who thought it was fantastic. He asked me about it again today, he had forgotten the exact URL.

http://earnamillionaday.com

There ya go. I’d love to hear what you think of it.

As DC Comics continues to reinvent its long-time characters, a back-up story in this week’s Justice League #7 reintroduced Billy Batson and Shazam. The character, first appearing in February 1940, is one of the oldest still being published today: Superman and Batman date to 1938 and 1939 respectively. Wonder Woman debuted in 1941. In modernizing their stable of classic characters, DC is adding some pretty cool touches. Billy Batson, alter ego of the mighty Shazam (nee Captain Marvel), is apparently a podcaster!

"What do you like to do, Billy?" ©2012 DC Comics

Who says podcasting isn’t mainstream?

I wrote yesterday about affiliate link practices, the core of which I found at the bottom of a note in Evernote. This is the second of the two things I found there. I don’t recall now what prompted me to write it, but I think it’s a good analogy.

Modern pirates all drive Bentleys.

You’re standing in the middle of a highway. Toward you comes a car and should it hit you, you will surely end up in the hospital, if not end up dead. The car absolutely will not move to avoid you under any circumstances. You have three choices.

1. Scream and yell at the driver of the car to get him to leave you alone.

2. Let the car hit you and then use the law to recoup damages.

3. Move out of the way of the car and share the road.

The road is the internet, the car is a kid uploading copyrighted content, and you are the television, movie or music industry. The industries have chosen options 1 and 2.

In a perfect world, everyone would pay a fair price for everything of value. Given that this is not a perfect world, people need to look at this realistically. The pirates will always be one step ahead. It is logically impossible to think it can ever be otherwise because law enforcement, the media industries, even security experts, can’t predict new methods of piracy. All they can ever be is reactive, not proactive.

Media makers need to learn to share the road, and that means putting media into all the available channels. TV and movies need to be available in Netflix, Amazon and iTunes. Books, magazines and comics need to be available in print, in iBooks and on Kindle. Music needs to be available on CD, in iTunes, Pandora and Spotify.

People are willing to pay for media – the billions spent on media every year is proof of that. Piracy isn’t preventing the industries from making more money, the industries’ ridiculous restrictions prevent them from making more money. Consumers don’t care about licensing issues. They don’t care that Starz jacked up the fees on Netflix so high that Netflix can’t afford to pay them, which resulted in Netflix losing all of the Starz content. All the consumers know is that there’s one less place they can legally watch that content. Consumers don’t care that AC/DC doesn’t like iTunes and won’t license their music to Apple to put up for sale. You can’t complain about people “stealing” your content when you don’t put it up for sale in places they’re looking to buy it. Share the road. You can’t stop the car from running you over.

For another great take on this, check out The Oatmeal’s “I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened” comic. (NSFW for language)

Satire is delicious.

I was looking at my To Do list in Evernote just now, and I found a block of text that I had put in there way at the bottom; apparently it’s been pushed down further and further as I added whitespace to the list. I’m not a particularly good list manager apparently.

I’m sure I meant to write something that built upon this thought many months ago, when talk of the FTC disclosure rules was still fresh, but what the heck, here it is anyway.

If the ftc rules are all about transparency and consumer protection, why aren’t there disclaimers in movies? When the Coke logo shows up in a movie, there should be a line of text that comes up at the bottom of the screen that says “Paid placement. Please see our product disclosure policy at http://the-movie’s-website.com”

That would be fair, right? Because otherwise, they’re just picking on websites by making us disclose every single instance of paid (or potentially paid – affiliate) links. They’ve said it’s not enough to have a page on our site that outlines the linking practices, yet that’s exactly what television and movies do when they have one quick-scrolling line during the credits (if they even have one at all). Where’s the on-screen disclosure in movies?

Just a thought.

Oh, who am I kidding. Of course you’re invited. It wouldn’t be the same without you!

I searched Flickr (Creative Commons) for "chat" and it gave me pages of cat pictures. So here you go.

Affiliate Summit is sponsoring the first in a series of Twitter chats and I’ve been tapped to be the guinea pig sucker volunteer! The topic is podcasting, the location is Twitter, and the duration is one hour. We’ll start at 9pm Eastern on Thursday, March 8th. Our hashtag will be #affchat. The easiest way to participate in the chat is to use the TweetChat service at http://tweetchat.com/room/affchat and login with your Twitter credentials. You can also create a search column in Tweetdeck or use the Twitter search function directly to keep up.

Anything about podcasting is fair game – anything from how to get started to what kind of equipment to use… monetization… editing, uploading, promotion… whatever you like.

See you on Thursday!

Author Jim Kukral will be my guest on Inside Internet Marketing on Tuesday, February 28th at 1pm Eastern. Marketing your site, products or brand by writing a book can be very effective. Jim has been traditionally published and self-published, and has a ton of great information to share about both. Think you need a publisher to get a book out to the masses? Think again – and Jim is the guy to learn from.

We’ll be talking about his upcoming book release, Business Around a Lifestyle, the state of self-publishing, and his new Author Marketing Club resource.

Inside Internet Marketing can be heard live on QAQN.com using the Mixlr broadcast player on the home page. Interact with us during the show via Twitter by tagging your tweets with the hashtag #qaqnchat

Earlier today I received an email from TubeMogul.com. The message was to let me know that as an account holder, I should know that they have split their multi-site video submission service into a whole new site, OneLoad.com. I signed up with TubeMogul a long time ago (and never used it) but I’m just now making plans for video content so naturally, I clicked through. Rather than try to find my years-old username and password, I decided to just create a new account. At the end of the sign-up form, there’s this:

At a glance, it looks like OneLoad is just trying to prevent people from monetizing their videos, but that’s not the case; there is nothing here that says a company can’t upload a sales video. MLM, affiliate marketing, network marketing and home-based businesses… other businesses are perfectly welcome to upload videos.

