Affiliate Marketers run into problems with merchants all the time.  The most common problems are related to money, but there are a number of things a merchant can do that will upset Affiliate Marketers:

1. Pay late (no autodeposit)
2. Reverse commissions
3. PPC policies
4. The Affiliate Network they belong to
5. Poor Affiliate Support
6. Poor Affiliate Tools
7. Change in commission levels
8. Change in tracking period
9. Double Affiliate Sales
10. Merchants who close down shop without telling their Affiliates (especially bad for PPC Affiliates)

The company continues to invest heavily in Total Access as they cut the number of brick and mortar stores in the U.S.  Total revenues fell 2.8%, but Total Access revenues grew by 128% in Quarter 2.  Blockbuster memberships have grown tremendously since the second quarter of 2006, increasing by 2.2 million subscribers.  Revenues and memberships continue to rise at a rapid pace offering tremendous opportunities for Affiliate Marketers.

Affiliates are prime to cash in on these memberships as Blockbuster offers $18 per sign-up.  The only real problem I have is that the program does not offer recurring commissions, despite the fact that the memberships people are buying are on a month to month basis.  They still offer high commission levels and are on a trusted network, Performics.  Take a look at some of their program highlights on BlockBuster.com.

• Affiliate Summit in London is approaching as Shawn Collins recalls the first ever Affiliate Marketing conference in Europe.

• Auction Ads was launched earlier this year to a throng of eager Internet Marketers.  ShoeMoney and Dillsmack created the ad network that has taken the Internet by storm, was sold to MediaWhiz last week.  Details can be found on the 5 Star Affiliate Network and over at ShoeMoney.

• Merchants often times stiff their affiliates whether they realize it or not.  Andrew Wee takes a look at merchant practices that aren’t especially kosher.

• Cost per News takes a look at the presence of Booth Babes at Affiliate Marketing and other conferences and their potentially negative impact.

going 45 mph in a U-Haul with a car attached to the trailer.  The 1000 mile trip to Ventura will be long and painful (No CD/tape player in the truck).  A refreshing pool and a beer await me on the other side.

FaceBook has put a price on their own head.  If you would like to purchase the company, you might want to go withdraw your $10 billion from the bank or go and take out a second mortgage.  The $10 billion price tag is $4 billion higher than Google was supposedly offering.  I doubt we will see any initial takers, but as companies get gobbled up by Yahoo, Google and Microsoft …. one of them will eventually feel it is time to jump off the deep end.

In the Business Tech section of CNN there is a very interesting article discussing the lucrative business of buying and selling domain names. In the article they interviewed a couple of guys who buy valuable domain names and monetize them using Pay per Click ads.

In the article they claim that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to buying and selling domain names. I do agree that we have really only seen the early adopters participating in buying and selling of domain names. My advice is to get while the getting’s good.

Head to Register.com for domain registration and Hosting

Postini is the latest pickup for Google, who paid a cool $625 million to obtain the web-based security provider.  The deal is set to close at the end of the third quarter and Postini will join Google as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Postini will carry their 35,000+ businesses and 10 million users over to the promised land of Google Apps.  Google Apps has already been an enormous hit on the Web, as Google is now trying to vie for market share with Microsoft.

Revenues have risen once again through the first half of the year for Ebay, but the number of listings are down leading many people to question if there are some real issues under the surface that Ebay needs to address.

The growth of the Internet has created a far more competitive marketplace for online auctions and storefronts lessening Ebay’s domination in the early days of the Internet.  It seems like anywhere you look there are auctions for anything you could ever need or want.  Amazon, Yahoo and many others have joined in the game and have severed Ebay’s market share.  (more…)