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.

This episode is all about turning points. I successfully quit smoking years ago after a long period of minor successes and failures, and much like smoking, quitting eating (so to speak) is a real trial. I know that if I can apply the same principles to one, I can have success with the other, and that’s where I am right now. It’s far easier to resist temptation if you’re not tempted to begin with. I’ve reached a turning point, and even in the time between recording the show and writing these show notes, I’ve proven to myself that I’m on the right track. Moving forward. One day at a time.

Thanks for listening!

This week the show is helmed by myself and Jen Myers Ward, breaking the pattern of male dominance on the show (thankfully). We’re talking about cruises and buffets, the effects of weather on exercise routines, the Melting Pot, Girl Scout cookies, and a week-long charity project, among other things.

A few links for you this week:

• Race to Affiliate Summit East 2012
• Use chicken broth for fondue instead of oil
• Books4Boobies – support breast cancer research!
• Learn more here (AffiliateTip.com),
• and here (Books4Boobies.org),
• and here (Inside Internet Marketing with Deb Carney).

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Drew and Greg talk about one of the biggest stories in the intersection of parenting and social media this week: the father who put eight rounds into his daughter’s laptop because she wrote an expletive-filled rant about him on her Facebook page. …or did he?

We began the show with an explanation of the new recording schedule for Geek Dads Weekly and the rest of the QAQN productions. GDW is now recorded on Tuesdays at 2pm Eastern. After a couple of minutes doing that, we dived right into the headline of the week: Father Shoots Daughter’s Laptop, Posts Video on Facebook. We had quite a spirited discussion about this, with Drew coming down on the side of “I hate this video” and Greg coming down on the side of “I love this video”. I’m somewhere in the middle.

• The video that sparked the whole conflagration.
• Tommy Jordan’s Facebook page
• Was it all a hoax?

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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In which Daniel and Drew (and later, Greg) welcome Rob Merlino to the show. Rob – The Hot Dog Man! – is on the show to talk about hamburgers and chicken–wait, what? Oh. Right. Hot dogs. The Hot Dog Man is on the show to talk about hot dogs. That makes more sense than what I was going to say.

It’s not just hot dogs though, as the three of us chat about life in the New England area, the demise of Kodak cameras (we lament the loss of the Zi8), and the ethics of companies buying other companies. Also, Affiliate Summit, Affiliate Improv, Blogworld, and camping out at the Museum of Science.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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I’m joined this week by Deborah Carney, who is on the show to talk about a new charity project to benefit Affiliate Marketers Give Back, in support of breast cancer research.

The affiliate marketing industry is known for its fundraising efforts on behalf of the Avon Walk for the Cure, which benefits breast cancer research and support. What better time of year than Valentine’s Day to show your love? This week affiliate marketers are using their book revenue to help raise money for Affiliate Marketers Give Back. Debbie shared with me the roots of the project, who is involved and what the group hopes to accomplish. I have long been a fan of Missy Ward and AMGB, so I hope that all of my listeners can spare a few minutes to look at the list of participating books and consider making a purchase or three. Prices start at only 99 cents! Check out the full list after the jump.

Purchase any of the books listed below between February 12 and 18 and the authors will donate their profits to AMGB. Although many of the books focus on business, affiliate marketing, and blogging, you will also find children’s books, photography books, and more.

Join us in helping spread the word about Affiliate Marketers Give Back and this Book Hop for the Boobies!

Books About Business:

Internet Marketing From the Real Experts (Shawn Collins, Missy Ward, and The Gang of 88) Collection of affiliate, email, blogging, podcasting, video, search engine, and social network rock stars that break down the how and why of Internet marketing in a clear, easy to understand way.

It’s All About the Cookies (Mary Poiley, Missy Ward, and Jen Goode) A mouth-watering collection of recipes and thought-provoking insights affiliate marketers learned on their road to success – an interesting read and a wonderful addition to your own kitchen.

Internet Marketing for Business Answers (Jim Kukral) The absolute best way to learn how to grow a successful business is to pay attention to how the experts have done it before you. Internet Marketing for Business Answers, the Small Business Expert Interviews edition puts you into a private one-on-one session with over 16 of the most successful business owners and entrepreneurs on the Web.

No Publisher Needed – Crowdfunding Your Book – How I Raised Over $30k in 30-Days To Pre-Fund My New Book (Jim Kukral) You don’t need an agent or a publisher to make your new book a success. You can use the power of the crowd to pre-fund your book and create your own virtual signing bonus. That’s what I did. I raised over $30k in 30-days for my new book series. Want to know how to do it? That’s what this book is all about.

The Basics of Affiliate Success: Running a Business (Top Secrets of Successful Affiliate Marketing) (Billy Kay) Affiliates always joke that they make money in their bathrobes, and that affiliate marketing is “easy money”! But in reality, it IS… a business. If run it like a business, it can succeed. Billy offers these business tricks and tips to help establish, grow and sustain your affiliate marketing career.

Follow Me: Making Money with Blogging, Facebook Marketing & Twitter for Business (Dave Cupples) Former NSW Young Entrepreneur of the Year, SMX Idol Winner and International Speaker Dave Cupples shares leading Social Media case studies from around the world and the most effective tools and actionable cutting edge tips for businesses to skyrocket new leads and supercharge revenue using Facebook, Twitter and Blogging. Includes Tips & Tools to incentivize Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers & Blog Subscribers, How to spy on competitors and copy their most effective tactics, Tips & Tools to get your content shared by influencers and much more!

Affiliate Marketing: The Complete Guide for Beginners (Affiliate Marketing – Mastering Internet Marketing) (Todd Farmer) This guide is designed to teach you the basics of Affiliate Marketing. I want you to understand how it works, who the players are, and how you fit in.

MyContentPro’s Cheap-Ass Guide to Online Content (Online Content for Marketers) (Todd Farmer) Content for your website or online marketing project is a critical component for success.  The goal of this eBook is to help you get the content you need, at the lowest price.  Many of the sources and strategies uncovered in this eBook provide content for your websites, 100% Free.

Best Practices for Coupon Sites (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Kim Salvino, Amy Ely, and Jeannine Crooks)

Best Practices for Creating Your Affiliate Agreement (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Eric Nagel)

Choosing the Scope and Structure of Your Blog (Deborah Carney, Tricia Meyer, Liz Fogg)

Facebook + Email = Success (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Dave Cupples and David Iwanow)

SEO for Blogs (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare, Eric Nagel, Tricia Meyer)

Children’s & Young Adult Books

W is for Woofer (Leslie Nazarian, Sharon Nazarian) A rhyming picture book with words that all begin with the letter W.

Woofer Works Out (Leslie Nazarian, Sharon Nazarian) Get kids excited to move and exercise with this illustrated rhyming book that showcases activities and sports for every season.

Winnie McGoo’s Museum Adventure (Leslie Nazarian, Sharon Nazarian) A museum can be an exciting place. Just ask Winnie McGoo. Whose adventure in a museum one night isn’t something many people do. From eating pizza with Mona Lisa to swimming on the Isle of Grande Jatte, Winnie’s museum adventure creates an interesting plot.

Block Boy (Alec Ababon) Short story about a boy that is different from the others and is bullied in school.

Animal Kingdom: Jaguar is Reborn (Eric Carney, Deborah Carney) Workaholic Jason Peters is an average sales rep with a suburban house and wife, Jennifer. One day Jason spills coffee in his car and finds a gold coin that changes their lives forever.

Inspiratonal and Photographs:
Blue Honeycreepers (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare)

Flowers With Wings (Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare)

Inspirational Quotes for Writers – Coffee Table Book (Deborah Carney)

Poetry and Peonies: Japanese Tree Peonies (Deborah Carney)

Buddha Beach: Sedona, Arizona (The Southwest Gallery Series) (Deborah Carney, Liz Fogg, Alec Ababon)

What is Inspiration? (Thoughts on Life) (Alan Loren) –  a mini-anthology of poetry drawn from the pages of a writer’s workshop called MWW (My Word Wizard).

An assortment of other books:
Bike – A Short Story (Eric Carney)

Slay the Demons (Daniel Fogg, Deborah Carney) When a random act of violence forces him to hide a  corpse, Brent Fischer finds himself confronted with horrors long forgotten and horrors he longs to forget.  In the end he must either face down his demons once and for all or let them chase him off a cliff.  Sex, Drugs & Murder

Weirder Than Marshmallows (Daniel Fogg, Deborah Carney)

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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!

Like last week, this episode of AMFC is myself, Greg Hoffman and Kevin Webster. It’s another show with us guys on our own, and we’re not exactly sure that’s a good thing. We gave it the ol’ college try anyway.

We began with talking about the girls of course, because if there’s one true thing about men, it’s that we’re just as chatty as women are made out to be. The women who join us on the show were missed. That out of the way, we covered Greg and Kevin’s medical issues: both guys have shoulder issues that they are working though. It makes things a little more difficult, but not impossible.

The main topic of conversation this time was food. Whether it’s the Shamrock Shake at McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme donuts or something far healthier (lettuce wraps, tilapia), we had a lot to say about food this time out.

Links:

• Dave Barnas
• Shari Fitness
• Pink Slime (Mechanically Separated Chicken)
• Tony Chacheres

Thanks for listening!

I was asked by my friend Jen Goode to head up the Newcomer Program for Affiliate Summit West (as I’ve mentioned here). After the details were worked out with Shawn & Missy, I set about the task of matching up first-time attendees with veteran volunteers who could show the newcomers the ropes. For my first time out, it went really well! It was shortly before the deadline for article proposals for FeedFront 17, when I thought, maybe I’ll take a break from podcasting articles and write up a little something about the Newcomer Program? It came together really well, almost effortless.

“Since 2008, the Newcomer Program has helped first-time attendees ease into the bustle of Affiliate Summit. Each show breaks an attendance record; it can be nerve-wracking for a first-timer to jump into a crowd of four or five thousand! As the new coordinator of the Summit West Newcomer Program, I’d like to present an overview of the program and an invitation to join us at the next Affiliate Summit.”

Issue 17 is available at issuu.com.

Oh, the sting of missed opportunities! This was issue 16 of FeedFront, and I had last been included in issue 14. I was going through a bit of a self-imposed social media blackout, and I completely missed the call for articles for that issue. I made sure I was on top of things after that, and submitted an idea for an article about live broadcasting to be included in issue 16. As you know (I hope!) all of my QAQN shows are broadcast live as they’re being recorded, and I thought others might like to know a bit about the hows and whys of it.

“I’ve written about podcasting in several past issues of FeedFront because it’s a subject near and dear to me. In this issue, I’m going to take you about ten steps further and give you some things to consider about live internet broadcasting! ”

Issue 16 is available at issuu.com.

In which Daniel, Drew and Greg mull over the next generation, the history of blogging, Gentlemint.com, Drew’s new recording setup, and the travesty that is the grocery store toy aisle.

Todd Farmer recently said, “at what point will kids have no idea what “caught on tape” means?” – probably now. The three of us talked about how kids will not have the same touchstones we have, especially when it comes to language. We agreed though, that phrases can take on a life of their own, beyond their literal meaning. This is one that will probably linger.

Speaking of language, the AP Style Guide has issued a decree: it’s spelled “email”. No hyphen. [Here's the thing - someone on Twitter linked to this story, and I assumed it was current. In writing the show notes, I discovered this change was made 10 months ago. Oops. What does the AP say about doing proper research for a story?]

Next, we transitioned into the history of blogging and general internet evolution. Greg keeps up with rebeccablood.net, one of the earliest blogs – and it shows. It’s an example of an old school blog, from a time some considered blogging “pure”. The layout is minimalist, which reminds me of Sam Harrelson’s new site as well as Devin Tonhaeuser’s - two old school looking sites in 2012. Minimalist. Focused on content.

Are you using Pinterest? Are you a guy? Are you wondering how your super macho, manly interests fit into the predominantly female, DIY aesthetic at Pinterest? Wonder no more, now there’s Gentlemint.com. If you have an interest in sports car shaped caskets, giant pizza tacos, motorcycles, grilling or beer, this might be right up your alley. Speaking of Pinterest, Drew brought up an interesting thing…

Drew’s got a new microphone! He’s rocking the Blue Yeti microphone, an excellent choice. His audio is 1000% better… now we just need a more reliable Skype and all his problems are solved! Several podcasters I know are using the Yeti (or its cousin, the Snowball) with great results. If you’re talking into your laptop’s internal microphone or you’re using a cheap headset (itself a better choice than the internal mic) upgrading to a Yeti is a great move.

Next, I talked briefly about buying toys at the grocery store. Overpriced? Yeah, a smidge. The branded toys – Star Wars, Marvel Superheroes, that kind of stuff, were nearly ten bucks for the little 3″ action figures. Generic action figures, without the big licensing deals, were like, a buck. Moral of the story? When your 3 year old says he wants a toy at the grocery store, just say no. Yikes.

