Thank you so much for the new banners!!!!

You know you had an interesting trip when your wrap-up post mentions everything from "little Elvis" to MST3K to bacon. LOL

It's interesting to read this just as I am sitting down looking at an old site of mine that is great but doesn't make any money. Why doesn't it make any money? Because I didn't need it to. That's a stupid reason. I should be maximizing its potential or getting rid of it! Your post really solidifies that for me. While the sources of motivation can be varied, it always seems to come when we need it most.

Dang it! You blew my idea. I was totally prepared to go all Kanye on Eric when he beats ME! Now I'll have to get more creative. ;)

In all honesty, thanks for your incredibly kind words. People say it is an honor to be nominated, but it still feels crappy when you lose. Even when you suspect that you probably will. But being recognized in posts like this feels pretty cool.

I could not agree more. I get an email like this almost every week from one merchant or another. Even worse is when I get no notification at all. I can understand some merchants coming to me with a choice whether I want to promote a coupon or have a higher commission because it becomes an issue of profit and sustainability. But when they cut the commissions in half out of the blue without any rationale, it is incredibly frustrating. As a reward site, I pretty much have no choice but to just accept it. I've had quite a few of these come in where the commission was cut in HALF. If I am doing a fair amount of business with them, that's a huge drop in my revenue.

Thankfully, this is one of the only really negative things about being an affiliate marketer.

As both a blogger and a lawyer, I really appreciate this article. I think too often people start up a blog without any thought to issues like this. They either play the odds that they won't get caught or just genuinely have no idea that these things are even actionable at law. Thanks for the reminder!

Thanks for coming to our panel and writing about it! You are definitely right that the pop culture idea feeds right into sports as well (although that is something that I stay away from for lack of knowledge!). I am looking forward to catching the video of your datafeed session; it's an area that I have been trying to move into more and more.

That is an unbelievable number of blogs! I do wonder how many actually stick and how many "die" each day as well because people give up on them.
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You are so right about how the connections just flow at Affiliate Summit. What were the chances that we would meet a hockey merchant at breakfast and then have a hockey affiliate stand up in my session and ask for merchant suggestions? I feel like "It's a Small World" should be playing in the background sometimes. (Although now everyone will want to kill me for getting that song stuck in their heads).

I'm glad that AS was a success for you, Greg. You deserve it. :)

Awesome! I'm so close to buying a new one and giving the one that I have to my kids because we are always fighting over them. I'd rather have one that recharges.