One of my fav forum leaders, Jon over at WickedFire, was offered a cool $16 million for his forum … $11 million smokers if he wanted the cash all at once.

 Jon declined the offer.

I have to wonder if part of the deal is that Jon had to stay on and work it for da man … which tain't no way Jon's going to go for that. But, if that wasn't the case, then … Jon … dude, sell it. We affiliates love you man! We'll go with  you to your next adventure.

Build yourself a WickedWater site and let's play it again.

I actually have a sneaking suspision as to who that offer came from … my guess is that the ride ain't over buddy.

In typical 5 Star sytle, Linda Buquet announced today the start of several contests for her 5 Star Affiliate Forum members.

If ever there was a time to join the 5 Star Affiliate Forums, it's now!

The 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forum turns two years old on June 25, 2007 … and it's in that vein of celebration that Linda has announced her biggest give-aways to-date.

The contests offered are as follows:

“NAME THAT 5 Star MERCHANT” Contest
$200 CASH Grand Prize - $100 2nd Prize
Visit our 5 Star Sponsors to WIN!

I "HEART" 5 STAR Contest - $100 CASH Prize 

BLOG BUZZ CONTEST - $300 CASH Grand Prize $100 Runner Up
Which blog can create the biggest BUZZ and send the most traffic to the forum.

GUESS the MEMBER COUNT - $100 CASH Prize

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER - $100 CASH Prize

Thanks Linda, for a valued affiliate marketing resource and all the hard work you do for our community of affiliates and merchants. You're a class act, and with you … 5 star ratings really do mean 5 stars.

Happy Birthday to Linda and 5 Star!

Jon's Wicked Fire Affiliate Forum has taken off like a wicked wild fire! The forum has officially surpassed the 1,000 member mark in only three weeks time. That's freakin' incredible! Kudos Jon!!!

Why is this happening?

Well, there are a lot of struggling affiliates out there who need the sage advice of some one like Jon, plus there are a lot of us affiliates who are sick of the same old voices and the marketing companies tell us how we should be doing our business. Jon's forum is a breath of fresh affiliate air.

Jon plugs some of the notables in his recent blog post, but Jon if you read this … honestly, those same voices are heard in all the other forums … you have an incredible opportunity to create new voices … and frankly, that would be a real blessing. Perhaps then so many newbies wouldn't be struggling so hard to get into the business sucessfully.

In case you don't know who Jon is, he's a real super affiliate … he is the shit! And his comments and insights are well worth your time to read. He also works hard to keep his identity discrete, like so many real super affiliates do. It's nice to see them starting to step out into the light a little more. We should probably be thanking CJ for that little gift.

According to Jon, "People all over the place are plugging it [wickedfire.com] and calling it one of the best new forums around. Most people like it because of the laid back, no bullshit appeal. " And, that's exactly what's fueled this wicked fire of Jon's.

Personally, I'd love to see Jon get involved with the Affiliate Guild … we need more guys and gals like Jon stepping up to make the affiliate space one of strength and distinction. And frankly Jon, we'd freakin' give you a classroom to teach in!

Revenue, is the first magazine dedicated to the affiliate performance marketing standard.

Subscribe today and get immediate access to great design ideas, hot search engine strategies, marketing industry news, interviews with industry leaders and opportunities to raise your level of revenue right now.

Reseller has pulled out a post at WebmasterWorld linking to a Google Groups post by a Google Employee saying;

There are a few things to consider about our overall crawl and indexing pipeline. As part of some recent updates (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/bigdaddy/) we're taking a much closer look at affiliate links, linkfarms, duplicate content, and other factors as described in our webmaster quality guidelines.

As with the Florida update, when Google went after sites that were perceived as going against Google Quality Guidelines, some good & clean sites were hit in the cross fire. With this, the same has happened, and it will always happen.

So if you are suffering, you can try posting in the Google Group or emailing Google, as specified in the thread.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Pepperjam Announces Sponsorship of Linkshare Affiliate Marketing Symposium and Golden Link Awards

Pepperjam, the industry�s leading search, affiliate, and media management firm announced today co-sponsorship of the 2006 Linkshare Symposium and Golden Link Awards, which will be held in New York City on June 20�21. The Linkshare Summit and Golden Link Awards are the premier affiliate marketing conference and awards ceremony for leading Linkshare merchants and affiliates.