Lastly, our friend Tricia Meyer is running a contest. Ladies, this one’s for you, and Dads (or husbands or boyfriends), this is a big chance to be a Great Guy™. Enter the drawing, then go get on Twitter and spread the word:

RT @sunshinetricia Share your mean mom story and win a gift to pamper yourself www.themeanmom.com/contest

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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I was a little more than 45 minutes late doing this episode live, because I decided not to skip it altogether after all. I was going to skip because I didn’t think I had anything to say this week. Turns out, I did. I had about a half hour’s worth of things to say, apparently!

In addition to the update on my efforts (been back on the bike, been eating better), I also talked about the role that the food industry has in keeping people fat. Specifically, keeping poor people fat. It’s not just poor people and it’s not just the food industry, I know – but there’s a pretty definitive link between how much money a person makes and how much fresh, healthful food they can afford. There’s a reason McDonald’s and no-name cheap grocery stores (where you can’t trust the quality of the meat & produce) thrive in low-income areas, after all. So… yeah. Looks like I had a topic after all. Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Drew and Greg talk about a few things revolving around Affiliate Summit in some way or another. Plus, Game of Thrones, which was saved for the end in case people want to avoid spoilers and talk of taboo subject matter.

We started with a catch-up with the guys since last week. Drew’s getting settled with the new house, the new baby and all that domestic goodness. Greg went on a comic book shop tour in the Atlanta area, visiting six shops. He used a site called Comic Shop Locator to find them, and some of the places he went to were pretty funny.

Next, an update on Affiliate Improv!, the new monthly webinar series that kicks off this Saturday, January 28th, at 2pm Eastern. It’s an extension of the three-time Affiliate Summit session that I’ve helmed, and it’s totally free to attend. We demonstrate effective brainstorming and show the process of going from idea to action list. Plus, attendees get inside info on the sites, services and techniques we use on our own sites to blow them up and attract attention. Come check us out and spread the word, won’t you?

We covered Affiliate Summit Central, coming up in May. I’ll be there, Greg will be there, Drew is on the ‘maybe’ list. The Emcee for #ASC12 was announced today  and she seems like an awesome choice. Her name is Heather Romiti. None of us know her yet, but going by her bio and the trust that Shawn & Missy have placed in her, we’re sure she’s fantastic.

One of the more popular and well received sessions at Affiliate Summit West 2012 was Mastermind Groups Exposed: Success in Affiliate Marketing by Eric Nagel, Todd Farmer and Tricia Meyer. I recently got an invitation to join a mastermind group, and thought I’d bring up mastermind groups as a segment. I didn’t realize Greg would have so much to say on the matter! (Sidebar: you know what I just realized as I was typing these show notes? All three of them are Pinnacle Award winners now that Tricia won her award at West 2012. How cool is that?)

We finished up with a discussion of Game of Thrones, the enormously popular HBO series. Tune in to hear Drew and I ramble about how awesome it is and butcher the pronunciation of a few names. Warning: the segment is full of spoilers. Also, full of talk about what makes the show so controversial – the sex and violence. That’s why we held it til the end of the show, so listeners could drop out if they felt they needed to.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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In which Daniel and Drew welcome a new co-host to the Geek Dads Pantheon of Awesomeness – Greg Hoffman.

The show notes will be completed later this evening. I apologize for the delay, but I wanted to get this thing posted before it got ridiculously late. Not that MONDAY isn’t pretty ridiculous already, I suppose. I’ll explain later.

[Update, January 21st] A quick note about the title, since we had someone asking about it who seemed put off by it. At the beginning of the show we noted that it was just us three guys and that none of the ladies that often appear on the show could make it this week. We joked that it was The All Guy Show, and that (sarcastically) nothing sells better than a fitness show hosted by a bunch of guys. The “no broads” thing was very tongue-in-cheek, as you can see by listening to the first little while of the episode. I chose “broads” because I didn’t want to be offensive since we love the women who do the show with us, yet I was going for that kind of “alpha male, we don’t need no broads around here!” kind of joke. That’s it. Just a little light humor :)

The show this week is myself, Greg Hoffman and Kevin Webster. Kevin has been a member of our private Facebook group for quite a while but is making his AMFC debut this week!

We kicked off with Kevin’s backstory – where he’s coming from, what his fitness and health goals are and what he hopes to get out of the group. Like several of us, he’s aiming for dropping about 25-30 pounds or so.

Greg brought us up to speed on his surgery rehab, I described the cycle of depression that I went through at the end of 2011, and then we moved on to the main topic of the week: Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas. The climate, the restaurant food, the illnesses, the walking… there’s a lot to talk about!

Our recommendation? You should probably skip Serendipity 3 outside of Caesar’s Palace.

We have a great discussion about alcohol in the last segment of the show. To wit, here is Greg’s recipe for a new drink called the Shawn Collins (it’s like a John Collins, which itself is like a Tom Collins):

1 1/2 oz bourbon
1 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz sugar syrup
club soda
maraschino cherry for garnish
orange slice for garnish
1 shot of Bud Light

We finished up talking about JensonUSA and their excellent selection of bikes and bicycle equipment. Go check ‘em out. (Follow-up… I actually did get on the bike after recording this episode. Woot!)

Thanks for listening!

I’m back on the bike! After a really rough holiday season followed by a week in Sin City, I thought I was doomed. But you know… I’m not. I’m really not. I’m feeling better than I have in months, I got back on the bike earlier tonight for the first time since… November maybe? and my outlook hasn’t been this good in a long time.

This episode is all about new beginnings. It’s a new year. First quarter, 2012. Let’s keep it going!

Polar RCX5

While at Affiliate Summit West 2012, I won a fantastic prize from Buy.at – a Polar wrist computer. What? It is a wrist computer! Okay, it’s a heart rate monitor, but it’s a very sophisticated monitor. I ran out of time before my ride to get it set up properly, so I’ll wear it on my next outing, but glancing at the manual it looks easy to use and packed with useful data. Thanks, Buy.at. You guys rock.

Thanks for listening, see you next week!

My guest this week is an internet marketing specialist with over 12 years of sales and marketing experience. Sarah Bundy has been a top performer for more than a dozen multimillion dollar corporations, has won multiple awards for sales and service, and has founded four companies of her own. She’s the CEO of All Inclusive Marketing (AIM) and the brand new Affiliate Management Trainers (AMT). Sarah has written for FeedFront magazine and ReveNews and she speaks at conferences such as Affiliate Management Days and the Online Marketing Summit. She also teaches at the Online Marketing Institute.

Like many of my guests, Sarah was thrown into the industry as part of a different position. She quickly started learning as much as she could “like a sponge” and worked her way into a situation of influence that afforded her the opportunity to focus on an important goal: education. Growing out of her work with AIM, her new team at Affiliate Management Trainers works to educate online retailers.

Big thanks to Sarah Bundy for coming on the show! You can follow her on Twitter and learn more about her at AIM and AMT. Sarah can also be reached by email: sarah(at)allinclusivemarketing.com

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This week is part three of a three-part series leading up to Affiliate Summit and my session, Affiliate Improv!. My guest is Mike Buechele, one of the panelists from Affiliate Improv!, and he’s here to chat about our session, Summit, and a few other things. Heading to Las Vegas for Summit? Make sure you check out Mike and me on Affiliate Improv! along with Trisha Lyn Fawver and Eric Souza.

“Four industry veterans brainstorm marketing ideas for items/services with audience participation. Ideas to actionable solutions in one fun, lively hour. Come get your creative juices flowing!”

Affiliate Improv! happens on Sunday, January 8th at 3:30pm in the Augustus V room at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. Space is limited, so get there early! This session is open to Gold, Platinum and Diamond passholders and is geared toward beginner and intermediate attendees.

Affiliate Improv! will have Office Hours on Tuesday, January 10th at 2pm in the Exhibit Hall. Exact location in the hall TBA.

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In which Daniel and Drew welcome Sam Harrelson back to the show for our New Year’s Special. Topics include spotty resolutions, video games, social media, Shoemoney, affiliate marketing and more.

My new New Year’s resolution is to not agonize over the show notes. Rather than many paragraphs of overview, I’m going to break it down for you more simply. Let’s go!

New Year’s resolutions? Drew and Sam don’t do ‘em. Me? I’m resolving to have fewer paper cuts, listen to more Tom Waits music, and start smoking. Everyone resolves to quit, but I’m a rebel. I go against the grain.

Video games – we talked about the new Godfather multiplayer game from Kabam!,Unreal Tournament, Skylanders, Skyrim, and the granddaddy of all the modern resource allocation games, Utopia.

We talked about social media, Facebook and the “freemium” business model, which Sam wrote about just the other day.

And Shoemoney! Did you hear? Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker called me “the best podcaster in the affiliate marketing business and a great interviewer”. Now that’s what I call a compliment. The guys and I knocked around some thoughts about Jeremy and his upcoming appearance at Affiliate Summit (less than a week away as I write this!).

If you haven’t heard it yet, check out Jeremy’s 75-minute interview on Inside Internet Marketing #39.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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My guest this time is Jeremy Schoemaker, known throughout the industry as Shoemoney. Never one to shy from any topic, Jeremy is on the show to give a follow-up to the PMA discussion, dish on Fast Company and personalities in the internet marketing space, and offer up his personal philosophy: sharing experiences.

Jeremy also talked about how he got his start online, how the Shoemoney blog came together, and how he became the brand that he is today. As the closing keynote of Affiliate Summit coming up in January, he is sure to entertain and offer something to think about. Going to Summit? Do not miss that keynote. Trust me.

If you don’t know Shoemoney you’ll get to know him over the course of 75 packed minutes. When you’re done, connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and at Shoemoney.com where Jeremy shares more of his experiences.

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My guest this time is Sam Harrelson, longtime blogger and affiliate marketer, and recent nominee of an Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award! Sam’s up for Best Blogger at Affiliate Summit West 2012.

Sam and I talked about a range of industry topics, including:

• The de-evolution of forums and the evolution of social media
• The democratization of industry resources
• Twitter vs. Facebook vs. LinkedIn
• His beginnings in the industry
• CPA vs. CPS – can they be brought together? Are they really that different?
• The Amazon or “Ad Tax” and forthcoming Federal laws
• The PMA and the unionization of the industry
• Labels! Performance? Affiliate? Mobile? CPA, CPS, PPC – how many little kingdoms do we need?

Most importantly perhaps, we debated the effectiveness of business cards vs. apps for contact info transfer.

You can find Sam at his industry blog, PayPerTrends and on Twitter.

Thanks for listening!

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In which Daniel and Drew talk about a forgotten anniversary, the Affiliate Summit Newcomer Program, holiday decoration deals and 2012 being the best year ever for movies.

We started with yes, the anniversary I forgot. Oh, not my wedding anniversary, no. Today is the third anniversary of Geek Dads – the third anniversary of my very first podcast experience. Everything that I am today in my podcasting career stems from that first episode of Geek Dads three years ago today.

And I completely forgot about it until it was too late to plan anything to mark the occasion. I suck.

After that bit of happiness, I mentioned that the Affiliate Summit Newcomer Program closes tomorrow, December 23rd. If you’re interested in participating, please sign up by the end of the day tomorrow so I can make the final matches over the weekend.

Drew brought up late Christmas shopping next. Not shopping for presents, shopping for his tree. Yep, he left it a little on the late side on this one! That led into a nice discussion about finding great post-Christmas deals on decorations.

Our main segment this week covers the movies coming up in 2012 that we’re looking forward to (provided we’re not all dead). We had a great talk about movies and television from the 80′s to today and how things have improved significantly over the last 25 years.

Lastly, the winner of our last giveaway was Christopher Sorel, congratulations! We have another copy of the Green Lantern: Secret Origin hardcover to give out, so enter! The winner will be notified next Thursday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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This week on AMFC it’s myself, Jennifer Myers Ward and Wade Tonkin. We’re talking about food addiction, using a personal trainer in local gyms, and cooking at home with various recipes, sauces and soups.

My challenge in the upcoming week is to get off of diet soda. Yep, that means ditching my hate-that-I-love-it Diet Dr. Pepper. The plan is to get my caffeine from coffee and to drink more water – carbonated water, with a splash of lemon or other citrus.

Jennifer’s challenge this week is to change up her daily routine so that she can’t justify skipping her workouts in the wake of holiday planning.

Wade’s challenge will be to properly journal his food intake this week and examine his findings.

We also talked a bit about Affiliate Summit, Las Vegas and working from home vs. going to work in an office.

Thanks for listening!

This week is part two of a three-part series leading up to Affiliate Summit and my session, Affiliate Improv!. My guest is Trisha Lyn Fawver, one of the panelists from Affiliate Improv!, and she’s here to chat about our session, Summit, and a few other things. She’s number 37! (Insert Kevin Smith joke here)

“Four industry veterans brainstorm marketing ideas for items/services with audience participation. Ideas to actionable solutions in one fun, lively hour. Come get your creative juices flowing!”

