Here's something to wet the Affiliate Blogger's mouth … more blogs!

Global performance marketing firm Forge Corporation Ltd. has acquired BlogKits Blogging Network. Launching world�s first performance marketing network built for bloggers.

(PRWEB) July 13, 2006 — The billion-dollar affiliate marketing industry has finally caught up with blogging. Forge Corporation Ltd., a global provider of performance marketing solutions, with offices in Johannesburg, Cleveland & Seattle, announced today it has acquired BlogKits (http://www.blogkits.com), a blog network built to help match bloggers with advertisers.

BlogKits was acquired from Jim Kukral, business blog expert, who was also recently appointed to Forge as the VP of Branding & Marketing. He has spent the past 10+ years working in the online marketing and blogging industry.

In a survey produced by BlogKits in 2005, 73% of bloggers agreed that using affiliate links on their website was an acceptable practice. The same survey concluded that the primary reason bloggers use Google Adsense is because "it�s easy" (93%).

"Bloggers want control and ease of use. They want to "place it and leave it", said Mr. Kukral. "Which is why Google Adsense works so well for them. The reason bloggers haven�t embraced the standard affiliate networks as a viable model is because those networks don�t specifically cater any offers to bloggers. There�s too much clutter going on. Bloggers don�t want to work that hard. BlogKits eliminates that."

"Google Adsense has been a revolutionary tool for bloggers, and should always stay part of a successful blog monetization strategy. BlogKit's approach is not to recommend to replace Adsense, but to add to it without penalty. We believe there�s a lot more money to be made on a well-matched cost-per-action (CPA) offer for bloggers as opposed to a few pennies per click from Adsense."

There are challenges of course. Google Adsense still holds a majority of most bloggers� income generation, and the existing affiliate networks like Linkshare & Commission Junction have thousands of existing merchant/affiliate relationships.

But they don�t have the bloggers. BlogKits does.

"I really like the idea behind Blogkits because anything that can help bloggers earn money fairly, honestly, and easily is a great benefit to the entire blogging community," said Dave Taylor, blogger at www.AskDaveTaylor.com. "I�m looking forward to getting involved with the Blogkits project."

"Jim brings tremendous affiliate marketing and blogging experience to the table," said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Forge Corporation, Ltd. "By acquiring and developing BlogKits, Forge now has a unique stable of highly targeted blogs in our network that no other network has. Merchants can join BlogKits even if they have other existing network relationships. We�re not interested in taking business away from anyone; only bringing new business opportunities that they can�t get elsewhere."

Kukral will be responsible for operating the BlogKits Offerforge Network, including working to recruit and educate new bloggers, as well as assisting merchants with developing creative performance-based offerings.

BlogKits is currently accepting applications for signup from bloggers into the network at http://www.blogkits.com, and is working with merchants to prepare offers for launch, which is set for some time in late summer of 2006.

About Jim Kukral
Jim Kukral knows the online marketing industry from all sides. He is the publisher of ReveNews.com, a thought-shaping group blog focusing the billion-dollar industry of online revenue generation. He has been blogging since 2001 and has participated and or created over 30 professional blogs in his career. Jim has written professionally for Clickz.com and Builder.com, and has been featured in Revenue Today magazine and MarketingProfs.

About BlogKits
BlogKits was created by Jim Kukral in early 2005. Originally, BlogKits was made to help bloggers find new and interesting ways to make money with their blogs. Now as part of the OfferForge network, BlogKits will allow bloggers and online merchants the ability to work together in a reliable and robust network platform.

About Forge Corporation Ltd.
Founded in 2003 by Jonathan Miller, well known affiliate marketing strategist, consultant and public speaker, Forge Corporation Ltd. is a global provider of performance marketing solutions that benefit both advertisers and publishers, with offices in Johannesburg, Cleveland & Seattle.

Forge enables advertisers to distribute online advertising through thousands of targeted websites, newsletters and other online publishers. These relationships are driven by two patented technology ad networks: OfferForge South Africa and OfferForge USA. OfferForge advertisers pay only for performance, which could be measured in sales, leads, visitors, impressions, subscribers or even new unique customers.

The ForgeConsult consulting division specializes in developing and executing affiliate marketing strategies to assist advertisers in reaching consumers more effectively such as affiliate recruitment and affiliate program management.

One of the biggest questions being asked by bloggers these days is, how do I make money with my blog?

What these bloggers are searching for is what the affiliate marketing people call monitization. Which loosley translates to … how I make money with any property I have on the Internet.

While thinking about this topic, I decided to do a little research and see what others were saying on the topic of bloggers making money blogging. I came across a nice piece byDarren Rowae at proBlogger.net. He's one of the first bloggers I've seen realize that there's a whole advertising world outside of Google.

Making money from blogging is a topic I plan on dedicating a lot of energy too, so for now I'm going to leave you wanting more and let you have chance to go read Darren's thoughts on the topic. It's an excellent read.

Well, it seems that Google does one thing really well and only one thing. The search engine company tried their hand at competing with other startup ventures and according to Ben Charny of MarketWatch, Google failed miserably.

What's troubling for Google, analysts say, is how far behind it has fallen in markets considered key to its future. The impact won't be felt now, but years from now when Google can no longer rely on its search engine for the bulk of its revenues.

"Google hasn't succeeded in most things it has tried outside of search," said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "They just don't seem to have done a lot of other things right."

