Pedro Sttau

Bellow is a lecture that Randy Pausch gave on Time Management that I have watched countless times. I highly recommend it to anyone who has not seen it.

A dear friend of mine just told me that Randy Pausch passed passed away today.

I was overcome with sadness when I heard the news, of course that it was unexpected but judging from the spirit of that Man one always had a tiny bit of hope that somehow he could make it.

Bellow is that famous last lecture by Randy Pausch.

As you might have noticed I reverted my blog to the standard wordpress Design.
The reason I did this is because I am working on a new design that will hopefully be launched sometime next week.

A couple of people have been asking me why I stopped making my “Top Affiliate Challenge” coverage. Well the reason is that I stop being able to technically load the videos, and my dear lads, I’m talking about a 4MB Bandwidth and still the videos wouldn’t load, and I am not the only person complaining about this.

I am sorry, but I just can’t comprehend why compressing a video is such a difficult thing to do.

Just because I have had so many requests from friends, bellow is the first 6 Minutes of the Dark Knight, enjoy.

Those of you who know me are aware of how much I hate Flash websites, but I just came across a really impressive one that does it’s job perfectly. I’m talking about Warner Bros’s website for the Dark knight Movie.

It’s just so visually impressive that regardless of the content it’s just worth to visit it. Of course that they get away with this because they are catering a very particular genre, but still breath taking design and illustration.

I’m sure this isn’t news for most of you, but it was for me.

Yesterday afternoon, the internet governing body ICANN announced changes to the top level domain system that could have profound implications for the online sector.

In a nutshell, the new policy opens up the internet so that from 2009, anyone can apply buy a top level domain (TLD) such as .card, .hotel or .airline. A move that took much of the industry by surprise, it has prompted a rash of speculation that marketers could be facing a fresh new attack on the integrity of their brands.

While predictions are difficult to make at this early stage, we do not expect to see a sudden surge of cyber-squatting cases. Buying a TLD will be very different to securing a standard domain name, and is unlikely to prove attractive to the casual opportunist.

Every top level domain will cost a minimum of $100,000, a strategy conceived to prevent a registration free-for-all. ICANN is deliberately keeping demand low by strictly limiting purchases to companies and entrepreneurs, a policy designed to recoup the cost of necessary changes to the internet’s infrastructure.

While a repeat of the first internet land-grab is not expected, the change will undoubtedly attract a great deal of interest from online marketers.

What’s so attractive about the prospect of top level domains is that once you purchase one, you can then sell an infinite array of web addresses that fit within it. For example if an entrepreneur bought .shoes, they could then sell www.mens.shoes, www.big.shoes, www.elevator.shoes or any number of useful online locations.

With such obvious potential, the demand for generic domains is likely to be enormous, so snapping up .creditcard, .jobs or .loans isn’t likely to be straightforward. All the hotel groups will be competing for the .hotel domain, for example, and in such cases competed domains will enter into an auction system for sale to the highest bidder.

In the longer term, some of the new TLDs could lead to a shift in the search marketing landscape.

Google has patent applications which note that some domains are hard to get links from - like .gov - and that therefore links from them could be worth more. For example: If someone sets up .globaldigital and only sells domains (at a large cost) to digital marketing agencies that have to pass thorough testing procedures, then when the search engine notices that the TLD’s sites tend to be high quality it should, in theory, add that new domain to its list of “respected” domains.

In many respects, the ICANN announcement leaves us in untested waters. It is possible that domains like .shop or .deals might improve click through rates in adverts, and while Google doesn’t allow superlatives in PPC ads, what happens if someone has a domain on .best?

As ever, the devil will be in the detail, and the facts will become clearer when applications for the new domains open in April 2009. Rest assured that we will continue to monitor the situation closely, and will be in touch to keep you informed of any developments.

You can read more about the ICANN announcement here: http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/icann-votes-yes-to-new-toplevel-domains.asp/4887/

So things are heating up!

I have been getting a couple of emails of people asking me why the hell do I watch the show, the answer is simple, it’s fun, and it’s entertaining!

I think the pace is really picking up and the producers are showing real versatility, listening to feedback and changing/improving the show accordingly. Something that I forgot to mention in my last post, is that the new sketch “share something in 60 seconds” is really nice, and Jonathan is doing such a great job presenting it, he is by far the best communicator in the show as far as I am concerned.

As expected Episode 3 focuses a lot more on what the teams are doing and not so much on the “how’s”. I don’t really think any of us were expecting technicalities from this show, so it’s nice to see the producers keeping it simple.

Although quite expected to those of us who have experience with affiliate marketing, one of the main things that we have seen so far is that even if you have a lot of experience and connections, making money overnight is very hard. We will be seeing the revenue consistently increase as the days pass and as the “marketers” processes settle, but I can’t help it but feel that the results will always be rather “factitious” since the team leaders are relying on their connections to get the revenue. I understand that connections are a huge part Affiliate Marketing and business in general, but I was looking forward to see a “stock” event rather then to find out who has a better machine under the hood.

On this episode we saw Shoemoney’s team seriously underachieving, while Ken Mcarthur’s team continues to dominate. It’s very early in the game to make performance evaluations, so right now I’m content to sit back and enjoy the Shoe.

Well, I must say I felt a huge improvement from the first episode to the second.

First off people were clearly more relaxed and made everything feel a bit more natural, but above all the production itself felt/looked more coordinated in every aspect. In the technical side of things it was great to see that the “name labels” were implemented and that the scene transitions are a lot smoother.

As for the content itself, we got to see a lot more action, but for those of are seeking any sort of information about affiliate marketing, forget it, this is a reality show, and it’s all that it is. For a reality show we are starting to get all of the drama and suspense that we would expect from a show like this.

Shoemoney as always trying to stir things up, applying the old “link bate” (or in this case video bate? “I’m an ass with no ethics bate? ) technique to get the show’s ratings up, very nicely done, after all someone had to be the bad guy!

Just finished watching the first episode of Top Affiliate Challenge.

I must say I was a bit disapointed with the production side of things, but if they manage to improve on this area the show can be really great.

Was also a bit surprised to see everyone having their say in the “team room”, and then see John Cow was completely “skiped”. What was that all about? It was pretty much the only person in that particuylar group that I was looking foward to listening.

A lot of acting going on too, and I feel that If people acted more naturally, and stopped trying to be someone else for the camreas the show would have a different flow.

But all and all, exciting beggining and I wont be missing the next episodes.

Positives

Negatives

I’m going to pretend that I have been posting here regularly, and jump right into the usual rant.

What’s up with youtube allowing adds with sounds that overlap the video itself? The noise of the add so disruptive that made it impossible to hear the add.

This annoyed me so much that I wont a complaint that naturally will go straight to the recycle bin.