Affiliate Improv! happens on Sunday, January 8th at 3:30pm in the Augustus V room at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. Space is limited, so get there early! This session is open to Gold, Platinum and Diamond passholders and is geared toward beginner and intermediate attendees.

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On this week’s episode is myself, Jennifer Myers Ward and Wade Tonkin. We’re talking about Affiliate Summit and how to stay on track in Las Vegas, Wade’s boot camp experiences and the possibility of food addiction for a group member.

Thanks for listening!

Title says it all. Nothing good this week. It’s a very short episode and I’m investigating the possibility that I have an actual food addiction. I explain my thoughts about that during the episode, but it boils down to the fact that I can’t always stop myself from eating. Sounds like an addiction to me. I’ll have an update about that next week.

Thanks for listening.

This week is part one of a three-part series leading up to Affiliate Summit and my session, Affiliate Improv!. My guest is Eric Souza, one of the panelists from Affiliate Improv!, and he’s here to chat about our session, Summit, and a few other things in his own… unique… way.

“Four industry veterans brainstorm marketing ideas for items/services with audience participation. Ideas to actionable solutions in one fun, lively hour. Come get your creative juices flowing!”

Affiliate Improv! happens on Sunday, January 8th at 3:30pm in the Augustus V room at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. Space is limited, so get there early! This session is open to Gold, Platinum and Diamond passholders and is geared toward beginner and intermediate attendees.

Affiliate Improv! will have Office Hours on Tuesday, January 10th at 2pm in the Exhibit Hall. Exact location in the hall TBA.

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In which Daniel and Drew tackle such heavy topics as cello-based Star Wars videos, joke thievery, Louis CK and a Green Lantern contest.

Right off the bat, check this out:

Awesome, right? We also mentioned Lindsey Stirling and the Barely Political series during this opening segment.

Did you know that The Gutters is a site of lousy joke thieves? It’s true. Someone clearly heard our Emo Wolverine show and decided to do a web comic featuring Emo Wolverine! Thieves! It’s true, as far as you know.

Speaking of noted joke thieves, we were reminded of where that phrase came from. I haven’t kept up with Sarcastic Voyage (or most other podcasts) much this year, but Aalgar and Matt continue to put out a stellar show, according to Drew. Drew was featured on this year’s ClusterFlonk event, so he might be biased, but I’ll let it slide. Keep up the good work, gents!

Next – Louis CK. This guy is my new comedic hero. The story behind his latest comedy special is inspiring. I won’t rehash it here (I do that on the show) but click on through to his site and read up on it. It’s a great lesson for content creators, affiliate marketers – anyone who wants to sell anything online, really.

Lastly, we have a new contest. I’ve got a bunch of Green Lantern hardcovers to give away, and we’ll start with two. I can’t promise delivery by Christmas, but hey, it’s a free hardcover. Call it your New Years’ present if you want. Now, here’s the catch. Well, it’s not really a catch, it’s a request. I’m trying to secure a sponsor for other really awesome contests and I want to show them that QAQN and Geek Dads Weekly knows how to throw a contest. Get your friends to participate! Tweet it! Facebook it! Throw it up on LinkedIn, if you think anyone there would notice! Put it on Google+ if you know anyone who’s actually using it! Join in the fun! Details below!

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

In which Daniel and Drew get a late start, don’t do the show live, and have to deal with Ian wandering into the studio. Turned out to be a pretty good show nonetheless. 

It’s the legacy of Geek Dads, whether it’s @ Home or Weekly. We drop the kids in front of the TV for 45 minutes to do a podcast and they invariably get bored and decide to see what we’re up to. That’s probably a good thing, I guess.

This week we’re talking about Drew’s new baby boy and how he’s affecting his family. We also covered Marvel Super Hero Squad Online and classic video games (like Baldur’s Gate, Bard’s Tale and others). I explained how I deal without cable TV – between Hulu, Netflix and various network sites, I’m pretty much okay. Catching live sports is a problem, but I’m not much of a sports guy, so that’s okay.

Drew mentioned that he’s doing even more giveaways, despite Swagsgiving being over and done with!

We wrapped with a segment about DC Comics’ commitment to their New 52 project. I don’t think they’re in it for the long haul.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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In this episode we’re talking about exercise balls, treadmill desks and the great outdoors. Also, the real effects of food on the body and the cost of going green and healthy.

On the show this week:

• Daniel M. Clark
• Jared Saunders
• Jennifer Myers Ward
• Shawn Collins

Thanks for listening!

See? I told you I would be back on track. There’s no change this week as I clocked in at 235, but like I said on the show, I consider that somewhat of a win. If I’m not down, at least I’m not up. In this episode I talk about how holidays and weather have been affecting my exercise and diet and what I can do about that. Also, my pocket queens get busted by ace-six in the most improbable way.

Thanks for listening!

In this episode I break down and explain why this show has been so sporadic for the past couple of months. I promised at the beginning of the series that I would share my ups and my downs with you, and I reneged on that promise recently. I am turning that around now.

Thanks for listening!

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!

In which Daniel and Drew welcome Eric Nagel to the show to talk about his epic Christmas lights display. Also, Drew and his wife just added another human being to the planet and we mourn the loss of a Geek Dad. Still great, just different.

The show is divided into three segments this week, the first of which features Eric Nagel. Eric has just debuted his annual Christmas display at his home and is here to tell us all about how it came about, what it takes to plan something is this magnitude and how popular it has become. The event (and it really is more like an event) has its own Facebook page and you can see more pictures and video over there. Here’s one to whet your whistle.

Next, Drew and I announced that long-time Geek Dad, the only other remaining founder of the show, has taken his leave. Joe Magennis and I, along with Sam Harrelson, started Geek Dads almost three years ago. We celebrated our 100th show a few weeks ago. He’s been a rock, and he’ll be missed as he begins a new business venture. Joe’s welcome back anytime, and I hope he’ll jump on an episode periodically to catch us up on what’s going on with him and his family.

Out with the old, in with the new? Drew talked about his new baby, a boy by the name of Andrew Bennett IV: The Quest for Peace. Or Andrew Bennett IV: The Dream Master. I’m not sure which cheesy 80′s movie title to go with. Perhaps Andrew Bennett IV: The Revenge. Everyone is doing well, the baby is great, and I’m looking forward to more pictures. Also – Drew’s got more Swagsgiving goodness going on at BenSpark.com.

We wrapped up with a bit of talk about the new-ish direction of the show. We’ll be intersecting the paths of geeks and of dads a lot more in coming shows. We’ll have topics ranging from video games, comic books and TV to kid-oriented stuff like… well, video games, comic books and TV. But lots of other cool stuff, too (like biking, movies, making fun of celebrities and acting like we’re above all that, books, technology, social media…). If it’s geeky and we’re interested in it, we’ll cover it. Stay tuned. It’s going to be awesomesauce. Not lamesauce. That’s what the kids today say, right? Awesomesauce?

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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The Affiliate Summit West 2012 Gold Pass Giveaway!

We’ve got FIVE Gold passes to giveaway, valued at $549 each! If you’re thinking of hitting Summit in January, we’ve got your hookup. Follow the instructions in the widget below!

Daniel, Jared and Jennifer are on the show this week with a Thanksgiving recap, the effects of short bursts of exercise, muscle memory and developing patterns & habits. Two new challenges have been issued, and we’re getting closer to our first milestone, January’s Affiliate Summit West.

We started with our Thanksgiving recap, in which Jared described a fairly large swing in his weight. He got lazy for a week but undid the damage in just a couple of days, which is pretty awesome.

I referenced a Cracked.com article about running. For a comedy site, it’s rather insightful and educational. Brockway is right – it’s not an all or nothing scenario.

Mixing it up, keeping the exercise fresh to use different muscles and not let the body get into a rut, that’s important. Even biking a different route can help, as Jared explains. He also recommends joining a riding group locally to find people to ride with. I get nervous riding on fast roads, and going with a group, Jared says, can help with that.

We got off on a bit of a tangent about Florida but managed to bring it back around. Just watch out for the giant mutant roaches – I mean, Palmetto bugs.

Developing patterns and habits, learning to schedule things… that can be a great aid to getting in shape. Jennifer and Jared schooled me pretty hard (as I’m writing this, I’m working off of a daily schedule I wrote up this morning, and it’s working!).

The challenge this week – get everyone on the show next week! Also, Jennifer wrote up a great ten-minute challenge in our private Facebook group that we will all use. Next week, we will all check in with our starting weight, current weight and goal weight, as we close in on our first milestone. Affiliate Summit West is only five weeks away!

Lastly, check out Shari’s YouTube channel for inspiration on exercises.

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel and Drew welcome the Affiliate Marketing Fanatics to show, talk about divorce, Facebook, the Rocky Horror Picture Show and a video game. None of which have anything to do with the other, sadly. Also, Emo Wolverine.

Our guests today were Mike Buechele and Trisha Lyn Fawver from the Affiliate Marketing Fanatics podcast, a great show you can find over at GeekCast.fm. This episode is the first of a two-part crossover, Law & Order -style. I play Detective Munch in this scenario. When this episode finished, Drew and I headed over to their place to sit on their guest couch and talk affiliate marketing. (Their episode hasn’t been posted yet – I’ll put up a link when it is)

We opened with a story of a divorcing couple who have been ordered by a judge to disclose their Facebook passwords to each other. This could have grave ramifications down the road. The story came to us by way of ZDNet.

To satisfy Tricia Meyer’s insatiable need to know more about my history in stockings, I told the story of my time performing in the Rocky Horror Picture Show about 20ish years ago. It was a Friday/Saturday midnight show performance with the actors performing in front of the movie on-screen. I played all the roles at one time or another except for Magenta. Yes, I wore the costumes. Yes, I was smokin’ hot. No, there are no pictures… that I’m aware of.

And from one extreme to another, we wrapped up with a brief segment about a very family friendly video game, Marvel’s Super Hero Squad Online game. The kids, especially Ian, have really been loving this game. It’s not seriously violent, there is quite a lot of well-written comedy, and I highly recommend it for small kids that have an interest in super heroes. Wolverine doesn’t cut anything up in this game (not in the way he does in the comics at least), which led to an interesting note to end the show on. Emo Wolverine. I’m not going to spoil it. Go listen to Mike’s joke about Emo Wolverine (pick it up starting at about 30:41).

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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This week the D is joined by three J’s as we cover the ins and outs of high fructose corn syrup in our homes, asptertame in our drinks and cream & sugar in our coffee. Plus, raccoons. Scary raccoons.

This week on the show it was myself, Jill Swartout, Jennifer Myers Ward and Jamie Perez.

We had quite a lot to say! We went over the results of last week’s challenge to find high fructose corn syrup in our pantries and refrigerators, with varying degrees of success. Happily, I only found six things! And of those six, I’m only eating two while the other four are for other people in the house, pretty much. Of the two, I can easily get non-HFCS replacements, which is great.

We also talked a lot about cooking for our kids. We’ve all come up with clever ways to get our kids to eat well (better than some of the kids’ parents in some cases). How they eat now will affect how they eat later, and we’re also trying to set good examples for them.

It was said on The Biggest Loser recently that if you eliminate 2 teaspoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of cream from your daily coffee, you can drop ten pounds in a year. We had a great conversation about exactly what that means.

And… I told the raccoon story. It wasn’t pretty. <sigh>

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Joe and Drew celebrate the first 100 episodes of Geek Dads Weekly!

You know how sometimes you have a birthday and it’s a giant, no-holds-barred, massive blowout of epic proportions, but sometimes you just stay home and hang out with a few friends, kinda low-key? This anniversary show was the latter.

We talked a little about the history of the show – a few minutes about where we came from and how we got to where we are now. There was a little bit about politics… oh, don’t worry, we don’t get political on this show. We were mostly just lamenting the whole sad state of politics all around.

Drew gave us a big rundown of his Swagsgiving event, and we covered our planetary near-death experience with an asteroid (and noted that there will be an even nearer-death experience in less than 20 years’ time).

Birthday parties, the fall of Joe Paterno and we gave away a Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2012! We’ll have more of those to give away in coming weeks.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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It’s the biggest show yet as seven(!) team members join in for a lively discussion of health and fitness. The gauntlet has been thrown. High fructose corn syrup is going down, baby. And we’ve got three new members!

We had a packed house for this episode! Joining in today were:

• Me, Daniel M. Clark
• Shawn Collins
• Jared Saunders
• Jamie Perez
• Jennifer Myers Ward
• Jill Swartout
• and Shari “Shari Fitness” Friedman

(I have to be honest – I thought with so many people scheduled to join in that it would be a mess of people talking over each other, but it was nearly perfect. I couldn’t ask for a smoother group of people for a show). We each gave updates since our last appearances on the show and the newcomers (Jennifer, Jill and Shari) gave us a rundown of why they’re in the group and what they hope to accomplish.

