The Gain Friends and Influence, With Video session at Affiliate Summit Social Media 2008 featured Steve Rosenbaum, CEO and Founder of Magnify.net and Melissa Salas, Director of Marketing at Buy.com.

Emcee Jim Kukral moderated the panel.

Session description: Learn how to leverage video to increase brand engagement, time spent on site, and page views. Explore the tools and techniques to use when testing out video.

Watch the video from the Gain Friends and Influence, With Video session at http://blip.tv/file/1342382 and see other Affiliate Summit videos at http://www.affiliatesummit.tv.

The way I see it, affiliate marketers have two options right now: curl up in the fetal position and moan or put that entrepreneur hat on good and tight and kick some ass.

It’s survival of the affiliate fittest and some players will fall away. Will you choose to be a victim or a victor?

These days remind me of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities…

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

I don’t know about you, but I am not putting up the white flag just because the talking heads on the news say the sky is falling.

I’m going to work smarter and focus on expanding business while others cringe and retract.

Here is another bit of wisdom to put it all in perspective. It’s part of the keynote address from Cory Booker at Affiliate Summit East 2008…

“You all are here to try to advance your businesses, to try to advance your families. Those are all good things. But, don’t lose the larger context in which we all operate. Don’t shrink your vision of yourself. Understand that you are here for a purpose. There is no mistaking this moment. In this moment and the ones that will follow, you will have the opportunity to unleash yourself unto the world. You have the possibility and the potential to be one of those Americans that truly creates a revolution; a revolution in kindness, a revolution in love, a revolution in vision, and a revolution in imagination.”

What are you doing… get back to work. It’s crunch time!

Lisa Riolo is moderating the panel, and my fellow panelists are Beth Kirsch, Bob Rains, and Brook Schaaf.

Come on out to PubCon Las Vegas and see our presentation. I’ve got a coupon code for 20% off the cost of PubCon registration to help you out.

Just go to http://www.PubCon.com and use this code during registration to get the discount: co-97620

This code is for full conference passes only and it expires November 5th at 5pm central.

The original GeekCast crew was reunited on this landmark podcast with Sam Harrelson joining Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille, and Shawn Collins to go over the latest in geekology.

Find out why Jim is sitting by himself at a card table in the middle of Cleveland, which new Blackberry is for you, how to screencast, new MacBook coming, and what happens when Sam makes router changes during the show.

Show notes:

• Matthew Lesko on Ustream
• Affiliate Summit Social Media Recap
• Social Media Marketing Summit Wrap
• Blackberry Storm and Bold
• Steve Jobs Heart Attack Hoax
• Google Mail Goggles
• Screencasting: ScreenFlow for Apple and Camtasia for PC
• Cost Per Newsletter
• 99designs
• Jim Kukral in a Suit
• Carsten Cumbrowski video
• MacBook Brick
• How to Secure a Wireless Router

Subscribe to the RSS for the weekly GeekCast show, or add us on iTunes.

Listen to the show at http://geekcast.fm/archives/geekcast-39-dont-call-it-a-comeback/.

Last week Mr. Jim Bunning, a Senator from Kentucky introduced a bill that would eliminate affiliates from the definition of physical presence within a state. If it were to pass, this would mean that states would be prohibited from taxing out of state merchants if the only revenue sharing connection are affiliates.

While still in the very early stages, there is an encouraging sign. Having a sponsor is important, and there is a sponsor for the bill, Mr Bunning. The bill was read twice, as required, and was referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The bill number is S. 3670.

This is “A bill to regulate certain State and local taxation of electronic commerce, and for other purposes”, according to OpenCongress.

See full text of bill S. 3670.

You can also track the progress at govtrack.us.

More details at http://nyaffiliatevoice.com/2008/10/federal-action-to-repeal-the-tax/ about the commission members that need to be contacted to urge them to pass it to the floor for a vote.

Also, be sure to contact your U.S. Senators to express your support of the bill.

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Lisa Picarille and I recapped our recent social media conferences.

We also touched on free turkeys from LinkShare, Twitter scraping, the Social Media Swami, Lijit Ad Network, and AWeber publishing broadcast emails to Twitter.

Show Links

• Affiliate Summit Social Media Recap
• Social Media Marketing Summit Wrap
• Intangibles for Selecting Affiliate Programs
• LinkShare Symposium West 2009 Announced
• LinkShare’s Turkeypalooza
• Lijit Adds an Advertising Option
• AWeber Automatically Publish Broadcasts to Twitter
• Affiliate Summit West 2009

Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.

Social marketing, blogging, and online marketing expert Don Crowther delivered the keynote address at Affiliate Summit Social Media in New York City on October 5, 2008.

Don is currently a faculty member at StomperNet.com, an organization that teaches people how to build their businesses online.

His most recent project, SMARTS (Social MARketing Traffic Strategies) taught over 2,000 people how to use social marketing tools like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, Technorati, Blogging, etc. to build their businesses online in a way that will not only be profitable, but also contribute to the social community.

In this presentation you’ll hear the facts behind social marketing, how it really works, and most importantly, a set of specific strategies you can start using tonight to increase your search engine rankings, website traffic, profits, and reputation in the online world.

Watch the video of Don Crowther. See more Affiliate Summit videos at http://www.affiliatesummit.tv.

The event is taking place January 21-22, 2009 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

More details at http://www.linkshare.com/events/symposium_west_2009/.

The next issue of FeedFront will be coming out in January 2009 to coincide with the Affiliate Summit West 2009 conference.

The deadline for articles for issue 4 of FeedFront is November 7, 2008.

If you are interested in writing an article, go to the FeedFront contact form to submit a one sentence summary on what you’d like to cover.

Articles are a maximum of 500 words - no exceptions. Anything longer will not be considered.

Do not send a complete article - just a one sentence summary.

The beta release of the Lijit Ad Network opened to advertisers and publishers today.

The advertising will be displayed in search results of blogs that opt-in to the Lijit Ad Network.

I haven’t seen a live example of the ads, yet, but I’ve applied as both an advertiser and publisher to give it a try.

It is not a requirement to run ads if you want to use Lijit. You can see an example of the widget on the left side of my blog.

In addition to displaying recent and popular searches on the blog, Lijit enables users to include links to their various social media accounts.

See the FAQ at http://www.lijit.com/files/pdf/Ad_Network_Publisher.pdf.