To learn more about Pepperjam please visit http://www.pepperjamsearch.com and http://www.pepperjammanagement.com

Kristopher B. Jones, President & CEO of Pepperjam said, �We are excited to co-sponsor this year�s Linkshare Symposium and Golden Link Awards and are honored to be part of this prestigious affiliate marketing event. In particular, these Linkshare events provide an excellent opportunity to unveil Pepperjam�s newest affiliate marketing initiative, the Pepperjam Comparison Shopping Blog. Unlike other comparison shopping engines, such as shopping.com and shopzilla.com, the new Pepperjam website will offer merchants the expertise of a leading search-engine marketing firm (pepperjamsearch.com), as well as a revolutionary cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and cost-per-click (CPC) advertising model designed with pay-for-performance marketing in mind.�

This year's much anticipated LinkShare Symposium 2006 will take place June 20-21, 2006 in New York City. For more than ten years, LinkShare merchants, affiliates, and leading companies doing business on the web have convened at the LinkShare Symposium to forge business relationships and discuss issues facing the industry at large. Over 500 leaders from companies in the retail, catalog, financial and business-to-business sectors will be in attendance. To learn more about the Linkshare Symposium and Golden Link Awards please visit http://www.linkshare.com/symposium.

About pepperjamSEARCH:
pepperjamSEARCH offers powerful search-engine marketing management solutions based on an advanced search analytics algorithm. The company offers an experienced staff of certified Google Advertising Professionals and Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassadors. Working with advanced, proprietary API-Driven management tools, pepperjamSEARCH offers the ultimate ROI available through the advertising medium of search. Using the model developed over the past seven (7) years by Pepperjam, pepperjamSEARCH offers cutting-edge solutions to many of the nation�s leading online merchants. In addition, Pepperjam is one of only 20 search-engine marketing firms across the United States designated by Google as a Google Adwords Qualified Company.

About pepperjamMANAGEMENT:
pepperjamMANAGEMENT was created in 2002 by a group of industry-leading super affiliates and search-engine marketing experts, including Internet marketing expert Kristopher B. Jones. The company offers pay-for-performance outsourced affiliate marketing management solutions, as well as online media management and consultation in the areas of search, strategic partnership acquisition, and overall market share capitalization.

pepperjamMANAGEMENT is a division of the Pepperjam Network — the world�s largest search-engine marketing super affiliate with over $100 million in annual sales generated to over 2,500 merchant partners, including BabyAge, 1-800-PetMeds, igourmet and Foreclosure.com.

For more information, please contact Robyn Martin, Director of Public Relations at 1.877.796.5700 or visit us at http://www.pepperjamsearch.com and http://www.pepperjammanagement.com.

I received a nice email from Google today letting me know that they've upgraded their analytics tool. Here's the deatils….

We are happy to announce the release of a new version of the Google Analytics reporting interface. Since you are an existing user, you will automatically be upgraded - there is no action required on your part. To access this new version click the "View Reports" link next to any profile in your account by logging in at http://www.google.com/analytics.

For a smooth transition, we've listed some helpful resources and notes below.  Also, you will still be able to access your old reporting interface for at least a month by clicking "Previous Interface" below the "View Reports" link for any profile in your account. Other than a few improvements detailed in the version notes below, your data and configuration settings remain unaffected by your choice of interface and your data continues to be tracked in the same way as it was prior to this redesign.

*What is new?* In the new version, your reports have been redesigned for clarity, greater visibility of important metrics, and ease of use.  Here are just a few of the features you'll notice:

- Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.     

- Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others.      

- Trend and Over-time Graph: Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.     

- Contextual help tips: Context sensitive Help and Conversion University tips are available from every report.The new interface has everything the previous interface had and more. In addition, links within reports make it easier to navigate related information and explore your data.

The following resources are available to help you get the most from the new Google Analytics interface:

- Report Finder Tool: will help you see where data from the previous interface is located within the new version (it is also linked to from within your reports on the left nav menu.     

- Product tour:        http://services.google.com/analytics/tour/index_en-US.html     

- FAQs for more details about the new version:
http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/static.pypage=FAQ.cs

- Help Center: includes articles related to the new version:         http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/     

- Support: if you encounter any issues with the new version that you can't resolve with the help center, you can contact our support team through the Contact Us link at the bottom of the help center web page, or receive higher-touch support through a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant. Find one here:        http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html      

- Analytics Help Forum: If you would like to discuss the new version or get tips from experienced users, please visit the Analytics Help Forum in English within Google Groups at:        http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help