We had a great conversation about high fructose corn syrup which led to this week’s Challenge Master challenge (a new feature on the show). We will all spend the week after this show looking at the labels of everything we eat and noting which items have HFCS in them. We will use these lists after next week’s show to cut down our HFCS intake by half.

We also covered the Race to Affiliate Summit West 2012 DailyMile challenge to benefit the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer that Shawn set up. Participate by joining DailyMile!

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Joe and Drew talk about video game systems, Gmail’s new look & feel, managing giveaways & contests and Zac Brown. Hang on, who’s Zac Brown? Oh, and I’m going to start betting on sports.

We started with a mention of next week’s milestone episode #100! Be sure to hit QAQN.com at 1pm Eastern next Thursday to listen live and get your shot at winning an Affiliate Summit West 2012 GOLD Pass (valued at $549!). We’ve got six to hand out to listeners, so you won’t want to miss that. We’ll have some other stuff, too. Also, a special guest will be joining us, one of the original Geek Dads, Sam Harrelson!

Drew told us about a game he’s been into lately, Skylanders. Sounds great, and a true cross-platform experience. That led us into a segment about which video game system to get for a family with young kids. X-Box? PlayStation? Wii? We decided on X-Box with a Kinect. Drew brought up a great kids game, Once Upon a Monster as well as Kinectimals.

Gmail has a new look and feel, and we spent a few minutes checking that out and offering some commentary. Some users will probably be put off by it, but some users always are.

Drew gave us a rundown on his Swagsgiving event, currently in progress. GO WIN STUFF. He’s giving away some really awesome things in the month of November, you should take a few minutes and go see what he’s got. He makes videos for each thing. In one of them, he sings.

Rafflecopter is a new system for managing contests, and Drew’s using it. I’ve just been accepted as a Beta user, too. It looks great and I’m looking forward to running more contests!

For Halloween, Drew was Zac Brown. I, of course, have to ask the big question: who the hell is Zac Brown? Turns out, it’s this rather famous guy…

Zac Brown. Famous guy. Note: no pink microphone.

…who doesn’t look completely unlike this other not-famous guy…

Zac Brown's beard-brother, Drew Bennett. Not-famous guy. Probably because of the pink microphone.

We finished up with a story about a winning sports bet on the Cardinals winning. The bettor spent $500 and won $375,000. I explained how.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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After a little time off I’m back with an episode of YAWLS in which I talk about a slight backslide on the scale, tracking my intake and my excellent new bike courtesy of my super-cool new sponsor, JensonUSA.

October wasn’t a stellar month for me, fitness-wise, but I seem to be back on track. The problem, I think, was that I stopped tracking my food intake. I had been using the Livestrong app for my iPhone to track, but fell out of the habit. I’m back on track because in the past week that I’ve started tracking again, I’ve dropped almost two pounds. Apps like this make it super-easy to see exactly what you’re doing and when, which makes it super-easy to determine what things to avoid and when.

Next, I talked about JensonUSA, my great new sponsor. They gave me a bike to ride, and it’s amazing. Way better than the beat-up old mountain bike that I had been riding. In this segment, I explained why and how I got the bike and what I’m doing with it. It’s amazing the things you learn when you’ve got a great bike under you. It’s also amazing what you learn when you put a bike together by yourself for the first time and make adjustments to the fit of it.

Next week – 228!

Thanks for listening!

AMFC is powered this week by myself, Wade Tonkin and Greg Hoffman.

Wade was vexed by having to choose from the items on the menu from a BBQ restaurant at the behest of his company. He decided to go with the blackened salmon, which prompted a discussion about what exactly “blackened” means. Honestly, I had no idea. Also: seafood restaurants and how to navigate them.

I talked at length about the new bike that I have and how it makes a significant difference in the quality of my exercise. I explained how I got the bike, where it came from and why I have it. It wasn’t a “hey, I think I’ll buy a bike” situation; the bike was given to me by JensonUSA in exchange for blogging my experiences with it. More about that on Yet Another Weight Loss Show #25.

Greg is recovering from his successful shoulder surgery and we gave him props for handling the whole situation really well. While some people would simply give up, feel sorry for themselves and start two-fisting junk food, Greg is restless, eager to get back to work and only using one hand for the junk food – while still balancing that with some normal food choices. The medication has been a little rough, though.

All three of us have seen a weight loss over the past week. None of us had a giant drop, but were all in the range of 1-3 pounds or so. Down is down though, and we’ll count our successes where we find them!

Follow us on Twitter: Daniel M. Clark • Wade Tonkin • Greg Hoffman

Next week – more with the AMFC crew; tune in at QAQN.com at Noon (Eastern) to find out who will be on the show and what we’ve been up to. Interact with us as we do the show live by using the hashtag #qaqn on Twitter.

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Drew and Joe talk about Halloween, Pinterest, Pixar movies and the debacle that was Klout this week. Also: more information about the big 100th episode coming up!

We started with a little history and lead-up to the big milestone episode #100. There will be freebies! Live listeners will have an opportunity to score a free Gold pass to Affiliate Summit West 2012 (six of those will be given away) as well as some graphic novels and other cool stuff. We will also have a special guest joining us - Sam Harrelson, one of the original Geek Dads!

Halloween is coming up in a couple of days, Drew has an amusing story about costumes for his pregnant wife and daughter. His wife got some ideas for Halloween party decorations and DIY things at Pinterest.com, which led us into a big discussion about this new site. We all agree it’s pretty cool and has a lot of potential – though it does seem to be overrun by crafters and DIYers right now (not that that’s a bad thing).

We headed next into somewhat familiar territory with a discussion about social media – specifically the following of people on Google+ and Twitter. I’m beginning to sense a pattern… I think I’m getting burned out on social.

Klout had a big shakeup this week, with some people seeing their scores drop by as much as 20 points. We had quite a large discussion about Klout (for the second week in a row!) – is Klout a fad? Does anyone take it seriously? Should anyone take it seriously? There was a report of a social media consultant who lost clients after his score dropped; should people be reliant on the whims of a company like this?

Drew is finally caught up on Flickr! He was behind in posting his Photo-a-Day to Flickr (it has been going to other services) but he’s all caught up now. Go check out his sets!

Next up, Homestar Runner! We reminisced about Homestar, a site we were all fans of in years past. Where are they now? The site was last updated on December 22, 2010, over ten months ago. Will they ever be back with new ‘toons?

We had a great discussion of Pixar and their commitment to quality. They’re not a company to throw a bunch of things to the wall to see what sticks, they take their time and make sure that each project is a good one. Given that they make movies largely for kids, that’s something that we, as dads, really appreciate.

Lastly, congratulations to Joe’s parents on their 50th Anniversary! That’s a wonderful achievement! We wrapped up with a discussion about old 8mm recordings and transferring them to a digital format.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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My guest this week is Jen Goode, my partner in the management of the Affiliate Summit Newcomer Program. Jen had been managing the program for both Summits each year but needed to focus on her art business in January, so I was tapped to handle the program at that event. In this episode, Jen and I team up to explain exactly what the Newcomer Program is, who is invited, and what participants can expect.

To sign up – either as a newcomer or as a veteran volunteer – please visit the Affiliate Summit Newcomer Program sign-up page.

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Hosted this time by Daniel M. Clark, Jared Saunders and Wade Tonkin.

This week on AMFC we welcome Wade Tonkin to the team. Wade is our heaviest participant and clocks in at 330 pounds. His short term goal is to drop 20 pounds by Affiliate Summit West in January, and long term, to drop about 100 pounds to end up around 220-240. Jared and I agreed that Wade is going to be the man to beat in this competition. Just watch… he’s going to destroy us all.

It can be tougher for someone who is fit and with only 15 or 20 pounds to lose to drop the weight than for someone who is 100+ pounds overweight to drop that same 15 or 20 pounds. Jared has the answers as to why that is.

Also in this episode, a fit man’s quest to get fat (and then get fit again), my awesome new bike from JensonUSA, and how to eat fried food in a responsible way.

Wade provided us with a fantastic explanation of Weight Watchers, as well. With so many diet organizations out there it can be hard to keep track of them all. Which ones work on point systems? Which ones do you have to buy food from? Wade set the record straight.

All this and more – thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Drew and Joe talk about girls vs. boys, DC vs. Marvel, grown-up humans vs. a corn maze, and husbands vs. wives (with the new iPhone 4s as the weapon of choice). Also, Klout.

Recorded October 20th, 2011.

We started with me sounding like death incarnate and the lament that the kids were probably to blame.

Episode #100 is coming up! We’ve got a confirmed guest (and working on others) and we’ll have giveaways! The big ticket items for the giveaways are SIX Gold passes to Affiliate Summit West 2012, coming up in January. For the comics geeks I’ve got a bunch of Green Lantern hardcovers to give away. ONLY live listeners will be able to get in on the giveaways, so be sure to hit QAQN.com at 1pm Eastern, November 10th to join in.

Eva’s school does a Dad’s Night in order to accommodate fathers that work during the day and can’t make it to events that take place while they’re at work. While there are exceptions of course, it’s a great effort by the school to get both parents included in their kids’ education. They got to do crafts and interact with the kids in the school environment, which is great.

Drew and I talked next about the segregation of boys and girls and why it’s wildly inappropriate in many cases. This ties into how PR companies treat mom bloggers and dad bloggers very, very differently.

Next up – The Avengers! This is shaping up to be the biggest movie of 2012, certainly the biggest movie ever based on a comic book. If you haven’t watched the trailer, you don’t know what you’re missing. Go check it out! We also covered upcoming Marvel movies and the differences between DC and Marvel in both animation and live action movies. (DC crushes Marvel in animation, Marvel pwns DC in live action).

Have you ever gotten lost in a corn maze? These folks did, and we laughed at them. What? It was funny.

I gave the guys an update about the My Little Pony show that we talked about last week. My wife and kids have all watched it, and they give the thumbs-up (especially – no surprise – my 6-year-old daughter).

Klout is next. We’re not convinced it super-useful, and the topics it assigns to users are truly bizarre. Who influences who? And what is influence anyway? Nobody really knows! What are we influential about? For me, it’s affiliate marketing, internet marketing, social media, New Mexico and Gary Johnson. Will someone please tell me who the heck Gary Johnson is? I really have no idea, and Klout gives me no context. I haven’t lived in New Mexico for the past two years, and I don’t interact with anyone in New Mexico any more than people from anywhere else. Drew and Joe have similar oddities. Klout’s weird, man.

Some Klout competitors include Empire Avenue, Kred, PeopleBrowsr and PeerIndex.

I sometimes feel like social media is starting to get stale. Do you feel that way at all? We talk about it. It seems to ebb and flow for all of us. We talk about the use of Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Google+.

Drew’s got some complaints about another Google product: Picassa. The company made some changes that make using it a lot more of a hassle.

We wrapped up with a story about a suspecting husband and his (allegedly) cheating wife being “caught” using the Find My Friends feature on the new iPhone 4s. It raised some privacy concerns. Should it have?

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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This week I’m welcoming two guests to the show, Eric Nagel and Kevin Webster. The topic is analytics, the measuring and analyzing of web traffic, and these two guys are extremely knowledgable. You will learn a lot from this episode, guaranteed.

Eric Nagel is an award-winning blogger and a six-year veteran affiliate marketer. He is an expert in SEO, analytics and tracking, programming and marketing. His blog at EricNagel.com is one of the most well-regarded sites in the space for the teaching of web tactics. Eric is @EricNagel on Twitter.

Kevin Webster is a master of affiliate marketing, web analytics and search engine optimization. In addition to consumers, Kevin is an expert in the B2B aspect of analytics and his blog at KevinWebster.us is a low-frills, get-down-to-business treasure trove of knowledge. Kevin is @levelanalytics on Twitter.

Open your note-taking program of choice or grab an old-fashioned pen and paper because you’ll want to take notes on this episode. Honestly, these guys are talking on a level so far above my own that I can’t do them justice here in the show notes – which isn’t to say I won’t try.

We kicked of the show with introductions and an explanation of why I sounded like Redd Foxx gargling molten asphalt.

Eric dived into the analytics discussion with the idea that more traffic does not equal more revenue, unless you’re running an AdSense site, which can operate a little differently.

Google Analytics is the big package that gets the most attention, but what about hosted solutions like StatCounter and pMetrics? Kevin and Eric got into the differences and the pros and cons between Google and the hosted services. There was a great discussion about Piwik here. Piwik feels a little different than Google but does many of the same things – including eCommerce and conversion tracking – and it has an API.

