Zappos lessons: Building a Customer-Focused Culture
View more presentations from Thor.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Netflix Playbook - Fortune Brainstorm Tech
The Netflix Playbook - Fortune Brainstorm Tech: "The Netflix Playbook
Posted by Michael V. Copeland, Senior Writer
August 26, 2009 7:27 AM
Finally, a Powerpoint presentation worth reading
CEO Hastings' 'deck' has become a how-to guide for entrepreneurs. Image: Netflix
Hastings' 'deck' is a how-to guide for startups. Image: Netflix
It isn’t often that I get convinced to read through a slide deck 128 images long. But after the fourth startup CEO, in this case Jonathan Sposato, CEO of online photo-editing service Picnik brought it to my attention; I sat down to give “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” a gander.
The slide deck, which can be found here, contains the distilled thinking of Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings about how to run a company.
The presentation offers interesting insights about how he runs Netflix, which by any measure is hitting it out of the park. So I am going to do something that is even more unusual for me, and recommend highly that you read this 128-image-slide deck too.
(Full disclosure here: I am a Netflix member, have been forever it seems, and count the delivery of my DVDs as one of the few pleasurable interactions I have with the U.S. Postal Service. And Netflix Instant? Don’t get me started on how my consumption of Japanese animation and survival shows has skyrocketed)."
Posted by Michael V. Copeland, Senior Writer
August 26, 2009 7:27 AM
Finally, a Powerpoint presentation worth reading
CEO Hastings' 'deck' has become a how-to guide for entrepreneurs. Image: Netflix
Hastings' 'deck' is a how-to guide for startups. Image: Netflix
It isn’t often that I get convinced to read through a slide deck 128 images long. But after the fourth startup CEO, in this case Jonathan Sposato, CEO of online photo-editing service Picnik brought it to my attention; I sat down to give “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” a gander.
The slide deck, which can be found here, contains the distilled thinking of Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings about how to run a company.
The presentation offers interesting insights about how he runs Netflix, which by any measure is hitting it out of the park. So I am going to do something that is even more unusual for me, and recommend highly that you read this 128-image-slide deck too.
(Full disclosure here: I am a Netflix member, have been forever it seems, and count the delivery of my DVDs as one of the few pleasurable interactions I have with the U.S. Postal Service. And Netflix Instant? Don’t get me started on how my consumption of Japanese animation and survival shows has skyrocketed)."
Culture
View more presentations from Reed Hastings.
Academy Leadership : Begin building your dream team.
Academy Leadership: "SUCCESSFUL TEAMS share two qualities: they are smart, and healthy. They show that they are smart by developing intelligent strategies, marketing plans, product features, and financial models that lead to competitive advantage over rivals. They show that they are healthy by eliminating politics and confusion, which leads to higher morale, lower turnover, and higher productivity.
I find that many leaders spend most of their time and energy making their organizations smarter, not making them healthier. This is regrettable, considering three benefits of health.
First, healthy organizations have a way of making themselves smarter. Even if their ideas are temporarily inferior to those of competitors, they recognize their deficiencies and change plans before it is too late. Other companies squander intellectual advantages because of infighting, lack of clarity, and other health problems.
Second, healthy companies are far less susceptible to ordinary problems. During difficult times, employees will remain committed to a healthy organization and stay longer, ultimately working to reestablish competitive advantage.
Third, no one but the leader can make the organization healthy. While executives often delegate responsibility for strategy, technology, marketing, or finance, they can't assign responsibility for cultural well-being. Hence, leaders should focus more on making their organizations healthy. And yet strategy, product innovation, and marketing typically receive far more attention.
Why? Because health is hard to measure—even harder to achieve. It feels soft to executives who prefer more quantitative methods of steering their companies. It also entails longer lead time to implementation than does a technology or marketing strategy. And health is often neglected because it involves facing realities of human behavior that even the most committed executive is tempted to avoid. It requires levels of discipline and courage that only a truly extraordinary executive is willing to embrace.
MORE here
I find that many leaders spend most of their time and energy making their organizations smarter, not making them healthier. This is regrettable, considering three benefits of health.
First, healthy organizations have a way of making themselves smarter. Even if their ideas are temporarily inferior to those of competitors, they recognize their deficiencies and change plans before it is too late. Other companies squander intellectual advantages because of infighting, lack of clarity, and other health problems.
Second, healthy companies are far less susceptible to ordinary problems. During difficult times, employees will remain committed to a healthy organization and stay longer, ultimately working to reestablish competitive advantage.