Bottomline is that Google needs to diversify if it's going to enjoy a long life span. That's why we're seeing Google offer us free email, mapping, blogs, etc. We've also seen Google jump into the Affiliate Marketing space with their new CPA ads.

My guess is that Google will keep doing what they do well, and just buy what they want eventually. I mean, every startup has it's purchase price.

SimpleTuition Debuts Affiliate Program For Organizations Looking To Share Student Loan Comparison Research
Tuesday November 14, 10:27 am ET
Innovative Referral Program Allows Donations to Educational Charitable Organizations

BOSTON, Nov. 14 /PRNewswire/ — SimpleTuition, Inc. (http://www.simpletuition.com), a company dedicated to helping students and parents make sense of education financing choices, today announced the launch of its new Affiliate Partner Program. Available today at http://www.simpletuition.com/friend, the program is open to high school guidance officers, personal financial planners and advisors, as well as professional and student organizations and others that wish to offer objective third-party student loan comparison and research.

As a SimpleTuition Affiliate Partner, organizations that refer parents and students to the SimpleTuition web site for advice will earn a reward for each new visitor that uses the SimpleTuition solution to compare student loans and then clicks through to a lender's loan application site. For non-profit partners and public schools, SimpleTuition is planning to offer the option of donating the referral reward to an educational charity, thereby avoiding any conflicts of interest. A first for referral programs, SimpleTuition is working with leading educational charities, who all share a common vision of helping students and their families attend college, to make this a reality.

"Every year hundreds of thousands of students and parents receive advice and conflicting recommendations from friends, family, co-workers and other advisors about how to best research and manage student loan finances," said Kevin Walker, co-founder and CEO of SimpleTuition. "Since launching SimpleTuition, numerous parents have been telling us how desperate they are for a resource that offers a clear and easy way to understand their student loan options. When they hear of SimpleTuition, they want to tell all their friends. With that in mind, we created the partner program."

According to the recent College Board report, caps for federal student loans are not keeping up with inflation, yet tuition costs keep rising, up 35% from five years ago. With the cost of college at an all-time high — projected to reach $220 billion this year, $86 billion of which will be financed by students or their parents — families nationwide now require multiple loans each year to pay for college. Many are desperate for a clear, concise and easy-to-use resource to help find the best student loan options.

Currently, nearly twenty organizations have already joined the SimpleTuition Affiliate Program. Designed for all types of educational support organizations, partners can choose from three options:

• Partners who want to be able to share student loan information can link directly to SimpleTuition
• Affiliate partners who want to send SimpleTuition applicants (first-time visitors that open a student loan application with one of SimpleTuition's lending partners) receive a referral commission
• Colleges, universities and other organizations can request a customized solution that integrates with their web site

The amount of information on student loans is overwhelming with many different types of loans from various lenders; each with different options, including fees, repayment plans, total loan amount, consolidation options, credit strength scores and FAFSA eligibility in some cases. SimpleTuition allows users to compare multiple financing options from a variety of lenders that can be sorted by monthly payment, total cost of the loan, number of payments, fees and APR. SimpleTuition is not a lender.

About SimpleTuition, Inc.

Founded in 2005, SimpleTuition is dedicated to helping students and parents make sense of education financing choices. Recently featured in FastCompany.com's top 12 innovative websites for Web 2.0, SimpleTuition is the only company to offer an independent and objective solution for researching and comparing parent, private, GradPLUS and federal loans. SimpleTuition is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and is funded by Atlas Venture and IDG Ventures Boston. For more information visit http://www.SimpleTuition.com.

Jude Wright might be on of the most unorganized affiliate marketers, but not anymore. Jude's been working in Internet Marketing for a lot of years. Don't worry Jude, I won't say how many!

As a basically unorganized person, Jude admits, "I was losing everything! I needed a solution to help me find the information that I wrote on slips of paper, kept in notebooks and saved in emails. I wanted to find that information fast!"
 
An old hand at creating databases for the construction industry, Jude turned her attentions to making one for Internet Marketing too. 

The result is a MUST have application for Affiliate Marketers called i-MarketingOrganizer.

The Version 1 software application is the result of Jude's real world experiences in Affiliate Internet Marketing, lots of research, and hard work. i-MarketingOrganizer works beautifully!

Personally, I can't even begin to tell you how valuable a little application this is. Imagine having all your affiliate program account information at your fingertips 24/7 … imagine having all you passwords and usernames waiting for you on your desktop every time you need them … and most importantly, imagine finding any of them in seconds.

No more scraps of paper or notebooks filled with scribbles. Welcome to the enlightened age of Affiliate Marketing … welcome to the world of i-MarketingOrganizer.

In 2006, a district court in Hamburg had awarded Giersch victories at both the preliminary and final stages of their litigation with Google. Google was ordered to remove all Gmail references from their German services.

Now, Giersch has also filed lawsuits to defend more recent registrations of the trademark in Switzerland, Norway and Monaco.

Google offered to buy the trademark rights from Giersch for $250,000, but Giersch turned them down saying that Google's behaviour is "very threatening, very aggressive and very unfaithful." I know a few booted affiliates who would agree with that assessment.

As an intersting sidenote, Google also had to rename their Google Mail service in the UK in 2005. That time they lost to research firm IIIR whom had registered "Gmail" for its financial analytics software. Google did an out of court settlement that time.

Maybe if they had offered Giersch more than $250,000 they would have their trademark in Germany. Doesn't that offer seem a tad low?