It’s one thing to get an analytics package set up, but it’s vital to sit down and learn to really use it to its full potential. Kevin warned against “data puking“, which really can’t be stressed enough. If you’re looking at a spreadsheet full of numbers without context, it’s almost worthless.

Eric made a great prediction about the future of analytics as compared to SEO at about the 19 minute mark. He believes that we’ll start seeing services for analytics implementation and interpretation the way we see that kind of service for search engine optimization.

Are you interested in real time Google Analytics? You will definitely want to hear the next segment, where Kevin and Eric walk users through the basics of getting it set up and running it. Kevin is also a Woopra user for real-time tracking.

Google recently made some changes to the type of data that it provides, right on the heels of announcing a paid version of Analytics. No longer will free users get keyword data if it was generated by a logged-in Google searcher. Kevin and Eric went over this is good detail.

Eric brought up a great point, that you should ideally be tracking visitors in three stages. How did they get to your site? What are they doing while they’re on your site? What are they doing when they leave your site (and where are they going)?

Lastly, make sure you are examining your data weekly. Make sure someone internally owns the account and knows how to use it. And thanks to Eric for plugging the Affiliate Summit Newcomer Program at the end of the show! It’s a great program for newcomers and veterans alike, so from Eric and I both, go sign up!

Great thanks to Eric and Kevin for coming on the show and blowing my mind with a lot of this stuff!

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Five folks from the affiliate marketing industry have banded together for this episode of a brand new show! Come join us as we talk about fitness, weight loss and our own successes and failures in the quest for a healthy, fit lifestyle.

I’m super excited to introduce a new QAQN podcast! This one is a big team effort, springing out of a Facebook group dedicated to dropping some weight and getting into better shape. The group is called Affiliate Marketers Fitness Challenge (yes, just like the podcast) and this show serves as the public face of a private group. There are eight of us in the group and each show will feature some combination of members, depending on everyone’s schedule. This time, it’s myself, Shawn Collins (Affiliate Summit), Greg Hoffman (Greg Hoffman Consulting), Jared Saunders (JensonUSA) and Jamie Perez (JensonUSA).

Our inaugural effort details who we are, what our goals are for weight loss and fitness, and what challenges we’re going to face reaching our goals. We’re entering into a social contract and we’ll use that to hold ourselves accountable to each other. None of us wants to be the one to show up and report failure, which can be a good motivator.

In a case of terrible timing, I was sick when this scheduled recording came up, so I don’t quite sound like myself. Sorry about that!

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Drew and Joe talk about… My Little Pony. Seriously. I know, I know. Also, combining Facebook and Spotify, upgrading to iOS 5 and all the headaches it caused, Shoemoney vs. the PMA and a bunch of other fun stuff.

The first thing I had to bring up was My Little Pony. You see, there’s an interesting situation happening right now where grown men are watching the new My Little Pony series, Friendship is Magic. They call themselves bronies. Drew’s take on this trend is interesting, and he provided a few helpful links:

http://bronies.com/

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic

http://equestriadaily.com

Next up, Joe and I talked about Spotify and Facebook music. I love me some Spotify and I went into great detail about the hows and whys of the service as well as the Facebook aspect of it. The published playlists that I mentioned in the show are these:

(Me) Instrumentals While I Work

(Me) Awesome 80′s Metal

(Me) Your New Favorite Playlist

(Missy Ward) TheMusicIListenToEveryday

We’re dealing, with varying degrees of success, with upgrading our devices to iOS 5. It seems like this one has been more plagued with issues than past updates. We also beg the question… what else can you put in a phone?

Lastly, the story behind the Inside Internet Marketing episode, Shoemoney and the PMA. I tell the story of how that came to be, what my role was, and what I learned from the experience. It was very educational.

Drew knows a guy named Scott who is writing a book about Daddy/Daughter dates, which is very cool.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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It’s a fun little episode this time, though perhaps a little less coherent than I usually try to be. I was a little loopy. Weight-wise, not a tremendous change from the week before, but a little change – and a little [positive] change is a better than none at all.

Recorded Thursday, October 13th.

Thanks for listening!

Joining me this week is someone I met for the first time at Affiliate Summit East 2011. I knew right away that I’d like to have him on as a guest. Eric Schwarzer has a pretty extraordinary mind; he is an idea guy, smart as a whip, sharp as a tack, clever as a… um… something that’s clever (unlike me right now, apparently). Listen as Eric deftly turns the interview around, this guy should be doing his own shows.

Eric “From Canada” first got into affiliate marketing about five years ago or so, and found that it really fits well for his family and lifestyle. We talked a lot about working from home, traveling on business and Las Vegas. While we were talking about Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, Eric mentioned Defcon, which also happens there. We really jumped into an in-depth discussion about computer security, passwords protection and the future of everything. How secure are the companies we work with?

One of Eric’s great projects right now is 8-10 minute site reviews. For only $5 via Fiverr.com, Eric will review a page (or several pages) from your sites and offer his critiques. He did it for this site and my newsletter sign-ups doubled. No lie. Doubled, just by taking his advice and moving my sign-up form to a better place on the page. Go check out Eric’s SEO and site design reviews, it’s absolutely worth [more than] a fiver.

Also of note is the Beta version of CBHUD, an upcoming ClickBank insights tool. Go sign up!

Follow Eric on Twitter and at his site, AllSpun.com.

Recorded October 6, 2011.

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After a week without a bicycle – my main form of exercise – and some pretty poor eating choices, I was feeling pretty blah. So much so that I forgot to weigh in because I was so far out of “weight loss mode”. All was not lost, however, as I explain on the show.

I really feel like I’ve turned a corner in my weight loss efforts, especially today – Saturday – as I’m posting this. I said on the show Thursday night that I wasn’t sure what my weight was but that it was probably about the same as last week (about 229 or so). I weighed in this morning, just about 36 hours after that recording, and tipped the scale at 228. Thursday morning was very likely 229, as I thought it might have been. Awesome! That means that my analysis of my new metabolism is pretty spot-on, I think. Next week, after a week of great biking and menu choices, I fully expect to be down to 226 or lower.

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Joe and Drew talk about the death of an icon, updates from the kids and the genesis of the Shoemoney/PMA episode of Inside Internet Marketing.

We began this week with a discussion about Steve Jobs‘ impact and the legacy he left. It was not my most shining moment. 56 is just too damn young for anyone.

Next up, Drew’s daughter’s birthday celebration is in full swing, with cupcakes and crowns at school. There’s a local artist’s collaborative that has a kids’ birthday party area. For Eva’s party, princess-themed sock monkeys! And more cupcakes.

There was a big discussion about peanuts in school. Where did all these kids with peanut allergies come from? We don’t remember it being like this when we were kids. Schools all have different rules about how peanut products can be brought in for lunch, and Joe’s daughter’s school says that if you bring in a peanut butter sandwich, you have to sit at a table away from all the other kids in the cafeteria.

Last Tuesday was National Night Out, which we participated in. My wife and kids and I headed to the neighborhood park met a few neighbors (including everyone from the homeowners’ association and the mayor of our town, who lives near us). Unsurprisingly, Joe and Drew had never heard of this event. Neither had I, though my wife swears she’s known about it forever. You’d think after ten years of marriage, she would have dragged me to at least one of them by now…

One of Joe’s neighbors is missing a cat. You will not believe the lengths to which they are going to get it back. Listen to this segment and tell me you’re not thinking of joining the search.

The episode of Inside Internet Marketing that pitted Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker against the Performance Marketing Association is the most downloaded episode of any show I’ve ever produced. It was an insightful show and if you’ve not yet checked it out, you should! Here, I explained how that episode came to be and how it was produced.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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Last week I was contacted about providing a platform for Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker and the Performance Marketing Association to have a discussion in the wake of some recent comments. I couldn’t be happier to have as my guests today: Jeremy Schoemaker, Rebecca Madigan and Peter Bordes. I know you’ll find this educational as Jeremy asks some tough questions and gets some great answers.

The formation of the Performance Marketing Association was not without bumps in the road. Jeremy began at the beginning, asking Rebecca and Peter to explain the involvement of Anik Singal, the nature of the organization and how the membership levels affect the direction of the organization.

Trust is a key factor in the success or failure of an organization like the PMA. How much data does the PMA collect and what does it do with that data? Is that data kept confidential or is it sold or given to third parties?

Much time was spent on the nature of the “Amazon tax” or “Affiliate Tax” and how many people it has affected – and in what ways. Jeremy asked some very pointed questions about what the PMA has been doing about the state and national tax issues and how the PMA has been funded.

Rebecca explained what paid roles exist within the PMA and noted that most of the positions are staffed purely by volunteers. She and Peter also answered Jeremy’s concerns about how the board is elected and whether or not a seat on the board can be bought. There were also concerns about the people making up the board not having enough direct experience as affiliates, which Rebecca spoke about.

The most enlightening part of the episode was, for me, the discussion about the overall value of affiliate marketing to companies like Amazon. The insights that Jeremy shared were eye-opening.

You really don’t want to miss this episode, folks. If you have any stake in the affiliate marketing industry, you need to hear this open, frank discussion.

–

Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker is one of the most successful internet marketers of our time. He has proven his skills online in the PPC community, time and again in affiliate marketing, and is legendary for his $133,000 Google AdSense check. Whether its his blog or any of his companies ShoeMoney has proven that he has the dedication, drive, and at times the audacity to get the job done.

Rebecca Madigan, executive director of the Performance Marketing Association. Since leading the formation of the PMA in 2008, Rebecca has built the PMA to be the only trade association representing performance and affiliate marketing. She has collected 25 years of leadership experience in product management and marketing. She has had the pleasure of working with many very talented people in pioneering industries such as wireless data, voice-over-IP, wireless LAN, Bluetooth, and online affiliate marketing.

Peter Bordes is the founder and executive chairman of MediaTrust and is on the board of directors of the PMA, of which he is also a Founding Charter Member. He has been involved in technology and affiliate marketing since the early days of the industry and is a frequent speaker at events such as ad:tech, PubCon, AffCon, and more.

Big thanks to my guests for the fantastic show today!

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I’m the lightest I’ve been since June, 2011. I’m feeling good. Really good. In this episode, all the reasons I was able to drop 3 pounds between last week’s show and today.

Thanks for listening!

I have the honor of welcoming one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever met tot he show this week. If you haven’t met her yet, there’s a piece missing from your life. Hyperbole? Possibly – but you really should get to know Kim Ann Curtin.

My guest this week is well known as The Wall Street Coach and The Miracle Worker. She’s been called a trust agent, engaging & powerful, and a catalyst for possibility. Drew Bennett and I talked about her behind her back on a recent episode of Geek Dads Weekly and I’m thrilled to have her here with me on the show.

Kim gave me the low-down on who she is, where she comes from and her unique and inspiring points of view. She related to me a story that she told at Affiliate Summit East about one of the best ways to get over nerves when meeting new people, and stressed the importance of creativity in the success of a business. I can’t tell you enough what a great guest Kim was, you just have to listen. You’ll be glad you did.

Kim can be found at the aforementioned Wall Street Coach site as well as The Coach Shoppe and on Twitter.

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Media hosts vs. web hosts, what you should look out for when hooking up with a web host and how to painlessly switch hosts when necessary.

Don’t be fooled by web hosts that offer you unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage. While it’s true that you’ll get both of those, you will still be restricted in other ways that can get a popular podcaster’s account shut down. Don’t let that happen to you.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel and Drew get fired up about the Kindle, give updates on the state of the comics wall, and talk a lot about toys – some of which were for the kids.

The big tech news this week was the announcement of the Kindle Fire, the new tablet that is… well, it’s a… it’s really good for… oh, it’ll totally kill the… hm. Having a hard time with this. There’s a lot to say about the Fire, but the big question seems to be: is there a place in the market for it or will it fall by the wayside like every other 7″ Android tablet so far?

We moved into the realm of comics next. Without Joe to temper us, we get geeky, but you know, it’s right there in the name of the show: Geek Dads Weekly, so we’re allowed sometimes. I gave an update on the status of the shelves that I built for my collection and also talked in detail about the software that I use to catalog all my comics: Comic Collector by Collectorz.com.

Drew had a really big update after his trip to New York for the 2011 Time to Play Holiday Showcase event, which he attended along with fellow dad bloggers Adam Cohen, Chris Lewis, Josh Becker and Mitch from GayNYCDad.com. His really big update story can be found in more detail and with way better links than I can come up with on my own, at BenSpark.com. Go check it out, I’ll be here when you get back.

We wrapped up with some talk about getting free wi-fi in fast food restaurants, getting free swag at conferences (and how to get the best stuff while making the best personal connections) and Drew has a question about teaching kids how to ride a bike. If you have any tips or tricks when it comes to riding bikes, hit us up by email or on Twitter (me or Drew). We’d love to hear your suggestions.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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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.