Anyone who doesn’t think affiliate marketing has an image problem has their head in the sand. This is what we’re dealing with, folks.

photo credit: tompagenet

Regular listeners of Geek Dads Weekly are used to hearing us get interupted by my kids. When I expanded from one podcast into several, I chose Thursdays as my recording day because it was a day that my wife frequently had free from work and she could keep an eye on Ian while I recorded. That helped reduce the interruptions a bit, but that’s changed, and so has my recording schedule. All shows are now on a new day and most are at a new time. The line-up, starting today, is as follows:

• Inside Internet Marketing: Tuesdays at 1pm Eastern (30 minutes to an hour)
• Geek Dads Weekly: Tuesdays at 2pm Eastern. (1 hour)
• Affiliate Marketers Fitness Challenge: Tuesdays at 4pm Eastern. (1 hour)
• Yet Another Weight Loss Show: Tuesdays at 11pm Eastern. (15 minutes, maybe half an hour or so – depends on my mood, really)

Once a month, Inside Internet Marketing will be replaced by Affiliate Improv!, a new webinar series that I will be posting about shortly. We’ve had our quiet launch to iron out the bugs and now we’re ready to blow it up!

Be a Better Podcaster is on indefinite hiatus while I retool the show. It will return in the [hopefully] near future as a video podcast.

These changes take place today, so we hope to see you on Tuesday, February 14th for the next batch of QAQN episodes!

I’ve just added a new contest to the show notes of Geek Dads Weekly #102. With each Affiliate Summit there are a number of Gold passes to give to my audience, and this time there are five to go around! There are multiple ways to enter the drawing and it’s all spelled out in the instructions. Click on through to Geek Dads Weekly, or enter right here using this super-cool contest widget from Rafflecopter!

Starting with January’s Affiliate Summit West 2012, I will be heading up the ‘West Newcomer Program, a group devoted to helping first-time Affiliate Summit attendees find their footing, get comfortable with attending the conference, and make some valuable connections. My friend Jen Goode has been running both Summit East and Summit West Newcomer Programs, and she recently asked me to take over the duties Summit West, to which I think I replied, “YES! THE POWER IS MINE! HAHAHAHA!.” Something like that.

Jen’s announcement about my involvement can be read at the Affiliate Summit blog.

What does this mean for you? Well, basically, it means that I’m going to be talking about the program more and more on Inside Internet Marketing and Geek Dads Weekly as we get closer to show time. I’m going to be asking for your help if you’re a past attendee, and I’m going to be asking you to join the program as a newcomer if West 2012 will be your first Summit.

The cornerstones of the program are:

• Prior to the conference, newcomer and veteran should have at least one phone call or email exchange to get acquainted and go over any questions or advice about the show.
• During Summit, the newcomer is expected to treat their veteran volunteer to a meal. Could be breakfast, maybe meet up for lunch, perhaps dinner. This can be a tricky one as veterans often have meal plans in place (often revolving around business), but we encourage this as much as possible.
• On the opening night of Summit, Sunday, we will have a Newcomer Program Meetup in one of the conference rooms at Caesar’s. This is a great opportunity for newcomers to meet more people, so we hope that both newcomer and veteran volunteer will attend.
• As a thank you to veterans volunteers, Affiliate Summit hosts a webpage with a link back to their site.
• It’s free to participate in the Newcomer Program, and it is open to Platinum (or better) pass holders.

Signups for both Attendee Volunteers and Newcomers are open right now – head to the Sign Up page and let me know that you’re interested!

Please note that the Newcomer Program is not a business mentoring program and is not designed to pair beginners with business coaches.

Last week was a planned vacation time for me and my family. We spent almost a week up in Idaho Falls; my brother-in-law got married. It was a good trip (but don’t get me started about how awful Frontier Airlines was). We got home night-before-last and my plan was to pick up my shows on the normal broadcast day – today. Here’s the problem: I’m getting on another plane at 6:30am tomorrow morning, which means I’ve got to be up around 4am, which means I have to get to sleep relatively early, which means I have less time than usual to get stuff done today. Stuff like, you know, packing for a business trip.

Yesterday was spent preparing the family for me not being home for a week – grocery shopping, back-to-school supplies shopping, oil changes for the cars, things like that. Today, with Angela at work no less, I get to do all my trip preparation… making sure I have all my printed materials, doing laundry if there’s a shirt I want to take with me that needs cleaning, and figuring out what audio equipment I’m going to take. I’m still on the fence about bringing my mixer, microphone and all the studio gear.

All this is to say that, sorry, I can’t fit in 4 hours of broadcasts today. You won’t have to wait very long for new stuff though, because whatever I bring with me, it’ll be enough to do my shows from New York. I’ll have special episodes of all the shows coming up over the next week. If you’re going to be at Summit and you’d like to say hi or be part of a show, come find me in the Blogger Lounge!

It’s also not too late to book some time with me for podcast consulting in New York. Hit the Consulting page to learn more!

Two weeks ago today, I began an experiment using Hootsuite to automate tweets daily. I wanted to know if it would increase conversions, result in fewer followers, or earn me a stern talking-to from Twitter purists. These are my findings.

To begin with, let’s take a snapshot of what my Twitter presence looked like two weeks ago.

• 1,494 followers
• 10,054 tweets
• I had scheduled maybe half a dozen tweets in the past couple of years. To say that I never automate would be fairly accurate, if a bit hyperbolic.

