Image via CrunchBase

I get invites to be part of people’s LinkedIn all the time it seems lately. It’s almost as bad as how when MySpace was a valid social network, people would bug you to be friends with them. Almost as bad as how Facebook is. How bad Google+ will become if they don’t watch out or let loose a free to post api before they are ready.

Today, I saw an actual invite in my email that had me checking to approve. I looked up and saw a ton that I haven’t bothered to approve! So I went through each one, approving most except the obvious spammers. Like I said it’s like a good way to bug the shite out of people.

Not that there is anything wrong with Shite the religion, but rather shite the nice way of adding an “e” to not just write a word more commonly referred to as excrement. Seriously though….

LinkedIn is starting (has been for quite some time actually, just getting around to writing something!) to become just another social network. Speaking of which, I find most of them are pretty bloated places. Wondering why Facebook and Google+ didn’t learn from the mistakes of MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, Bebo, etc… etc… The beat goes on.

Related articles

• Workfeeds Looks Like “LinkedIn If It Launched Now”, Enables Thousands Of Vertical Professional Networks (techcrunch.com)
• Creating Links on LinkedIn (community.constantcontact.com)
• Get it now: LinkedIn & Lovin’ It! (freelanceswitch.com)
• 5 Reasons for Freelancers to Use LinkedIn (freelanceswitch.com)
• LinkedIn: One Year Later (nadiacvanderhall.wordpress.com)

Image via Wikipedia

I see spam daily. In fact most of us see too much of it. We mostly ignore it and here are some reasons why. If you are in the business of affiliate marketing or email campaigns, you’ll want to review these reasons.

1. English is not your native language. That is probably one of the main reasons your message is given the deep six. When you state things in English and if English isn’t a skill you command naturally, get some help. Even if the marketing message is something the person opted in to receive, more than likely they will ignore it and mark it as spam going forward if there are basic English mistakes. Most of these are grammatical errors that are quite obvious.
2. Sending your marketing in Arabic, when the user can’t read Arabic. Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, etc. – doesn’t matter what foreign language it happens to be, but if you are shotgun marketing your message in one of these non-English languages, you better be precise about your target audience. Basic marketing 101 stuff, but usually I will see a few Arabic messages a day.
3. Promoting a domain that has “bot” in it. Cashbot, Moneybot, incomebot, etc. All of those are versions of domains I have seen, and are real. Any domain with the word “bot” will usually be a quick way to have your email marketing sent to the hole of spam hell. No one really wants to put any money into a bot, unless they are looking for a losing proposition for their list or their money.
4. Shotgun marketing has your short url blocked. Yes, the short url people do block affiliate urls once people abuse them with shotgun marketing tactics. If the person you are sending your marketing message isn’t opted in, don’t send it. That should be rule #1 on your list before you email. Are they opted in, and if they are not opted in, the next item is to remove the email from the list. It shouldn’t be sent. More often than not, people have short urls blocked because they were lazy and just figured the more they sent, the better the results will be. More does not always make a conversion. Shotgun marketing is generally just a really, really bad marketing tool to use.
5. Believing that Twitter is the best marketing tool. Yes, while Twitter can be a great tool, if you are not engaging in conversation with the people, you may as well just be a bot and not a live person. People will be more receptive to your marketing via Twitter if you first engage and actually strike up a real conversation with them. Yes, we are all guilty of using Twitter like it is the end all, be all marketing tool. But yes, we all have been guilty of abusing it.
6. Facebook is not your only place to be. While there are probably close to what, ~750 million people on Facebook now, that doesn’t mean that you must have your silly marketing message all over the site. In fact, being on Google+ now has given me the same look I had when I first joined Facebook. Looking at my Facebook stream is like how it was looking at MySpace streams. Look what happened to MySpace just recently. It was no surprise, and now that Google+ is around, Facebook is starting to have that MySpace appearance in feeds.

Marketing by email and affiliate marketing can be a good thing for many people. I think though, if you are ignoring some of the above six items, you’ll find out that marketing and affiliate marketing can be a losing proposition for you. Not because the product is good or bad, or even your messaging. It might just be flat out ignored due to the fact you have already violated some of the six simple reasons on why your marketing message is considered spam.

Technically Speaking, this has been some of the basic and obvious things I see daily. This list could be longer, but I think these six items are some of the main issues on why most marketing (and affiliate) campaigns fail as well as why most people will surely fire the marketing email right into the spam folder.