I weighed in at the same number as last week, which I’ll call a small victory. It beats one alternative – I could have gained. I didn’t have a good week, though, overall.

It was a downer of a week, actually. I’m feeling very, very stressed for a lot of reasons that I won’t into here or on the show. Suffice to say, I’m not in a very happy place in my head at the moment. Oh, it’ll all work out – I’m very confident of that – but that doesn’t make the process any easier. I made some very bad food choices this week, and I haven’t been sleeping well at all. All these stressors added up make for a bummed-out Daniel. It’s a mercifully short episode this time.

Thanks for listening. Next week? Better. It’ll be better.

Joining me this week is Karen Garcia, a long-time member of the affiliate marketing community. Did you know she’s a physicist???

Karen, a co-founder of GTO Management, is an award winning outsourced program manager. She’s a 12 year veteran of affiliate marketing and is a frequent speaker at industry events like the Performance Marketing Expo and Affiliate Summit. She’s been published in FeedFront magazine, and is a major supporter of Affiliate Marketers Give Back, the wonderful breast cancer awareness organization.

I find it’s best to begin at the beginning, so I asked Karen how she got her start in affiliate marketing. I was floored when she told me that she has a science background and is a physicist. Karen and I talked about why she’s hopeful about the industry, what drives her and the symbolism behind the GTO Management name and logo.

Every year at Affiliate Summit West, GTO Management puts on, with partners Things From Another World and BowlingShirt.com, a midnight bowling event. Proceeds from the event go to Affiliate Marketers Give Back! If you’ll be joining us in Vegas in January, Karen & company will be putting on the bowling night once again, and I’ll be there. We’d love to see you there. Once I have details to share I’ll pass them along!

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In which Daniel, Drew and Joe talk about child chefs, the Netflix drama, and the idea that not every kid has to be a winner.

After Darren Rowse mentioned it on Twitter, I discovered Junior Masterchef, an Australian cooking competition for children aged 8 to 12 years. It’s brilliant. I described it on the show and opened up the discussion to cooking-related topics. When is a kid old enough to start cooking with a parent? How might that affect kids who are picky eaters – would helping cook make them more likely to try new things?

That led into the idea that not every kid can come in first place. More and more we’re seeing situations where parents are insisting on everyone being a winner and eliminating the concept of losing. None of us are on board with that.

Drew went to a wedding last weekend and his daughter was a flower girl. You’ve got to hear Drew describe how she charmed the crowd, she was adorable.

Everyone is all abuzz about Netflix this week, and we’ve got some theories about it. Netflix isn’t the only company that has its users in an uproar – Facebook is at it again! While you’re listening, check out this cartoon from The Oatmeal that describes the Facebook phenomenon.

Drew wrapped us up with an iPad app called Bobo Explores Light and I followed with a demo of The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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It’s a normal-length show this week as I cover the basics of using Skype to bring in a guest or co-host for a show.

I began with an announcement: on Thursday, November 10th at 4pm I will be hosting a live webinar presented by Affiliate Summit. The title is Podcasting for Affiliates: Using Audio to Drive Sales. Sign-up isn’t available yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as it is.

Skype is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to voice communication. It’s used by podcasters far and wide, and while it has its share of issues, it’s generally very reliable and the quality is generally very high. In this episode, I run down the basic options for using Skype in a hardware configuration and a software configuration on both Mac and PC.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

It was a good week, full of exercise and weight loss. There’s not much more I could ask for. Or is there?

In this episode, recorded late last night, I describe how I’ve been riding my bike in the early evenings more and more over the past few weeks, culminating in 31 miles last week alone. Let’s see if I can do 40 this week. I also tell a story that might make me look like a jerk, but you know you have thoughts like these too, sometimes. We’re only human, after all.

Next week? Two more pounds! Here we go!

Thanks for listening!

In what turned out to be a much longer episode than I had planned, I covered the proper mounting of microphone booms and two exceptional soundboard programs for getting music into a show.

One of the best things you can do to make your show sound more professional and engaging is to use music and sound to good effect. In this episode I describe two programs that are used to queue up and play audio clips for your show. With the click of the mouse or push of a hotkey, you can trigger your show’s opening music, advertisements or sound effects. If you ever wanted to know how to get music into a podcast, this is what you’re looking for.

I’ve been trying to keep episodes down to about ten minutes with one topic, but this one ran very long and I was six minutes in before I started the segment about the soundboards. Which format do you prefer? Would you rather I plan the shows and stick to one topic in ten minutes? Or would you rather I cover more than one thing and let it run 30-40 minutes? Contact information is just below, please let me know!

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

Liz Gazer has been involved with affiliate marketing since about 2004. She’s the driving force behind Growthspurt Media, an Affiliate Program Management and consulting business. She has been nominated for awards in her position as an affiliate manager, and is a regular attendee and speaker at industry events like Affiliate Summit and CJU.

Liz and I got started with a bit of history; we began with where she hails from, how she got into affiliate marketing and what kinds of things she’s done in the industry. It was pretty soon into the interview that I touched on one of Liz’s big passions: ethics.

Liz believes, as do I, that in order for our industry to move forward in a positive, meaningful way, that ethics needs to be addressed at all levels: from the affiliate to the merchant to the networks and agencies. She also has some great insight about what it means to be able to call your competitors friends, as she is able to do.

You can learn more about Liz Gazer at Growthspurt Media and follow her on Twitter.

Big thanks to Liz for coming on the show today!

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In which Daniel and Joe discuss “bad” television for kids, throwing away your kids’ stuff and accepting jobs outside of your comfort zone. Oh, and the nearly complete destruction of major studio equipment. Good times.

Earlier this week I took my first job designing a website for a client. Design work is something that I’ve been doing for myself for many years, but I’ve never done it for anyone else. Last week I was contacted by Greg Hoffman, who asked me to take a crack at redoing his site, Greg Hoffman Consulting. I took that job and he was very happy with the way it turned out, so I couldn’t be happier myself.

My awesome microphone, the one I love so much, very nearly ended up on the floor. The clamp that was holding the boom arm to the table loosened and disconnected, causing a pretty major situation. Thankfully I was able to get it all together – and later in the day, after the recording, I checked the mail and found that my desk mount had been delivered. Oh, if I’d only checked the mail before the show…

Joe and I were both profiled on the Dad of Divas site. That’s a great site and we strongly recommend checking it out. You can read my interview and Joe’s interview.

School is going well for our girls. They’ve both got boys that they’re a little smitten with. We talked about packing lunches, getting them dressed and off to school on time, and dealing with the weather.

Joe and I discuss the pros and cons of getting rid of their stuff. Do you just surreptitiously bag things up and hope they don’t notice? Do you convince them to donate some old toys to charities? We’ve tried both. Right about at this time, my son Ian showed up and talked about how he’s been potty training. It’s… amusing.

We wrapped up with some talk about kids’ television. We reaffirmed our hatred of Calliou and lamented the recent “study” that “showed” that SpongeBob Squarepants will make you… what, stupid? He’ll melt kids’ brains? Couple of years ago, SpongeBob was supposedly making kids gay. So… now… apparently, SpongeBob Squarepants will turn your perfectly normal child into a idiotic gay kid.

Yeah, we don’t buy it, either.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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I don’t know what it is, but I’m not feeling quite right. The show went well, I perked up after a few minutes, and it’s great that I’m down a few pounds since the last episode, but… for some reason I’m just not feeling quite right.

I’m sure it will pass. Probably I just need a good night’s sleep or something. More likely, I just need to avoid Facebook and Twitter because there’s a lot of things going on right now that are, frankly, depressing me. The risk of course, is that when I’m feeling down, I start to overeat. But I’m trying, despite how I feel. I’m really trying.

And isn’t that the whole point?

Thanks for listening.

In which Daniel, Joe and Drew cover the new school year, rant about advertising to girls vs. boys, and romanticize the immortal mix tape. Oh, and something about sweaty balls.

It’s that time of year again – school is starting all over the country. Mine started about two weeks ago, Joe’s started recently, and Drew’s is starting up soon. It’s a particularly notable time for all of us because our kids are young. When they’re teens, we’re not going to think twice about the first day of school except to thank god that they’re out of the freakin’ house for 8 hours a day again FINALLY. But for now, with all of our kids either in pre-school, kindergarten or first grade, it’s bit of a sentimental time. We covered a lot of ground related to school: the classrooms, the lunches, the school stores, and carrying milk back to the classroom.

Next up, advertising to girls vs. advertising to boys. Drew and I have stories about companies contacting us to promote their products, but only if we focus on boys. Hey, our daughters might like that stuff, too!

Borders is closing all over the place, and I gave a rundown of everything that I was able to pick up for a heck of a price. If you’ve got a Borders near you and it’s closing, you’ve got to get in there and see what they have. You could save upwards of 80%.

How many of you grew up in the era of the cassette tape? How many of you used to make mix tapes for yourself, your friends, or that special girl/boy in class that you really liked? All three of us were mix tape fans, you’ll want to hear the stories if you were, too.

Lastly, Ben & Jerry’s has a new flavor. You’ve probably heard about it, but if not… let’s just say that I hope it doesn’t really taste like… well…

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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If this episode is about having quality show notes for a podcast, I guess I’d better make sure the show notes for it are good!

Now, okay, maybe that title is a little link-baity. But I chose it because statistically, it’s probably true. I’m not going to name names other than myself – I have to admit that despite knowing what makes show notes effective, I’m too often too lazy to do them properly. What is the right way to do show notes? Although it varies by the needs of the podcaster, there are some general guidelines that should be followed.

First, text. Generally, two to five paragraphs of good, keyword-rich text are a great start. Second, links. Again, generally, two to five links to related resources when appropriate. If you need more links than that, that’s fine, but be careful that you’re not overloading to the detriment of your search engine rankings. Lastly, give your visitors a reason to listen to your show. If you write so much text in your show notes that listening becomes pointless, well, you’re just a blogger, aren’t you? I explain the hows and whys behind these three concepts on the podcast today. Thanks for listening!

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel and Drew talk about getting mellow with the neighbors, rude hurricanes, and comics. Without Joe to restrain us, we went nuts with the comics.

Drew has some… interesting… neighbors. Apparently, they smoke so much weed that it permeates the neighborhood. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. This revelation follows the landing of Hurricane Irene, which affected Drew and his surrounding area. It could have been much, much worse, but things are definitely a little worse for wear up there right now.

We spent the bulk of the show this time talking about comics. Sorry, all you non-comics geeks. This week was a huge week for the industry as DC Comics rebooted their entire line of comics with a new universe, new takes on old characters and a new perspective. But is that perspective really all that new? Drew and I hashed out everything from the contents of the story of Justice League #1 to the backdoors that DC left open to the old universe, to the pricing strategy of the books. I should have started a comics podcast by now… I could go on for hours about this stuff. Hope you like it.

Due to the odd time of day and the last-minute scheduling of the recording, we didn’t do this one live. Next week we’re back on the live schedule, which you can see on the QAQN Live! page.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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In the fourth installment of the Affiliate Summit recaps, I’m joined by Wade Tonkin of Fanatics.com.

Wade has been to 13 Affiliate Summits and has a wealth of experience to draw from when he gives his recap of Summit East ’11. We touched on Wil Reynolds’ excellent keynote address, Eric Nagel’s whiteboarding sessions and other panels. Those session videos are available for Gold pass holders and above and should be ready in the next couple of weeks.

An emphasis on mobile was a big takeaway for Wade this time and we wrapped up with a recap of our Vegan Smackdown evening and how that connected to the purpose and vibe of Summit itself.

You may have noticed that I skipped from episode #20 to #28. I had previously been publishing “Short Shots” and special editions with their own numbering, but that was goofy. It was clunky and confusing for many of you, and it would have only gotten worse over time. I decided to merge all the numbering from here on out.

Thanks for listening! Interested in being a guest on Inside Internet Marketing or know someone that might be? Shoot me an email and let me know!

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Two ways to promote one company. Which should you choose?

I promote Audible.com fairly heavily at the moment. I run a very short ad at the beginning of all my QAQN shows and I have a large graphic in a very prominent position on the home page. Many podcasters like to promote Audible because the service is a natural fit for almost any podcaster regardless of topic: if someone likes to listen to a podcast, the reasoning goes, they are very likely to enjoy listening to an audiobook.

It makes sense then, for podcasters to investigate a relationship with Audible, but… what kind of relationship? That’s what this episode aims to answer. There are at least two separate programs for podcasters to join to promote Audible, and I’m here to explain the differences between the two. Should you take a $15 commission per trial signup or $17.50 for every 1,000 downloads of your show? Listen up to hear my thoughts on it.

Thanks to listener Jim Beeghley of Teaching the Civil War with Technology for calling in the question about promoting Audible this week! For his efforts, Jim has earned himself a free hour of consulting with me – congratulations, Jim!