Third, no one but the leader can make the organization healthy. While executives often delegate responsibility for strategy, technology, marketing, or finance, they can't assign responsibility for cultural well-being. Hence, leaders should focus more on making their organizations healthy. And yet strategy, product innovation, and marketing typically receive far more attention.
Why? Because health is hard to measure—even harder to achieve. It feels soft to executives who prefer more quantitative methods of steering their companies. It also entails longer lead time to implementation than does a technology or marketing strategy. And health is often neglected because it involves facing realities of human behavior that even the most committed executive is tempted to avoid. It requires levels of discipline and courage that only a truly extraordinary executive is willing to embrace.
MORE here
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Ad exchanges will be revolutionised by IP intelligence - iMediaConnection.com
Discover how ad exchanges will continue to evolve and transform the way advertisers do business online, and learn what this means for the U.K. in particular.
View >>
Ad exchanges have been around for a number of years now, with Yahoo's RightMedia being the largest and most successful exchange to date. DoubleClick launched its ad exchange shortly before being acquired by Google, but since the acquisition have not promoted it heavily, and put it on idle while rethinking and rebuilding the tool. At a recent roundtable event, Google outlined their next generation ad exchange to be launched in the autumn of this year. The way they've tweaked the model is simple, yet fundamental. Here are the most significant changes and how it will impact publishers and advertisers alike: 1. AdWords becomes the buying platform
One of the biggest barriers to purchasing from ad exchanges is that they are separate platforms with their own workflow, billing and legal requirements. In short, it is hard for buyers to start trading with them. But from autumn, all agencies and advertisers will be able to buy ad exchange ad inventory through the AdWords UI. This means that all of Google's existing paid search advertisers will have instant access to all ad exchange inventory, producing a massive increase in liquidity, better workflow and fewer barriers to trade. For AdWords customers that are already buying 'content' as part of their paid search buys, the change will be almost unnoticeable. It also makes the ad exchange that much more appealing to publishers looking to increase their yield and sell-through rates. The more advertisers, the greater the chances of getting a good price for hard-to-sell blocks of inventory (like long-tail international inventory) or of getting a match for user list targeted impressions in a remarketing campaign. A classic positive network effect. 2. Guaranteed publishers payments on 30 days
Yes, this is not a typo! No sequential liability, no waiting for payment. Google is guaranteeing 100 per cent of revenues for publishers on 30 days, regardless of whether they have been paid by the advertiser. Of course, everyone pays Google on time, so this is probably not a major risk for them, but for most publishers (even large enterprise publishers) invoicing correctly and getting paid on time is a major headache and a major inefficiency in their businesses. A sales channel that guarantees payment on 30 days therefore becomes incredibly appealing. 3. Dynamic allocation for all
Dynamic allocation refers to the ability of an ad server to automatically select the highest yielding ad for a particular publisher impression, without the publisher having to make a hard allocation of that impression for a particular campaign or sales channel. The concept is fundamental to publishers that want to maximise yield across multiple sales channels (direct, sales houses, multiple ad networks etc). In the first version of DoubleClick's ad exchange, dynamic allocation was only possible if you ran DoubleClick's DART for Publishers as your ad serving tool. The new Google ad exchange will make dynamic allocation available to all publishers via an open API. This means that any publisher -- regardless of what ad serving platform they use -- will be able to include the Google ad exchange in their sales channel mix. This will massively increase the available set of publishers who can sell inventory through the exchange. The bottom line
The above issues might seem slightly obscure or theoretical to some of you, and their impact will probably not be visible in the marketplace until well into next year, but the result is inevitable. Google will win the ad exchange battle. Integration with AdWords, guaranteed payment and the opportunity for more publishers to get involved, all equates to a stronger network and better potential to monetise. As a publisher, you should seriously consider integrating Google's ad exchange as part of your sales channel mix, and figure out how best to use it to increase yield. And as an advertiser or agency, make sure you understand how to buy display inventory through AdWords and leverage the advanced targeting, retargeting and optimisation techniques it offers.
Ad exchanges: Why Google will ultimately win
Google is not winning the paid search battle because it is a better search engine, but because it is better at monetising search queries.