Related articles

• Spam King Wallace Indicted For Facebook Spam (yro.slashdot.org)
• Email Marketing 101 (oraclemarketing.wordpress.com)
• How to use Twitter to market your company (premierlinedirect.co.uk)
• MySpace sues email marketer for ‘spam’ messages (firstrate.co.nz)
• Sued by Facebook, Spam King surrenders to FBI (zdnet.com)

Ever ponder why Black Friday, Facebook, and Twitter are so successful? Want to duplicate the same feat with your startup or your venture? Just follow these 3 keys to success, and I’m sure you’ll have VC‘s and angel’s knocking at your door. Duplicate the 3 keys, no need to re-invent the wheel!

Step 3 – Go Mainstream

Well that goes without saying. If Black Friday wasn’t the term commonly known as the day after Thanksgiving, it wouldn’t be mainstream. Once it reached this level, it became quite apparent that to be in retail, you had to honor the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Facebook would not have survived as a college only social network. Once you are out of college, you are in the mainstream. To have been stubborn and not open to new ideas, it would have remained a small niche social network that, gasp – MySpace might have buried!

Twitter in 2006, 2007 was yet to reach mainstream. Once it clicked or resonated with the masses at SXSW 2007, it was off and running to the mainstream.

Step 2 – Get people talking about “it“

Whatever “it” is, you need people talking about “it“. If you don’t have the people buzzing about “it“, you won’t ever reach step 3 which as you just read is the mainstream.

For Black Friday, that mainstream was when the media picked up on all the sales post Thanksgiving and dubbed it by it’s common known name. Yes, Black Friday not only leveraged the media into believing the name it gave itself, it lent the tip to media to help spread the word of the “it” which of course is Black Friday.

Facebook became the “it” by simply being the “in” place to be first as a college only site, and by holding off the next level it pushed the anticipation of “it” by opening up the site to anyone. Once that happened, it quickly surged into the mainstream.

Twitter had a more difficult time since it wasn’t your classic social network. It was something new, but so new that it could never put it’s finger on”it“. Once it figured out that “it” was actually step #1 below, it quickly leveraged “it” to make a run to the mainstream quicker than either Black Friday or Facebook did.

Step 1 You follow therefore you become a follower

Black Friday would never have had the success it currently enjoys unless there were people seriously following the run up hype to the Friday after Thanksgiving. Retailers now even open on Thanksgiving morning since the hype (look for a new media dubbed name soon for the morning of Thanksgiving sales!) is so big for Black Friday. By hype, I mean lines of people (followers) that maybe won’t buy a thing unless they are tempted with super sales that the date offers. They still might not buy any item, but will be highly tempted by all the accompanying hype, so chances are they will spend some money.

Facebook would have never had the success without opening up and loading up their user base. Once they figured out that you hooked ‘em in college, but now most of their users were post college days, they needed to open it up so that their mainstream friends could connect. Once they did that, the next 2 steps were easier to achieve and success followed up quickly.

With Twitter this first step was more crucial since no one had a clue what Twitter was or how it was going to work. Twitter is/was almost like how this post started out. It had no idea where it was going, but figured that out when step #1 magically took off on it’s own. Once that happened, the powers that be at Twitter realized that it’s true calling was the followers that propelled it to be the darlings of water cooler chat, and then talk shows. It had “it” to talk about, even though “it” was still an unknown, but talking about “it” via the crucial follower step #1 helped it reach mainstream faster than Black Friday or Facebook.

Technically Speaking, if you gain some followers who talk about “it“, you’ll reach the final step in the 3 keys to success which is mainstream acceptance. If you want to put that in your pitch to VC’s and angel’s, tell ‘em you read it here first! Oh, btw, Happy Safe Thanksgiving to all!

Related articles

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• 10 Social Media Deals to Check In to on Black Friday (mashable.com)
• CyberMonday2010.com is Here! (bradsdeals.com)
• AMD Twitter Contest Goes Live; Along With Some Killer Black Friday Deals (geardiary.com)
• Getting The Jump On Black Friday Deals With These Sites & Mobile Apps (makeuseof.com)

I’m going to re-open the EmbargoZone blog-PR site shortly. But for now, enjoy:

Friendgiftr First to Turn Multiple Social Media Sites Into E-commerce 2.0 Platforms

Friendgiftr first and only company to sell popular brand name gift cards through e-commerce storefront to hundreds of millions of social networking site users

Hollywood, CA. (Feb. 16) — E-commerce 2.0 pioneer and rising star Friendgiftr turned multiple social media websites, including Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, Ning and Bebo, into commercial marketplaces for the first time with the debut of its new e-commerce storefront application network. Friendgiftr’s one-of-a-kind network is the first and only social media-based online storefront to offer actual purchasable retail and restaurant gift cards to hundreds of millions of social media site users.