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

My guest this time is Jill Swartwout of Girly Checks and the Carousel Checks family. She offered her unique insights and thoughts about the Meet Market, the power of working the floor, and why she wears pink.

Branding is important. I’ve got my Kangol hat that I’m recognized for, and Jill Swartwout is all about the color pink at these events. Pink plays an especially important role this time, as Girly Checks – along with TicketSizzle – sponsored the Saturday night buy.at party: buy.at’s Give Back Event. For every person that wore pink to the party, each sponsor donated $2 to Affiliate Marketers Give Back, the excellent charity championed by Summit co-founder Missy Ward.

Jill shared the results of the party along with her thoughts on Affiliate Summit, the Hilton hotel and the quality of swag.

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Another in the series of Affiliate Summit East 2011 recaps, my guest this time is Jeannine Crooks. A veteran of Summit, Jeannine is with buy.at and shared her ASE11 experiences from that perspective.

We were plagued by a Skype echo issue (not that you’ll notice), but Jeannine stuck it out and we ended up with a great episode. Her point of view is upbeat and positive, and if you’re looking for reasons to attend future shows, look no further. She’s a big fan of the exhibition hall and Meet Market, and the value that they provide to affiliates and networks like buy.at. We also covered a bit of Summit history and our own personal stories over the years.

You heard it here first: Shawn Collins in the chat room during the show mentioned that there might be another Affiliate Summit show in between West and East next year! How great would that be?!

Thanks for listening!

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I’m back after an extended time away from the microphone due to family and business travel. It looks like I’m in worse shape than before, but things are not always what they seem.

My last show was on August 4th, exactly 21 days from the recording of this episode. In that time, I went to Idaho Falls for a vacation and family event (a wedding) and to New York City for Affiliate Summit East 2011. Now, I know that in my last episode I reported a weight of 232 pounds. And yes, I see that I typed 237 up there in the title, making it look like I gained five pounds in three weeks – and technically, that’s true. In this episode I go over all the ways I failed to keep from creeping up a little and all the ways I succeeded (big time) in making sure that it wasn’t any worse than that. I cover the trip to Affiliate Summit in detail.

The best thing about this episode isn’t even in the recording, though. The best thing is that (due to time constraints) I’m posting this episode on Saturday night, August 27th, two days after it was recorded. In that time, I’ve already worked off about two pounds. That’s just a lot of junk weight from New York City coming off, but it illustrates the point that eating on the road doesn’t have to be the end of the line for diet/fitness/lifestyle change efforts. I’ve been back on the bike for the past three days since returning home, and have eaten dramatically better, and it’s already paying off.

Follow my biking progress on DailyMile.com, if you’re so inclined.

Thanks for listening!

Affiliate Summit East 2011 is but a memory, and my guest, Eric Souza, is here to share some of his.

I met Eric Souza in the Blogger Lounge on Sunday, the first official day of Summit. We had some good conversations (he’s intent on figuring out what the letters QAQN could stand for). Yesterday I took to Twitter to ask who would like to come on the show with me, and Eric was the first to respond.

Eric and I covered some great ground in just under twenty minutes, from the food to the sessions to the networking opportunities and more.

Coming up in episode 19, a recap with Jeannine Crooks of buy.at and in episode 20, the always awesome Jill Swartwout shares her thoughts about the Meet Market and her Summit experiences.

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In which Daniel and Drew attempt to recover from Affiliate Summit East 2011, make sense of it all, and tell you all about it.

This show was recorded live on Mixlr. To participate in the next recording, keep an eye on the show schedule at QAQN Live! and the QAQN Twitter stream.

Drew and I were all about Affiliate Summit East 2011 this time, with a rundown of the event. If you’re interested in the quality of the sessions, the food or the incredible networking opportunities, we’ll cover all that. We also had a lengthy discussion about Kim Ann Curtin behind her back. Shh. Don’t tell her.

We had a great time with this episode, and had some excellent interaction with the live chat room. We’re really loving the live format, and we hope you are, too!

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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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!

I welcomed my first guest for this series tonight, Vinny O’Hare. Vinny is a friend of mine in the affiliate marketing industry, and he’s on the right track to shed some pounds and get in better shape.

Vinny is not a fat guy. Like most of us, he’s packing some extra pounds though, and he’s on the same path I am – better fitness, better weight management, healthier lifestyle. Over the course of 40 minutes we covered a wide range of topics from fast food to fad diets, morning shakes and smoothies – even giving up chicken after watching a slaughterhouse video. We talked about exercise – indoor and outdoor – and the importance of water. Also: dealing with caffeine, sugar and late-night ice cream binges.

We’re both on the right track, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. Will Vinny hit 200 before I do? We might find out in a couple of months. It’s not a race, it’s a journey.

I’m glad you’re here to witness the journey. Thanks for listening, and thanks for coming on the show tonight, Vinny!

Helpful links:

• Vinny on Twitter
• Vinny O’Hare .com
• Vinny From Booklyn .com
• The Small Change Diet (book)

This week I’m all about the cookies, plus a rundown of the Affiliate Summit sessions I recommend and podcast consulting in-person at Summit.

The big news this week is the release of the new book by Missy Ward and Mary Poiley (and contributors), It’s All About the Cookies: Affiliate Marketers’ Recipes for Yummy Deserts and Success. It’s over a hundred pages, it’s full of awesome recipes (including one of mine!) and it’s illustrated by the very talented Jen Goode. Want some reasons to buy this book right now? Here’s five:

• All proceeds benefit Affiliate Marketers Give Back to fight the good fight against breast cancer.
• The price is $19.99, very reasonable for a quality cookbook/business book.
• Rock solid business advice from 90 affiliate marketers, affiliate managers and network & agency folks.
• Rock solid deserts… no, wait. That’s not good. Really great deserts from that gang of 90, too.
• How about a free pass to Affiliate Summit West 2012?!

For a limited time (before August 31st, 2011) pick up a copy of It’s All About the Cookies and redeem the coupon inside for a free Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas. How awesome is that? Seriously. Buy it. Now, please. Go on, I’ll wait.

Got it? Okay, let’s move on.

Next up on the show, the day-by-day, hour-by-hour breakdown of sessions that I recommend checking out at Affiliate Summit East 2011 coming up in a couple of weeks. Not surprisingly, I strongly recommend Affiliate Improv! on Monday afternoon at 2pm. You know, ’cause it’s my session and all. No biggie. It’s just really awesome, that’s all.

Lastly, a call for podcasters. If you’re interested in working one-on-one with me for an hour during Summit, I’m booking consultations while we’re there. Skype is great, and I love consulting people from all over the place, but in-person is fantastic. If you’re up for it, head over to the consulting page and shoot me a message. Or, heck with it, just send me an email. That’s my direct email there. I’d love to hear from you. Oh, and if you make an appointment with me and want to bring a friend to split the cost with? Totally cool. I’ll consult two for the price of one.

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A comparison of Mixlr and other streaming services, using background music and working alone. Good show this week!

Using background music in your podcast or live broadcast can be very beneficial. I went over a few of the reasons why and mentioned my favorite place for getting free “podsafe” music, Music Alley.

Next, a comparison of Mixlr.com, Spreaker.com and Ustream. Which to use for audio-only streaming? (Hint: look at QAQN Live and see which player is embedded in the page).

Lastly, how working alone can affect your podcasting schedule. There are a lot of great reasons for working alone, but it can be a tough road sometimes.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel flies solo, Superman gets his big reveal, and Obama turns 50. None of which have anything to do with the others, but wouldn’t it be cool if they were all three related?

It’s a bit of an abbreviated show this week as Joe Magennis is on maternity leave and Drew Bennett is on assignment in the Middle East. That’s the story I’m going with for the show notes, anyway.

I read over at Comic Book Fury that the first official image from the new Superman movie was revealed, and it’s a good one. I did a few minutes about comics history.

Today is President Obama’s birthday, so that got a mention.

And… yeah. Like I said, short show. I had a good time. I hope you like it.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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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.

As I close in on Affiliate Summit East 2011, I go over a few techniques I’ll be employing to keep myself on the right track while I’m out of town.

This episode was broadcast live. Check out QAQN Live! for show schedules and live chat.

So, right off the bat, yeah, I know according to the title up there, I’m up a pound since last week… and I said on the show that I was down a pound. There’s a perfectly good explanation for that: I didn’t check last week’s number before pressing Record. Okay, more than that, I actually did tip the scale at 235 earlier this week, but I brought it back down to 234 this morning, so when I say I’m down, that’s what I was thinking of. I’m not down since last week, but I halted a short climb. Whew. Podcasting is hard.

Eating out can be difficult when you’re trying to watch your caloric intake. My plan for New York has two parts: eating out and eating in. For eating out, I’m planning on going to the 53rd Street Gourmet Deli, just outside the Hilton on 53rd. Fresh, lean meat and good bread will be the standard order – nothing too fatty, no mayo, maybe a little cheese. A New York deli sandwich, that’s where it’s at. I can do that for most of my meals, I think. I’ve got some other ideas that I go over on the show, too.

For eating in, I’m planning on bringing a few things with me. I’m loving these Cascadian Farms Vanilla Chip Granola Bars for a quick pick me up in the morning. I’m bringing two boxes with me. I’m also bringing some Crystal Light to keep up with my water intake (I’m not a fan of plain water – yet). Things that can be packed easily are the key here.

Thanks for listening!

If you produce a live show, are you a podcaster? Or are you more?

I’m not so sure. Now that I’m doing all my QAQN shows live, I’ve started thinking about what I am. Am I still a podcaster? If a podcast is a non-streamed webcast, as defined by Wikipedia (a definition I agree with) then clearly doing my shows live isn’t podcasting. The shows are still available as podcasts after the fact – as evidenced by this very thing you’re reading right now. But am I a podcaster just because I release a show as a podcast that had been recorded live?

I’d love your opinion about this. Please head to the comments and chime in!

On the second segment, I decided to tie the show into today’s QAQN Live: Affiliate Summit Day after all – I wasn’t going to because I’d been planning on talking about the podcaster vs. broadcaster label topic, but I thought I’d throw a few things out there related to Summit anyway. Specifically, how I’m going to be producing shows while at Affiliate Summit East 2011 – I may not be bringing my full recording rig this time. Can an iPad and a Tascam DR-07 cut it? I just might find out.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel, Joe and Drew give away $2,200 worth of passes to Affiliate Summit, talk about Captain America and Chevy Camaros. This was quite possibly the most American show we’ve ever done. Pass the apple pie.

This episode was broadcast live. Check out QAQN Live! for show schedules and live chat.

The Pets.com talking puppet that opened the show.

This is one of my favorite episodes ever, I have to say. I’ve been having a blast doing the live shows, and with a good-sized crowd listening and participating in the chat, it’s just awesome. Today we covered a lot of ground:

• We gave away four Gold Passes to Affiliate Summit to live listeners!
• We covered the new Captain America movie, which Drew says is just great. I’ve yet to see it, but I did watch the post-Captain America trailer for The Avengers on YouTube.
• Drew was given a Bitchin’ Camaro (look it up) to drive for about a week. He connected with Rob, the HotDogMan, and the story here is pretty entertaining.
• Poker! And the benefits of living near Atlantic City or Las Vegas. If I ever have ten grand to spend, I’ll play the World Series, for sure.
• Huggies is running a campaign to help parents afford diapers for their babies.
• All About the Cookies is available NOW! For a limited time, support Affiliate Marketers Give Back and receive a free Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2012. It’s $19.99 for a great cause and a fantastic freebie in return.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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Affiliate Summit East is right around the corner and here you’ll find information about the conference, the venue, the parties and more.

This episode was broadcast live. Check out QAQN Live! for show schedules and live chat.

Rather than type up everything again, I’m going to give you the outline that I created prior to recording. This is far more detailed than I usually get with my prep, but I had a lot of things I wanted to cover and I definitely needed a bullet list to make sure I did. I strayed a bit from the outline so this isn’t completely a replacement for listening to the show ;) Here you go:

What is Affiliate Summit?