Here’s where I stand today, two weeks later.

• 1,522 followers
• 10,254 tweets

For this experiment I wanted to promote a few things. First and foremost, that I’ll be providing podcast production consulting services at Affiliate Summit East, coming up in about 3 weeks’ time. This was my main focus, and the subject of 66% of the automated tweets. Second, that I’ll be leading a panel at Affiliate Summit called Affiliate Improv. Third, the Be a Better Podcaster show. Lastly, my other shows.

Now, there’s something that I freely admit to: this is a very small audience I’ve got here. I’m no Brogan. I’m a Clark, but I’m not Brian Clark (and we’re not related). With just about 1500 followers, my results here are probably wildly different than someone with a zillion followers would experience. Granted.

I used Hootsuite to schedule three tweets daily for two weeks. Two of the three would be advertising my consulting service at Summit, and knowing that some people only check Twitter in the morning or only in the evening, I decided to alternate messages. The first message was:

2-for-1 podcast consulting at Affiliate Summit. bring a friend or colleague, split the cost :) http://qaqn.com/csg #ase11

The next morning, this ran:

going to Affiliate Summit? interested in #podcasting? i’m open for podcast consulting while we’re there! http://qaqn.com/csg #ase11

Those two messages alternated morning and mid-day. For example, the first ran every other morning beginning on Sunday. The second ran every other morning beginning Monday. The first ran every other afternoon starting Monday. The second ran every other afternoon beginning on Sunday. Get it?

The third messages ran late night. These were far less structured and only served to break up the other two so that Sunday afternoon’s message wouldn’t be repeated Monday morning with nothing between. I’m a pretty prolific Twitter user, so this wasn’t likely to be a problem, but just in case. I didn’t want to be extremely obvious about automating these things.

A promotional tweet for Affiliate Improv ran 5 of the 14 nights. A tweet for each of the (then) six episodes of Be a Better Podcaster ran 6 of the 14 nights. The remaining three late night tweets were for my other shows – one each for Geek Dads Weekly, Inside Internet Marketing and Yet Another Weight Loss Show.

The Results

So, what did I find? Well, first, as you can see above, I gained followers. This is not a result of automated tweets, of course, but a natural increase. I scheduled 42 tweets, but tweeted myself another 158 times on top of that. The important distinction here is that I didn’t lose followers – not even some people that I know that are always saying they’ll unfollow anyone that automates (don’t go away now that you know I automated, guys – this isn’t a regular thing for me, and you’ll see why shortly).

My messages were retweeted only 17 times in total – less than half the 42 messages got a single retweet.

I did gain a potential client, but it wasn’t due to these tweets – it was someone who made contact with me based on a conversation held elsewhere.

What about my traffic? I’m afraid this is the point where my experiment completely breaks down. I have no traffic data. My analytics package was not set up correctly and hasn’t been collecting data. I never noticed because I’ve always been far more interested in the number of podcast downloads than the number of site visitors. Google Analytics was set correctly on July 13th and I can tell you that since then, Twitter traffic has accounted for 13.06% of my site’s traffic. Unfortunately, I don’t know if that’s up or down from the period before I started automating.

My Conclusion

It took me about 90 minutes to figure out how to set up Hootsuite for bulk automating, create a CSV file with all the appropriate fields and customize every single tweet. You see, Hootsuite actually requires you to upload unique tweets. You’re not allowed to upload the same tweet 50 times. I did not want to come up with dozens of variations of the same tweet, so after some trial and error, I figured out that I could upload garbage, then edit each scheduled tweet individually – pasting in the correct tweet text. This all took the bulk of a morning, and my return? Nothing… well, nothing noteworthy. The automated tweets seemed to have no effect on anything.

I guess the most important takeaway from this for me is that automation isn’t bad. It was not, in this case, particularly good, but it wasn’t bad. I don’t think I’ll spend any time doing it again anytime soon… maybe if I ever hit 10,000 followers and I have a larger base of people to work with, but until then, it’s pretty much a waste of time.

Your milage may vary.

On July 6th I presented 5 Rock Solid Reasons to Podcast, a live webinar in the series being produced by Affiliate Summit. This was my first live webinar and I thought it was a great success. I will be producing more live webinars here at QAQN in the near future! This session was recorded by Jim Kukral via GoToMeeting.

I’ve made the slide deck and a collection of links available for your benefit:

Resources!

If you’re a Mac user and you have Keynote, you can download the Keynote presentation.

If you’re a PC user or if you don’t have Keynote on your Mac, you can download this Zip file that has all the slides in it as individual PNG files.

The reason for this is that exporting the slides to PowerPoint format resulted in some funky formatting errors. I purposely kept transitions/animations simple though – the only thing you’ll miss out on is the dissolve transition between the slides. There was no animation or special properties on the slides themselves.

Slides:

Slide 2:
My contact information

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Email daniel -at- qaqn.com
• Phone 281-241-QAQN (7276)
• (too new to include on the slide, but there’s Google+, too)

My shows

• Be a Better Podcaster
• Geek Dads Weekly
• Inside Internet Marketing
• Yet Another Weight Loss Show

Slide 10:
Clean podcasts

• QAQN
• GeekCast.fm
• Ramen Noodle
• Lifehacker (video)
• Stuff You Should Know

Explicit podcasts

• Jordan, Jesse Go!
• SModCast
• Smartest Man in the World
• Doug Loves Movies

Slide 14:
Podcast hosts and directories:

• Libsyn.com
• Blubrry.com
• PodcastAlley.com
• Podfeed.net
• Podcast.com
• PodcastDirectory.com

Slide 16:
More information about all the hardware I use can be found at QAQN.com/gear

Links from the Q&A section:

Another piece of the podcasting kit, the Compressor/Limiter/Gate. This might not be the one I get, but it’s an example of one.