Using this same reasoning, I want to predict that Google will also win the battle to build the biggest, strongest ad exchange -- because it will be better at monetising display ad inventory. This is not simply a reckless prediction; it is based on the underlying economics of ad exchanges and the careful choices Google is making in building out its exchange business. Some backgroundAd exchanges have been around for a number of years now, with Yahoo's RightMedia being the largest and most successful exchange to date. DoubleClick launched its ad exchange shortly before being acquired by Google, but since the acquisition have not promoted it heavily, and put it on idle while rethinking and rebuilding the tool. At a recent roundtable event, Google outlined their next generation ad exchange to be launched in the autumn of this year. The way they've tweaked the model is simple, yet fundamental. Here are the most significant changes and how it will impact publishers and advertisers alike: 1. AdWords becomes the buying platform
One of the biggest barriers to purchasing from ad exchanges is that they are separate platforms with their own workflow, billing and legal requirements. In short, it is hard for buyers to start trading with them. But from autumn, all agencies and advertisers will be able to buy ad exchange ad inventory through the AdWords UI. This means that all of Google's existing paid search advertisers will have instant access to all ad exchange inventory, producing a massive increase in liquidity, better workflow and fewer barriers to trade. For AdWords customers that are already buying 'content' as part of their paid search buys, the change will be almost unnoticeable. It also makes the ad exchange that much more appealing to publishers looking to increase their yield and sell-through rates. The more advertisers, the greater the chances of getting a good price for hard-to-sell blocks of inventory (like long-tail international inventory) or of getting a match for user list targeted impressions in a remarketing campaign. A classic positive network effect. 2. Guaranteed publishers payments on 30 days
Yes, this is not a typo! No sequential liability, no waiting for payment. Google is guaranteeing 100 per cent of revenues for publishers on 30 days, regardless of whether they have been paid by the advertiser. Of course, everyone pays Google on time, so this is probably not a major risk for them, but for most publishers (even large enterprise publishers) invoicing correctly and getting paid on time is a major headache and a major inefficiency in their businesses. A sales channel that guarantees payment on 30 days therefore becomes incredibly appealing. 3. Dynamic allocation for all
Dynamic allocation refers to the ability of an ad server to automatically select the highest yielding ad for a particular publisher impression, without the publisher having to make a hard allocation of that impression for a particular campaign or sales channel. The concept is fundamental to publishers that want to maximise yield across multiple sales channels (direct, sales houses, multiple ad networks etc). In the first version of DoubleClick's ad exchange, dynamic allocation was only possible if you ran DoubleClick's DART for Publishers as your ad serving tool. The new Google ad exchange will make dynamic allocation available to all publishers via an open API. This means that any publisher -- regardless of what ad serving platform they use -- will be able to include the Google ad exchange in their sales channel mix. This will massively increase the available set of publishers who can sell inventory through the exchange. The bottom line
The above issues might seem slightly obscure or theoretical to some of you, and their impact will probably not be visible in the marketplace until well into next year, but the result is inevitable. Google will win the ad exchange battle. Integration with AdWords, guaranteed payment and the opportunity for more publishers to get involved, all equates to a stronger network and better potential to monetise. As a publisher, you should seriously consider integrating Google's ad exchange as part of your sales channel mix, and figure out how best to use it to increase yield. And as an advertiser or agency, make sure you understand how to buy display inventory through AdWords and leverage the advanced targeting, retargeting and optimisation techniques it offers.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Rankings of Best Affiliate Marketing Companies and Firms
Rankings of Best Affiliate Marketing Companies and Firms
MediaTrust Ranks #1 in the affiliate marketing catagory
MediaTrust Ranks #1 in the affiliate marketing catagory
Thursday, September 17, 2009
10 Rules for Super Affiliate Marketing & SEO, an @MediaTrust Educational Webinar
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Saturday, August 15, 2009
MediaTrust -- Advertising & Marketing
MediaTrust -- Advertising & Marketing: "No. 9
MediaTrust
New York, NY
Year 2009
Industry Advertising & Marketing
Founded 2004
Growth 9,481.1%
2005 Revenue $399,372
2008 Revenue $38.3 million
Employees 60
Website www.MediaTrust.com
MediaTrust's Business Model:
MediaTrust offers a diverse set of digital marketing services for advertisers using affiliate web page publishers. The company's proprietary cost-per-action platform supports campaigns using display advertising, paid search, social media, and e-mail.
MediaTrust's Revenue Chart
Compare this company's growth rate between 2005 and 2008, with the growth rate during that period of the average company in the industry, according to Sageworks, a research firm."
MediaTrust
New York, NY
Year 2009
Industry Advertising & Marketing
Founded 2004
Growth 9,481.1%
2005 Revenue $399,372
2008 Revenue $38.3 million
Employees 60
Website www.MediaTrust.com
MediaTrust's Business Model:
MediaTrust offers a diverse set of digital marketing services for advertisers using affiliate web page publishers. The company's proprietary cost-per-action platform supports campaigns using display advertising, paid search, social media, and e-mail.