• conference for affiliate marketers and the companies they work with
• founded by shawn & missy in 2003
• the first conference was on a cruise ship and hosted 200 people. earlier this year in vegas, there were 4,627 attendees
• education is a big part
• networking is perhaps a bigger part
• four pass types – Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond
• silver: meet market, exhibit hall, keynotes
• gold: everything from silver plus educational sessions on Sunday, all the powerpoint presentations and recorded session videos (usually a few months after the show) – even though you get the videos, you don’t get the sessions in-person
• platinum: all the gold items plus breakfast and lunch on monday and tuesday, all the educational sessions on all three days, participation in the newcomer program
• diamond: all platinum items plus your company logo on your name badge, express check-in and DVDs of all the recorded session videos
• all of this info can be found at affiliatesummit.com or qaqn.com/summit (affiliate link)

The Hilton

• not quite as much walking as in vegas because the elevators go from the upper floor rooms right down into the conference area. in vegas, things are more sprawled. new york, things are more vertical.
• laguardia is the closest airport, about 8 miles away
• central park is a few blocks away
• Mediterranean restaurant, a Cafe, a bar and a lounge and a starbucks
• as of today, July 28th, they have rooms available, the lowest price is $279/night

Newcomer Program

• Started a few years ago, it’s been run by Jen Goode since, i think, 2009.
• great resource for people who haven’t attended before
• NOT for getting advice about business, affiliate marketing or general work-related stuff, it’s just a way for people who have been to Summit before to take someone under their wing a little bit, show them around, introduce them to a few people and be generally helpful.
• jen’s always looking for summit veterans to help the program out, or if you’re a first-timer and want to join the program, the address is http://www.affiliatesummit.com/affiliate-summit-newcomer-program/ OR qaqn.com/newcomer – and yeah, that’s an affiliate link… i wouldn’t be much of an affiliate marketer if I didn’t use an affiliate link to point folks to affiliate summit, would I?
• Sunday, 6:30pm Newcomer Meetup

Sessions

• things like How to Pitch Your Company, How to Maximize Your LinkedIn Presence, and Killing the Affiliate Nexus Tax Dead
• sessions begin Sunday and run from 10am to about 5pm through Tuesday – Tuesday shuts down a little earlier
• Affiliate Improv – Monday, 2pm! BE THERE!
• Interactive scheduling tool: ase11.sched.org/danielmclark
• and while you’re not in a session, if you’re a blogger, stop by the blogger lounge, being run by Heather Smith, HeatherinBC on twitter

Parties

• ShareASale Under the Stars – The ShareASale Barn Dance! At the Hilton on Sunday night from 8 to midnight, open bar, mechanical bull, live band, square dancing and more. Apparently there will be a chicken coop. I don’t know where they’re going to get live chickens but… it’s New York City. I’d be surprised if they couldn’t get live chickens.
• Buy.at is always awesome. This time, the party is called “Buy.At’s Give Back Event”. It’s Saturday night, 8-11 pm at the Kimberly Hotel penthouse lounge. Here’s the coolest part – if you wear a pink item (clothing, accessory), Buy.at will donate $2 to Affiliate Marketers Give Back. Even better than that, GirlyChecks.com and TicketSizzle.com have agreed to match that amount! Plus there’s going to be a silent auction between 8 and 10.
• Karaoke monday night, more low-key, great for people that want a break from the loud parties. don’t think there’s a url for this yet, but keep an eye on the affiliate summit blog and forum, you’ll see an announcement about it.

Podcast Consulting

• qaqn.com/consulting - slots still open for consulting at the conference

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In which Daniel, Drew and Joe talk about live streaming issues, Apple news and Spotify. Glorious, glorious Spotify.

This week’s episode was broadcast live through Mixlr.com. All QAQN productions are now being broadcast live and you can join the party on the QAQN Live! page. There you’ll find a show schedule and (soon) a chat room so we can interact during the show.

We started with an introduction to Mixlr.com listeners and the troubles that I’ve had with streaming to UStream, Mixlr and recording to my local hard drive concurrently. For the time being, it’s Mixlr only.

In Apple news, there’s the new Mac OS X, and Joe is considering making a Macbook Air his next computer.

Next up, Spotify! This is a great addition to the U.S. line-up of online music services. Joe and I are both users, and Drew will be checking it out shortly. This leads into a great discussion about renting vs. buying your media – music, movies, and magazines. At what point do you spend more on physical copies than you would on paying for a subscription? If you spend more than $120 a year buying music (which is what, only a dozen albums?) then paying for a subscription that lets you listen to anything you want whenever and wherever you want makes a lot more sense. Are we entering an era where – finally – it makes more sense to rent than to own?

Drew gave us a report about the new Transformers movie. Best of three? Mmmmaybe.

Also: comics, selling your stuff for beer and cigarette money, the Anarchist’s Cookbook, and a rundown of Affiliate Summit East 2011 (we’re doing a panel!).

NEXT WEEK: We’re giving away FOUR Gold Passes to Affiliate Summit East 2011 in New York City. We’ll be giving away the passes during the live show to four lucky folks in our chat room. For more information, visit QAQN Live!

Thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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Nervous about starting a show? Jittery about doing one by yourself? I used to be that way, too.

I got over it. It took me a while, but I got over the nerves and the jitters and I got comfortable with the sound of my own voice and confident in my talents. In this episode, I talk about how that all came about – how I went from someone who had to start over ten times to get a show done to someone who can do a show live without a net. Just to prove the point, I did this episode with only a broad idea of the topic – no outline, no bullet points, nothing. Just me and you, talking about getting over the jitters. It gets easier.

This week’s episode was broadcast live through Mixlr.com. All QAQN productions are now being broadcast live and you can join the party on the QAQN Live! page. There you’ll find a show schedule and (soon) a chat room so we can interact during the show.

Have a question? Want to learn more about podcasting? Ask me anything! Leave a voicemail at 281-241-QAQN(7276), send an email to feedback@qaqn.com, or catch me on Twitter.

Just to sweeten the pot a little bit… anyone that leaves a voicemail that I use on the show will be entered into a drawing at the end of the month for an absolutely free one-hour podcast consulting session with me.

Free podcast consulting drawing rules

Thanks for listening!

This week’s episode was broadcast live through Mixlr.com. All QAQN productions are now being broadcast live and you can join the party on the QAQN Live! page. There you’ll find a show schedule and (soon) a chat room so we can interact during the show.

In addition to the update on my own weight loss journey, this episode brings good news. There’s a new group effort being launched in the wake of the demise of Road to Thin and it’s here that you’ll get your first glimpse of it. We’ll have even more exciting news coming up in the next few weeks, but for now…

Thanks for listening!

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.

It’s a quick episode this week as I catch you up on my progress – and there’s progress this week! Actual weight loss! Sweet! Along with the progress report is the news that the Road to Thin podcast and website have been shelved. In its wake will come a new group weight loss project, this time with about 8 people led by a trainer who has, himself, lost over 60 pounds. Leadership, FTW! More information about that on next week’s show.

Thanks for listening!

In which Daniel and Joe talk about suicidal cockroaches and Google+.

It’s an abbreviated show this week as we had technical difficulties at the top and then had to cut it short so my exterminator could come in and service the property. Two nights ago, I was attacked. It was late, the lights were low. Music was playing softly in the background. Something by Peter Gabriel, I believe. The attacker snuck into my office/podcast studio upstairs, studied me for a moment, then flew at me in a murderous rage! I could practically hear the scream: “YOU WILL DIEEEEEEE!!!”

Arms flailing, I deflected my opponent into a bookshelf. Cautiously, I got up. I went into the hallway, keeping one eye on the bookshelf and then closed the door. I whisked downstairs to get a weapon. I knew I’d need something because this was no ordinary situation. Upon my return, my attacker was still in the bookshelf. I coaxed it out. The damn thing was at least two inches long, had spiny legs and murderous black eyes. I shot him full on with a can of Raid.

Twenty minutes later, it was dead. I’ve never seen such a tough customer, but he didn’t get the best of me. I’m a survivor.

Oh, and we also talked about Google+ for a while.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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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.

I was excited to write this next article for FeedFront magazine because I had just finished up the Grow Your Audience Through Podcasting series and I wanted to show readers a potential next step in the evolution of a podcaster. Once you’ve started and once you’ve become comfortable, what’s next? Upgrades!

“Starting out as a podcaster with a cheap headset and free software is ideal for a beginner, but what do you do when you want to take your show’s quality to the next level? The most dramatic impact you can have on the quality of your show is to change to a hardware-based workflow.”

Issue 14 is available at Scribd.com

I’m catching up with posting my articles from FeedFront magazine. Up first, the final part of my Grow Your Audience Through Podcasting series.

In the past two issues of FeedFront, we discussed the reasons why you should be podcasting, the planning stages, and the recording of your first show. Next up  is the proper tagging of your show and the uploading and distributing your episodes.

• Issue 13 is available at Scribd.com
• Grow Your Audience Through Podcasting Part 1
• Grow Your Audience Through Podcasting Part 2

This has not been a good week. I knew when I woke up this morning that if I stepped on the scale, it would be higher than the last time I checked, but I wasn’t prepared for it to tell me that I’d gained nearly five pounds this week. That’s disheartening, embarrassing and unacceptable. I know why it happened… for the past several weeks, I have had zero willpower over snacks.

If this body project of mine is going to succeed, I need to find that willpower. I need to turn this around before I undo everything that I’ve done so far. I started at 250. Dropped to 222. Now I’m halfway back at 235. Un-freakin’-acceptable.

I have two challenges going on right now, both of which I’m losing. The first is at Road to Thin, where we have decided to see who could drop the most weight as a percentage of starting weight by August 30th. The second challenge was issued by Jared Saunders on episode 17 of Inside Internet Marketing. We’re both going to drop 15 pounds before Affiliate Summit in August. Of course, that’s when I was 230, so now I’ve got 20 to drop instead of 15. Ugh. I think I’ll go to the garage and see how much work my bike needs to be street-worthy.

Thanks for listening!

In which the guys talk about one of the most unpleasant subjects for parents: child pornography. Your faith in humanity may well be shaken after this one, folks. Also, Google+ and dealing with bad neighbors.

We opened the show this week with a bit of talk about QAQN Live! and what it means to the show. I’m broadcasting episodes live on Ustream and Mixlr as they’re recorded, and for my fourth attempt at doing a show this way, it worked pretty well! Almost perfect! Oh, there’s a chat room, too. Keep an eye on my Twitter to learn when the next broadcast will be – there will be a set schedule someday, but right now, days and times vary.

Do you have bad neighbors? Drew does. Listen to find out why… it’s entertaining!

The main segment this week is probably the most sobering conversation we’ve ever had on this show. We’ve talked about child safety before, but this is a whole new ballgame. To paraphrase a popular movie, it’s not the same ballpark, it’s not even the same sport. I participated in an online discussion (I know, that was my first mistake) about child pornography. There are those that were defending it in the name of art “because who’s to say what art is or isn’t?” and because it’s protected as “free speech” under the law.

NO IT ISN’T.

Are you someone who uses the label “art” as a shield to defend free expression? We’ve heard this a number of times in the past. Everyone’s art is valid. Everyone’s art is special. Everyone’s art is not to be censored. But photographed, painted or drawn, child porn isn’t art. Please listen to this segment and speak out if you run into one of these lunatics in your life. Putting children in sexual positions isn’t art, it’s illegal.

Moving on to a happier subject… Google+. We’re not 100% on board with it and Joe is pretty annoyed that because he runs Google Apps, he can’t tie into Google+. Peter Shankman had an article about this yesterday. We’ll see how it shakes out in the next few months. Will it be another Google Wave? Or will it turn out more like Google Maps? Could be huge… could be a massive failure. Anyone want to place bets? [side note: aw, man. I just saw that Peter used the same play on words I did in the title, Google plus, minus. Oh well, I'm sure he wasn't the first and I won't be the last.]

We wrapped with some updates from Drew about TeleNav and Kodak, and a voicemail entry into the Affiliate Summit Gold Pass Giveaway. If you would like a free Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit coming up in August, you need to enter the drawing! There are lots of ways to stack the deck in your favor, so check it out, all the details are in the show notes of episode 83.

All this and more – thanks for listening! We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a voice mail at 281-241-QAQN(7276). Also, you can email us at feedback@qaqn.com.

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My guinea pig – I mean guest – this week is Jared Saunders, affiliate manager at Jensen USA. Jared was kind enough to bear with me during my first Ustream live broadcast with a guest!

Like a lot of people, Jared didn’t plan on jumping into affiliate marketing, but when the opportunity presented itself, he really made a splash. After taking over the program at JensenUSA, a fantastic retailer of bikes and gear related to cycling, Jared found himself the recipient of a 2009 ShareASale Exceptional Affiliate Manager award. Why? How about a tenfold increase in affiliate sales? His personal touch has made that program one of the most pleasant to work with on the network.

Jared is also an avid cyclist and you can count on several tweets a week that note the miles he racks up. Cycling was an enthusiasm as a child but he ratcheted it up to a passion while living in New Zealand – and really, when you’re trying to avoid the orcs that roam New Zealand, a bike is a great thing to have.

He’s a bit of a personal inspiration to me. Fitness is a major part of Jared’s life. Like me, he once clocked in at 250 pounds and has dropped all the weight that I’m hoping to drop – he’s down to 190. A challenge was issued and accepted in this episode. We’re each going to aim for losing 15 pounds before Affiliate Summit. There’s a trophy involved. I’m not scared! Bring it!

Big thanks to Jared for coming on the show – follow him on Twitter and check out the JensenUSA program on ShareASale!

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