The first podcast I ever did solo, Geek Dads @ Home #20 1/2

Stat tracking and analytics - Libsyn.com, Blubrry.com and Podtrac.com

Boring topics? Think you can’t do a show about:

• Accounting?
• Plumbing?
• Pet grooming? (hey, I didn’t say that all topics were easy, I just said they could be done)

Recording Skype:

• Pamela
• Audio Hijack Pro
• Ecamm Call Recorder

I’m getting started with video. BoinxTV + CamTwist + Ustream Producer = live video streaming.

Facebook/Skype and Google+ video chats – you can use any number of screen recording software to record those -Snapz Pro X, Screenflow, Camtasia.

A quick search on Twitter came up with these:

• “I’m proud to say I’ve never seen a single episode of the Jersey Shore.”
• “I’m proud to say I’ve never played any of the Pokemon games.”
• “I’m proud to say I’ve never watched Titanic.”
• “I’m proud to say, I’ve never seen one episode of Little House.”

You hear this all the time, usually about something incredibly popular, like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. When I was a teenager it was New Kids on the Block or Debbie Gibson. It’s always in the context of “you’d never catch me playing/listening to/watching that thing or that person.”

You’re celebrating your ignorance. You’re taking pride in saying that you’ve formed an opinion about something that you’ve never experienced. I’m not a Lady Gaga fan, but it’s not because I don’t like her music. I’ve never (to my knowledge) ever heard her music. I see her splashed all over the media, and covered with meat for some reason… but I would never say “I’m proud to say I’ve never heard a Lady Gaga song” because ignorance is not something to be proud of.

This little rant was inspired by Seth Godin.

Seth’s Blog: The arrogance of willful ignorance.

With the first live-action Green Lantern movie hitting theaters in less than a week, what better time to introduce a bunch of kids to the character?

About two weeks before school ended for my daughter, I sent a stack of invitations with her to pass out to her classmates. On the front was Hal Jordan, the title character of the new Green Lantern movie along with the words, “Party”, “Snacks”, “Fun” and “Games”. I thought for sure the kids would be into it, and whatta’ya’know, ten kids showed up at our house last Saturday at 2pm!

Thanks to BSM Media and Mattel, I had some excellent Green Lantern toys to give to the kids. The favorite toy – by far – was the Green Lantern Colossal Cannon Blaster. The cannon lights up and fires small, green plastic discs (not very hard!) that kids can aim at objects. You hear that, kiddos? Objects. You don’t aim it at your sister, your brother, or anyone else. They don’t fire hard, but you could put out an eye with those things. Geez, did I just say that? What am I, an old man? Sheesh.

The kids had a great time setting up stacks of paper cups and shooting the little discs at them.

In addition to the cannon, I had a Green Lantern Battle Shifters action figure to give to each kid. These 4″ figures feature transformable “constructs” that mimic the powers of the Green Lantern ring. And speaking of rings, each child took home a special light-up Green Lantern ring (perfectly sized for kid fingers, unfortunately. I didn’t get to wear one).

In addition to the toys, the company sent two things that didn’t really work for our party because of the age of the kids. For a party made up of older kids, they would have been fantastic, but our age group was 5-6 year olds. The first item was the Green Lantern: First Flight DVD (pictured), which I absolutely love. I’ve owned it since the day of release, and it’s one of my favorite comic book animated films – but it’s rated PG-13 with good reason. I couldn’t screen it at our party, so I put on some old episodes of Super Friends that featured Green Lantern (which, yes, I also own on DVD. I’m a comics geek, this is what we do). That went home with my daughter’s teacher, whose husband direly wished he could be at the party, being a comics geek himself. The other item sent was Green Lantern: Secret Origin, a hardcover collection of Green Lantern comics. It’s a wonderful story, but again, not age-appropriate for the party. If comics had movie ratings, it too would be PG-13. Eleven copies were sent in the party box – keep an eye on QAQN because with the launch of my new Waiting for Wednesday comics show, I’ll be giving them away to lucky listeners!

Thanks to BSM Media and Mattel, the kids had a great time!

The planning began months ago. Arrangements were made. Secrets were formed – and kept. The whole thing was executed flawlessly… a first for me, I think.

I’m a big fan of Rush, and only once in the past 20 years have I missed an opportunity to see them play live. Last Fall, my wife Angela and I saw them play here in Houston. It was my eighth time, it was her third. In January, I learned that the Time Machine Tour would be extended and that they’d be playing in Austin on June 12th. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I had seen them just a couple of months prior and tickets tend to be pricey (I spent over $800 on the last round, but that included a special merchandise package and seats guaranteed in the first 15 rows). So, I wasn’t too keen on spending the money to see them do the exact same show.

Until…

I had an idea that would be so much fun if I could pull it off that I couldn’t resist trying. In the middle of March I told my wife that I was going to take her on an overnight trip – just us, no kids – but that the destination and what we would do there would be a surprise. I told her that if she agreed, she’d have to request June 12 and June 13 off at work, and then I waited for the outcome. A week or two later, she got the word that she would have those two days off. On April 2nd I bought two tickets to the show in Austin.

By the way, if you want to know what the $53.50 view is at the Frank Erwin Center is, here ya go:

Pictured: money well spent. Sheesh.

We were, quite literally, five rows from the back wall. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Making all the arrangements without tipping off Angela was going to be tricky. I used some Hilton points that she had racked up to make reservations at the Doubletree adjacent to the Capitol, then had the email diverted so she wouldn’t see the receipt. My parents agreed to watch the kids overnight (little risk of them spilling the beans). I mentioned it to nobody online, never talked about it on a podcast, because things have a way of getting around, you know? When Angela asked what she should pack, I had to figure out what I could tell her without cluing her in. It worked. All of it.