Friendgiftr features the nation’s largest collection of gift cards for sale from a single source, with over 120 leading brand names like Gap, Dominos Pizza, Pottery Barn, Starbuck’s, Chili’s, Red Lobster, Regal Cinemas, Barnes & Noble, Applebee’s, Crate & Barrel, Marriott, P.F. Chang’s, Dell, Macy’s, Sephora, L.L. Bean, Banana Republic, and Overstock.com, among others. Through the Friendgiftr application, social media site users can now send gift cards in amounts from $10 to $100 to anyone in their network.

“Introducing our network of gift card storefronts across numerous social networking sites is a game-changing step forward in the commercialization of social media,” commented Rob Carpenter, Friendgiftr CEO. “It’s also a cornerstone of our unique business model. We partner with the companies whose gift cards we sell, which keeps our operating costs minimal, and unlike most web-based start-ups, we have multiple viable revenue streams, including commissions from cards we sell through a growing number of storefronts, slotting fees, advertisements and affiliate marketing programs.”

Another aspect of its unique model is that Friendgiftr is the only gift card merchant to allow card recipients to exchange the card given to them for a card they prefer from any of the merchants Friendgiftr offers, at no charge, and without the buyer knowing. Recipients can even split the gift card amount across multiple merchants’ cards, to make sure they get the gifts they really want. For example, someone who received a $50 Macy’s card can exchange it for a $25 card for Starbuck’s and a $25 card for Chili’s, or five $10 cards from five different stores.

With the simplest user interface of any online gift card source, Friendgiftr lets social media site users buy and send gift cards in just three simple steps: Â select the card and amount, enter the recipient’s name, email and a personalized message, then pay via Friendgiftr’s secure online payment platform.

About Friendgiftr, Inc.

Friendgiftr is the premier digital storefront company currently offering over 120 of America’s favorite retail and restaurant gift cards through its website and social media sites. Friendgiftr won the grand prize prestigious Henry Kravis Award in venture capital and entrepreneurship, and placed first in a VentureBeat.com technology trends competition held at the prestigious DEMO Conference for the concept of merging social networking and e-commerce. Friendgiftr partners with iCard Systems, a leading supplier of electronic and physical gift cards. Headquartered in Hollywood, CA, Friendgiftr is a Rob Carpenter production.

For Immediate Release: February 17, 2010

Contact: Rob Carpenter, (909) 851-8119, rob@friendgiftr.com

Press Info: Kendall Guimond, (909)262-2120, kendall.guimond@allterrain.net

Technically Speaking, look for the re-opening of EmbargoZone soon.

Yes, I have been around. Busy, busy. Miss me?

Check out my Tumblr blog

My Twitter stream

My Facebook

AIM (rexdixon2006), Skype(rexdixon1), etc.

Yes, even still keep a MySpace page going.

And somewhere out there I have a Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster account(s)!

Technically Speaking, if you can’t find me, you haven’t tried hard enough – because I’m pretty easy to find! If you didn’t get the GeoCities vibe, you missed the boat sometime back in ’99.

The news of the moment is that Twitter has been officially down for about 1.5 hours now, and looks like Facebook has suffered it’s own meltdown.

MySpace however seems to be rockin’ right along just fine. I haven’t checked any of the other social net’s – but it seems that out of the big two, the one that everyone has abandoned seems to be working just fine. A little too messy looking still, but hopefully in time the new leadership sees the error of the past administration that was in charge there.

It does bring up an interesting thought of maybe just possibly the social net revolution isn’t over quite yet. Stay tuned for sure, as with this mornings meltdown and people that can get in to update their fb status, all are crying that Twitter is down. Now I’m sure once everyone wakes up and the services come back, there will be a lot of analysis of this event.

Technically Speaking, a new social world is in order about right now; well if someone can tune the cloud, but as someone once already stated “You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!” >:-?

This is your last chance to leave your opinion via a twitter hashtag – #freeschtuff – and all you have to do is check out one or all of the Church Tongue songs below and leave your thoughts on twitter. Made it a simple click operation (ie: you can listen right here on this page) since I just installed this WP-Plugin.

Simple! You’ll be entered for a chance to win a – $25 eGift Card from RizzoTees.

– i’d f**k elvis (ruff memphis demo) – JUST released in the past week!
– SEX KISS – semi-NEW SINGLE!
– impress us with your drugs
MySpace Page – Church Tongue – leave comments/friend if you have a MySpace account!