Yesterday at 9:30am, we dropped the kids off at my parents’ house. We drove north on I-45 toward downtown Houston – Angela joked, wouldn’t it be funny if we were just going downtown? I kept my poker face on. She’d find out soon enough. I-45 to I-10 West. For the first half hour or so after we started heading west, she made a few weak attempts at guessing the destination. She didn’t really want to know, but she knew I put a lot of effort into the whole thing, so she wanted to play along (she told me later). I-10 to 71. This was not a route to Austin that she was familiar with – taking 290 would have been a dead giveaway early on, so I decided to go with 71 instead. It worked. Granted, had Angela made a real effort at discovering where we were going, she could have figured it out early on the drive. But she decided (she told me later) to just go with it until it was obvious and unavoidable… like, when she saw the Austin skyline.

We arrived at the Doubletree at 2pm (had a nice lunch along the way) but the room wasn’t ready yet, so we spent an hour playing chess in lobby. I won’t say who won. The room was ready at three, and we headed up to settle in, relax and figure out the plans for the evening. There was time to kill, then dinner, then the concert – or, as Angela knew it, “an event” at the Frank Erwin Center. After romantic interlude #1, we headed downstairs to ask the hotel staff if they could recommend a restaurant for dinner that was within walking distance of both the hotel and the Frank Erwin Center.

I asked the bartender in the lounge that question, and as soon as the words “Frank Erwin Center” left my mouth, he said, “Rush!” DUDE. You just ruined the surprise for my wife. Thank you EVER so much, you rat bastard. Okay, I didn’t call him a rat bastard, but I did say the first part, and he apologized profusely. She, on the other hand, was smiling and laughing and generally happy regardless, so that took the edge off. He recommended a Tex-Mex place up the road, but on the way out the door, we spotted the hotel’s dining guide. It was open to the page for P.F. Chang’s. Hey, guess where we’re going? It was a mile-and-a-half walk, which seemed more reasonable on paper than it was in practice. Black concert clothing + Austin late afternoon heat + 1.6 miles + recurring back injury = unhappy Daniel.

Well, we had a great dinner at P.F. Chang’s (I had the Dan Dan Noodles, naturally) and arranged for a cab to pick us up and take us up the very steep hill to the concert venue. There was a short wait for the doors to open, but when the show finally got started, it was utterly worth the money, the drive, the secrecy and everything else. Angela and I both had a fantastic time. The show was great; the band was awesome.

After the show, we hired a bike taxi to pedal us back to the hotel – something that neither of us had ever done before. It was awesome; we flew through the streets, weaving in and out of concert-goers and cars. Best money I spent on the whole trip, just for the novelty value! Once back at the hotel, there were some late-night snacks, then romantic interlude #2, then one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had in years.

Bliss.

This morning, we awoke around nine – the last time that happened was almost assuredly before we had kids. Breakfast at the hotel restaurant was wonderful, and regrettably, but joyfully, we headed home. I couldn’t ask for a better time. Thank you Austin, thank you Doubletree, thank you Frank Erwin Center and Rush. Thanks Mom & Dad for watching the kids. Most of all, thank you Angela for being so damn awesome.

After a period of relative inactivity (only Geek Dads Weekly has had any new episodes in over a month), I am excited to announce the relaunch of the four main QAQN shows.

Beginning with this week’s episode of Geek Dads, the next episode of each show will be numbered with a “.1″ after the episode number, marking the point that the show experienced its reboot. Each episode will lay the groundwork for the format and tone of the show going forward, making it the perfect jumping on point for new listeners. The episodes are:

• Geek Dads Weekly #81.1
• Inside Internet Marketing #16.1
• Be a Better Podcaster #4.1
• Yet Another Weight Loss Show #12.1

Along with a slate of new episodes, I’ve got a new show coming in July! Waiting for Wednesday: The Retro Comics Review Show answers the question what comic books should I read between new release Wednesdays? As a comics collector of over 25 years with a collection more than 5,000 books strong, I am confident that I can offer rock solid reviews of comics from my own personal back-issue bin. Retro reviews, news, opinions, guests – it’s going to be a good time.

Also: the new podcasting studio is just about complete with only a bit more work to do on the back wall. I’ll have pictures forthcoming; I’m very, very excited about having a dedicated space to work in. Construction should be complete by next week. Here’s an early pic of the new wall:

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to record an episode of Geek Dads Weekly on Sunday. We had intended to announce a winner of our Griffin Lightboard contest, but were unable to… we sincerely apologize.

The contest will be decided next Sunday, April 3rd. Since we’ve got a few extra days, we’ve decided to keep entries open until then. To reward those who participated before the original deadline, we will count each entry submitted before the original deadline twice. Please remember, there are many, many ways to rack up entries – check the contest details for all the info!

Again, please accept our apologies, we strive to run things on time, but sometimes… life happens.

photo credit: stevendepolo

I might end up doing a show about this down the road, but as I was running around the internet this morning, something occurred to me. I came across some articles about the disclosure of affiliate links, and how we’re supposed to disclose everything now, everywhere we are. Post an affiliate link on your site? Disclose. Tweet an affiliate link on Twitter? Disclose. Facebook? Disclose. No matter what the context, we’re supposed to disclose.

Well, let me ask you two questions, and I’m genuinely curious what you think.

First, why is it that other forms of media are not subject to such stringent rules? Television and radio are not required to disclose every single relationship they have. Movies? Product placement is the norm. There’s never been a requirement that says “If you show a product in your movie, you must disclose that you were paid to put it there.”

Second, what about situations where there’s money on the line, but it’s not an affiliate relationship? Here’s an example. Chris Pearson created the Thesis framework for WordPress. (Wanna make a guess about whether or not that link was an affiliate link?) Chris is very active on Twitter. He promotes Thesis pretty regularly. He potentially benefits from every link back to Thesis because he’s its creator! So… should Chris be required to “disclose” that he potentially makes money when people click his links? Remember, affiliate links are not guaranteed compensation – only if someone makes a purchase does an affiliate get paid. Maybe someone clicks one of Chris’ links and buys Thesis, maybe not.  I could be another example. I’m launching a podcast consulting gig. Do I need to disclose when I link to my pages that I’m going to make money if you hire me? Technically, according to the concepts and the spirit behind what we are required to do with affiliate links, Chris and I should both be disclosing on each and every link we put out there.

I’d like to know what you think about this.

photo credit: anitakhart

Due to my going-on-ten-days illness, the launch of the podcasting services here at QAQN is regrettably being pushed back to March 19th. I had hoped that this would be no more than your run-of-the-mill cold, which, for me, usually lasts about two or three days. Unfortunately, this was much more than a mere cold. My throat swelled up to the point where I was unable to eat or drink for nearly two days, and I’m just tonight starting to get back to normal thanks to a doctor visit yesterday.

Despite my throat opening up, my nasal problems persist somewhat and I’m still feeling run-down. I hope that going to bed early tonight (as I have been for the past week) will straighten things out.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be offering some free consults – what amount to practice sessions for me! – and if you have any interest in some free one-on-one with me, sign up for my newsletter and you’ll be the first to know when new times open!

It’s that time of year, folks. Take your vitamins, drink plenty of water, and get some good sleep. Be well!

What’s Usenet? The most apt modern comparison might be to forums or message boards. Usenet is a collection of ‘newsgroups’. Newsgroups are simply sections of Usenet where users can post messages (articles) according to a certain theme. In the newsgroup alt.music.rush, it’s about the band Rush. In rec.sport.tennis, the discussion is tennis and in comp.lang.php, it’s the PHP programming language. There are over 100,000 newsgroups covering almost any topic you can think of.

Here then, are five things you don’t know about Usenet.

1. It exists. Statistically, you have likely never heard of Usenet or newsgroups, or if you have, you’ve never used it. With the emergence of the World Wide Web in the early/mid-90′s, the text-based Usenet became secondary to the multimedia-based WWW. Usenet has been around since 1979.

2. It’s faster, on the whole, than the World Wide Web. When connecting to Usenet, you’re connecting to a single server. That server has all the articles available on Usenet (each server on the network has a copy of all the articles). Since you’re not bouncing from server to server all over the world, sometimes loading from dozens of servers for a single web page, the experience can be much faster.

3. It’s almost completely unmoderated. The various newsgroups are not controlled by anyone. Users make liberal use of a “kill file” to deal with spam. The kill file is easily managed in most Usenet clients and is as simple as using rules in your email program. The lack of moderation makes for discussions that are open and honest, without users having to worry about angering an overly-agressive moderator. Trust me, speaking from personal experience here, dealing with an egomaniacal, paranoid forum owner or moderator is not a fun time.

4. You are safe and anonymous. This is another benefit to only connecting to one server. Most Usenet providers do not track or log what newsgroups you read, post to, or download from. By comparison, every website you’ve ever been to has as much information about you as it can collect. With Usenet, nobody knows so much as your IP address except for your service provider.

5. Many terms you’re familiar with originated with Usenet. FAQ’s. Trolling. Flaming and flame wars. Godwin’s Law. Then there’s my favorite, and one I used to participate in back around 1992, MSTing. Even email signatures have a history in Usenet.

Interested in Usenet? You’ll need a couple of things to get started. First, a provider. I’ve been an affiliate and user of Giganews since February 2010. They’ve got plans from $4.99/month Pearl to the $29.99/month Diamond. Diamond pricing is going up to $34.99/month beginning March 31st for new sign ups, so sign up today to lock in the current lower price! I’ve got a Diamond account and it’s fantastic. It also comes with VyprVPN, a personal VPN that encrypts all your computer’s web traffic.

Next, you’ll need a client. For Mac users, it’s hard to beat Unison. On Windows, give GrabIt a shot. If you sign up with Giganews, they’ve got a client that bundles for free with their Diamond-level service. With access and a client, you’ll be ready for everything Usenet has to offer.

Back in episode #62 of Geek Dads Weekly, and again in #64, Drew and I announced a contest wherein we’d give away five books from one of our favorite publishers, Barefoot Books. This was the original announcement:

We have a new contest to announce thanks to Barefoot Books! We’d like you to call our feedback line at 281-241-QAQN and tell us two things: what your favorite book was when you were a kid, and what you think your favorite Barefoot book might be. That’s all there is to it! The winner will receive 5 free books from Barefoot.

Well… nobody called. We were so upset that we canceled the recording of the show today. Okay, maybe there was another reason. But still.

We asked around, polled a few people that we knew were aware of the contest, and we discovered that universally, everyone hates taking the time to call someone on the phone. To a person, they all said that had the contest been run a different way, we would have certainly had entries. So… here we are.

The contest has been revised! We really want to introduce Barefoot Books to people, and we’re going to take another week to run this contest right. Here are the new and improved rules.

Win 5 free books from Barefoot Books!

How to enter

You may rack up several entries – up to 9! – and each entry will be assigned a number. Everyone’s numbers will be run through random.org and a winning number will be selected.