More info / background is here:

The Gutter : pre-Church Tongue (for a bit of a background)
– Casket mp3
– Outlook mp3

Church Tongue : Your Opinion could be worth $25 via – #freeschtuff

Technically Speaking, I’ll be drawing the entrants to the #freeschtuff (only 3 so far) out of a black top hat tomorrow – Wednesday 7/15/09 – Live on UStream! Here are the 3 that have entered (left their opinions via #freeschtuff) to win that $25 eGift Card from RizzoTees or FREE T-shirt:

@klasinski
@kopper
@jonconnelly

As of this morning, the experiment with the twitter hashtag has been a big #FAIL. No worries, many of you are probably asking “Why Church Tongue?”. Well it’s a friend of mine’s experimental gothic music mix send up. He asked me to help him promote the page, and I said, “Sure, why not.” Church Tongue isn’t your ordinary band or even your run of the mill music offering. That is exactly the point of it!

I know that those who have listened to the tracks probably have an opinion. If they saw the tweet on twitter or even not, they could easily leave an opinion with the hashtag system. That is all that Church Tongue is asking for. Right now, there is exactly ONE opinion - and looks like @klasinski is going to win the $25 eGift Card from RizzoTees by default. Quite sad.

I thought that the tweeps out there would have an opinion. I watch people be opinionated daily via twitter. Here is the chance to just take a few listens to some interesting music, and if you don’t like it, all you need to do is say so. If you love it or have suggestions, leave that also with the #freeschtuff hashtag.

Again, to date ONE opinion, looks like the winner will be easy to crown! Here are the details of this contest that is an easy chance to win a $25 eGift Card:

i’d f**k elvis (ruff memphis demo) - JUST released TODAY!

SEX KISS – semi-NEW SINGLE!

impress us with your drugs

MySpace Page – Church Tongue – leave comments/friend if you have a MySpace account!

This is your chance to leave your opinion via a twitter hashtag – #freeschtuff – and all you have to do is check out one or all of the Church Tongue songs above and leave your thoughts on twitter. Simple!

You’ll be entered for a chance to win a $25 eGift Card from RizzoTees.

Technically Speaking, it’s one of those things like the lottery – you can’t win if you don’t play – I posted the original details of this contest right HERE!

I decided to do a fun little experiment of sorts over the weekend. I wanted to see if a tumblr site could actually get traffic. Wondering if people actually would read other people’s opinions on snippets of news stories. Now many of you have tumblr sites, and if you do, you probably are wondering if it’s worth clipping some news you saw and leaving your 2 cents.

Here are some results I thought I’d share from statistics that I am pulling straight from MyBlogLog. Now while your results could vary, I think by looking at the stats below, Tumblr can be a traffic driver or rather your tumbl could very well be read by many.

Yes, there was a perfect tie for the #2 spot of read posts yesterday. It seemed that people were equally enthralled Microsoft screwing over their fired employees (TechCrunch post), and MySpace China. Think that one was due to Rupert’s daughter’s picture? Not sure, but the offclick’s indicated that even though it was tech dominating the read, somehow the other bay area house snuck in there at the #3 offclick site.

One of the more interesting things I found was articles that I thought (I guess I shouldn’t think!) would be interesting to people, were not. Such human interest stories as the Iraq Veteran getting a gift pulled due to a marijuana conviction in 2005, even though that was re-tweeted by someone – it never seemed to gain much traction as a read story. In fact, you could almost considered it a buried story.

The sad thing is that this is a real person’s true story of having something taken away that he fully deserves, at least in my opinion – all veterans of the Iraq conflict deserve anything America can give back to them. No matter what past violations they may have committed. Sadly enough, the stories that ranked over this one were only interesting for a minute such as the Food Network star that F-Bombed in front of the King and Queen of Spain, that $700k house in SF from the day before – this must be quite a deal or something – and even George W’s visit to a hardware store where he was offered a greeter job.

Two more stories that started to surge and just went flat were the guy that was working 50 jobs in 50 states all in one year’s time, and the 11 year old kid that killed his step mother with a kiddie shotgun. Both of those stories were surging, and somehow at the end of the day, just fell out of contention for the top spots. Very strange how a story can start to take off, and just die.

Technically Speaking, I guess I do not know what people like to read about, or can only guess what might be popular or interesting. So far today – a story about saying good-bye to former employers I found in the LA Times is #1, while the #3 read story is providing the #2 offclick. Interestingly enough it’s a search site(Kosmix) I wrote about here.