Mandatory: leave a comment on this post telling us your favorite childhood book and what book from BarefootBooks.com you think you’d like to read with your kids (or give to someone you know with kids – the contest is open to everyone!) Remember, you’ll win five books, not just the one you tell us about here. This is worth one entry.

BONUS entries!

• Follow @QAQN, @BenSpark and @livebarefoot on Twitter. Leave a comment here with your Twitter name for verification. You’ll get one bonus entry for each follow.
• Become a fan of (“Like”) QAQN, BenSpark and Barefoot Books on Facebook. Please leave a comment here for verification. You’ll get one bonus entry for each Facebook connection.
• Call our feedback line, 281-241-QAQN and tell us your favorite childhood book and what book from BarefootBooks.com you’d like to have. Two bonus entries. Please leave a comment saying you’ve called in; it’ll make tracking the number of entries easier.
• Sign up for QAQN site updates via the email newsletter (top of the sidebar to the right). Again, please leave a comment saying you’ve signed up to make tracking the entries easier. One bonus entry.

We’ll run this contest for the rest of this week and announce a winner on the next Sunday episode of Geek Dads Weekly with Drew and I. You’ve got until 7:59pm Eastern on February 13th, 2011. Good luck!

photo credit:
renaissancechambara

The past couple of weeks have been exciting. I’ve started promoting my upcoming podcast consulting services, published several great episodes and made some appearances elsewhere around the web. Here’s a little recap of what’s been going on.

Inside Internet Marketing has been on fire, nearly overtaking Geek Dads Weekly for the number of monthly downloads. Since returning from Affiliate Summit West, I’ve published interviews with Jill Swartwout, Eric Nagel and Tricia Meyer. Each was a great guest and had some awesome stories to tell. I also published my Affiliate Summit West 2011 recap as an IIM episode.

Geek Dads Weekly has been great too, with shows covering a wide range of topics. We’ve talked recently about potty training, podcasting gear, Barefoot Books and a new contest, cyberbullying, and saving our friend’s mother.

Yet Another Weight Loss Show has seen two new episodes since the long break! Episodes four and five detail my new medical problems and how I’m dealing with them.

Elsewhere…

I recorded a podcast about podcasting with Shawn Collins for the UnGuru.me site that he runs with Jim Kukral. In it, I go over what it takes to start podcasting, what kind of gear I’ve used, and what advice I have for people that are just starting out or want to start out. You’ll need to begin a free membership at UnGuru.me to listen to this episode.

The Road to Thin project with Kevin, PJ and Drew is going well. If you’re interested in seeing how four average guys drop at least 50 pounds each and get into better shape, check us out. We post articles daily and there’s a bi-weekly podcast.

During Affiliate Summit West 2011 I was interviewed on camera for a promotional video that was just released. Watch me give a one-liner about how great Summit is, I’m right around the 36 second mark.

All in all, a great start to the new year!

I’d love to hear from you. The feedback line is always open at 281-241-QAQN (7276). Your input helps me make QAQN’s content better for you.

It’s never an easy thing when you’re dealing with a system that has little priority at a massive company. Apple does support podcasting, and they’ve got a good directory and it sure is easy to submit a new podcast… but once it’s there, it’s a pain to change. The transition from geekdadsweekly.com to qaqn.com is complete, and this is the new, permanent home of the show. The old address redirects here now (as do all the episode pages/posts, so if you’ve linked to that site, you have nothing to worry about).

So today I’m dealing with getting Geek Dads Weekly straightened out in iTunes. I’ll be posting a new episode shortly, one that we recorded last night, but for the time being, I have to ask you to listen here on the site or by downloading the mp3 file directly.

Sorry for any inconvenience, I hope to have all this worked out by the end of the day!

What a way to start the new year, huh? At least it only has to happen once!

photo credit: tillwe

It’s still a few weeks away, but there’s a silent auction happening at Affiliate Summit West 2011 that will benefit Affiliate Marketers Give Back, an organization put together by Missy Ward to support the fight against breast cancer. I have an item in that silent auction, and I would appreciate any support you are willing to lend.

The copy of Jim Kukral’s book, Attention!, that I’ve been having people sign was dropped off by FedEx yesterday, signed by Mark Cuban. Yes, that Mark Cuban – billionaire entrepreneur, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and all-around good guy. It’s my hope that having someone with as high a profile as Mr. Cuban on-board can help drive up the bids.

I’m writing this on Christmas Eve, which, for a significant portion of the populace, is a pretty major evening. Tomorrow is the Main Day, right? Tomorrow, and this time of year generally, we’re all supposed to think of others. We’re supposed to take a break from fighting, from work, and from stress. We’re supposed to feel charitable and be charitable.

I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season, and I hope that if you’re attending Affiliate Summit, that you’ll participate in the silent auction. Even if you’re not interested in the dog I’ve got in this fight, there are dozens of items up for auction and I know that you can find one that’s a fit for you. You’ll be receiving a great item and helping a great charity.

It seems that for every Cliff Huxtable (Cosby Show) we had twenty Al Bundys (Married With Children). For every Mike Brady (The Brady Bunch) or Eric Camden (7th Heaven) we had dozens of Peter Griffins (Family Guy), Ray Barones (Everybody Loves Raymond) or well, just about any father on any soap opera you can name. Dads aren’t all bumbling idiots, womanizers or misogynistic man-children. I daresay most of us aren’t – so why do most shows on TV portray us that way?

But is it really that bad out there in TV land? I haven’t watched all the shows airing these days, so maybe things have changed? The poll question for this week is:

n

We’d love to know what you think about the current state of dads in pop culture in the comments below, and if you’d like to participate in our episode next Sunday, our voicemail feedback line is always open at 281-826-2112. Please keep voicemails less than two minutes or so, and make sure you leave your name and Twitter handle or website along with your comment!

We also want to know who YOU think are the best and worst dads on TV and why. Shoot us a few names and we’ll compile them into a nice, orderly list.

I received an email from AT&T about protecting my iPhone. The pitch is a service that will cost me $4.99 a month for some unknown period of time. Forever, probably. I always just delete emails like this because I’m never interested in insurance of this type – I also turn down those extended plans at places like Best Buy whenever I buy electronics. For some reason though, something in AT&T’s email jumped out at me.

Once enrolled, if you lose or damage your phone, a replacement is shipped to you and delivered next business day in most cases.

Wait, what? If you lose your phone they’ll replace it? I thought insurance was always just about damage, I didn’t realize that loss was included. The email also says there’s a “nonrefundable deductible”, and I just had to click through to read the Terms. You can skim them for yourself; what I want to point out is in the upcoming screenshot.

So. I have my iPhone 4. Were I to lose mine, say, a year from now, I’d be out $125 for the deductible (you can’t tell me the iPhone gets the lesser of the listed deductibles) plus $60 in monthly payments. That’s better than paying a couple times that amount for a new phone, I suppose, but check this out:

Not only am I out $180, I would have to settle for a completely different phone at AT&T’s discretion. Droid? Blackberry? They could give me a Motorola Razr if they felt like it. If they did decide to give me an iPhone, it might be an iPhone 3, an iPhone 3GS, or an iPhone 4. It will almost certainly be a refurbished unit. It might be any of the models ranging from 8GB to 32GB. These Terms state that for $4.99 a month (and a hefty deductible), AT&T has the right to give you whatever phone it feels like.

What kind of insurance is that?

photo credit: patti haskins

Given that it’s a holiday week, there are some necessary changes to the recording schedules.

• The Sunday episode of Geek Dads Weekly was recorded with Drew last night and will be posted tonight.
• The Thursday episode of GDW will be skipped this week.
• Inside Internet Marketing is being given a week off.
• Yet Another Weight Loss Show will still be recorded and posted Saturday evening.

Have a great holiday, everyone!

photo credit: Hell, Etc

Notable affiliate marketing industry veteran Geno Prussakov wrote a piece for his blog, Most Influential Affiliate Summit West 2011 Speakers – Top 40. Geno took the time to look at a list of all the speakers at Affiliate Summit West 2011 (affiliate link) and compare their scores at Klout.com.

Geno’s rankings were a wee bit flawed due to a couple of oversights, but he generously went back and corrected the post and got what he thought were the final scores. Turns out, his timing couldn’t be worse because Klout updated their databases last night, causing some massive jumps for some people. My own score went from 8 to 40 (the original 8 was due to my recent username switch, which I may write about later in the week).

So, there’s your setup. Geno. Klout. List. Scores.

People talked a bit about Geno’s list on Twitter; I noticed several re-tweets and virtual high-fives over it. I also noticed a couple of people pooh-poohing the whole idea on the basis that Klout scores are worthless.

Are they? I’m not so sure.

Now, I’ll never suggest anyone turn into a stat junkie and pay real close attention to Klout or any other service that purports to have the best social media metrics evar! but are these things really worthless? There were, to my mind, many benefits that showed themselves during this whole situation.

1. Thanks to the existence of Klout, Geno got a topic to write about.
2. Geno wrote a post that got some traction as a result. Props to both Klout for having something worth writing about and to Geno for having the skill to write it.
3. The 40 people listed got an in-content link back to their site from a respected industry website.
4. Geno got some great comments, bolstering his blog entry.
5. The whole thing sparked discussion on Twitter, which is always nice.

Where’s the downside?

Even if you’re the kind of person that considers Klout worthless, I would counter with this: nobody likes to talk in a vacuum. Services like Klout can tell you, in a snapshot, how often you’re being replied to and re-tweeted. It gives you a big-picture view. Sure, you know when someone replies to you, but at the end of the month, wouldn’t it be nice to see that you were engaging your followers in such a way that x% of them were replying to x% of your tweets? Even if you only use Twitter as a social tool, there is value in that.

Maybe you don’t see the value. Just don’t assume that it doesn’t exist. You can live without spending one second looking at your Klout score. You can succeed without it. But that doesn’t mean that it has no value.

I work in an industry where people generally live and die by their site analytics. They need to know where their traffic is coming from, what keywords they’re ranking for, and who their visitors are. Yet when it comes to applying any sort of measurement to social media – Twitter in particular – there’s a backlash from some people.

Why is that?

photo credit: Xelcise

It’s Halloween! What am I doing writing a post for the site?

Truth be told, I’m not much of a “Halloween guy” – haven’t been for quite a number of years, actually. I don’t even have a costume this year (at least I dyed my hair green last year, which isn’t much of a costume, but still). I figured, before all the little kids – and some big kids – show up at my door to panhandle (what? they are) I’d whip up a quick site update.

There’s no show being recorded tonight because lots of other people are really into Halloween and I couldn’t convince them to call it off so that I could record Geek Dads Weekly. Drew and I will record a show tomorrow or Tuesday to make up for it.

I spent some time today getting the site ready for prime time – all the support pages (Contact, About, Disclosure, things like that) should be complete, barring any details I overlooked and will hopefully catch at a later time. Individual show pages are still being finalized.

I’ve also set up RSS Graffiti to bring the shows into Facebook! QAQN content will now be posted in my personal profile as well as on the QAQN fan page that I’m working on. Fun!

That’s all for today, have a great week!