MediaTrust's Revenue Chart
Compare this company's growth rate between 2005 and 2008, with the growth rate during that period of the average company in the industry, according to Sageworks, a research firm."
Google adds AdWords Bid Simulator feature - Advertising - BizReport
Google adds AdWords Bid Simulator feature - Advertising - BizReport: "Google adds AdWords Bid Simulator feature
If you've always wanted to know what would have happened had you followed a different AdWords bidding strategy, then Google has just the feature for you."
If you've always wanted to know what would have happened had you followed a different AdWords bidding strategy, then Google has just the feature for you."
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
MediaTrust's CEO, Peter Bordes' Affiliate Convention Keynote 06.19.09
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
More Props to Performance Marketing from ad:tech Attendees | Mediatrust Blog
More Props to Performance Marketing from ad:tech Attendees | Mediatrust Blog: "More Props to Performance Marketing from ad:tech Attendees
In research posted after the ad:tech San Francisco show wrapped up, a couple nice meaty data points surfaced. The research polled attendees of the show about some of their planned behaviors. Two of them stand out for our readers:
* 89% of show attendees are interested in buying performance marketing
* 24% plan to buy performance marketing"
In research posted after the ad:tech San Francisco show wrapped up, a couple nice meaty data points surfaced. The research polled attendees of the show about some of their planned behaviors. Two of them stand out for our readers:
* 89% of show attendees are interested in buying performance marketing
* 24% plan to buy performance marketing"
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
CEOs Who Use Twitter: Peter Bordes, MediaTrust CEO - BusinessWeek
CEOs Who Use Twitter: Peter Bordes, MediaTrust CEO - BusinessWeek
Peter Bordes, MediaTrust CEO
Following: 3,611Followers: 3,347
Updates: 1,638
Favorite Twitter user to follow:
@leeodden (http://twitter.com/leeodden), an online marketing and social media thought leader
How Twitter helps him run MediaTrust:
Twitter allows me to have a real-time two-way dialogue with MediaTrust's industry, community, business partners, and employees.
Recent tweet:
"Sourcing Data from Co-Registration Sites is Like Dealing in Sub-Prime Mortgages:Proceed at your own Risk"
View tweets: http://twitter.com/mediatrustpete
Monday, May 11, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
AffiliateMarketer.info » 70 Free Landing Page Templates
AffiliateMarketer.info » 70 Free Landing Page Templates:
Free landing page templates aren’t easy to come by but we’ve gathered up some that were free and posted them here for you.
Here’s what google considers a “high quality” landing page and this will tell you what Wikipedia says.
Search Marketing Landing Page Template
Zanox offers up their landing page template for a free download of what they use for their search engine marketing.
Clean Landing Page Templates
Cash Revelations has FIFTY FOUR templates you can choose from in their single download. They even have a cool template viewer when you open the zip called openthis.html or you can browse through the folders. Many are similar with background changes only but well worth a look:
Revvenue Free Landing Page Templates
Revvenue has one download that includes TEN free templates to download in one zip file. You might need your graphics editor to change the graphics if you need to but this site has the best bang for the buck 
Here are three screen grabs of their free landing page templates:
Zac Johnson Free Landing Page Templates
Zac’s First Landing Page Template was pretty popular and well worth the download.
Zac also has a comparison or review landing page template that is pretty cool also.
Sales Page Landing Pages
Sales Page Landing pages are cool if you need a bit more space to write your offer and fall more into the category for ebook landing pages. We downloaded a couple and they worked well and were easy to update. Three free templates here. 1 example shown.
Text And Boxes Free Landing Page
Dotcomprenuer - Basic and real easy to edit.
Credit Report Landing Page
ThinkLikeAnSob was pissed at his designer so he posted a free download of a credit report template.
Know of any other free landing page templates? Leave a comment with the details.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
The FASTForward Blog » The FASTforward Blog Guide to Twitter: Enterprise 2.0 Blog: News, Coverage, and Commentary
The FASTForward Blog » The FASTforward Blog Guide to Twitter: Enterprise 2.0 Blog: News, Coverage, and Commentary
The FASTforward Blog Guide to Twitter
Over the last three years, the members of the Fast Forward Blog have been writing regularly on the developing 2.0 world. If you been tracking the blog since early on, or diligently follow all the links into the archives, or even search for an item of interest - you hopefully have founds lots of interesting ideas and insights that helped you track and understand the emergence of enterprise 2.0, social media, and more. And yet it can still be hard to get the full value of all the insights that have been discussed or pointed to from here without some overarching narrative thread.
Hence the idea for these guides to see if we can aggregate, edit and make more accessible the collective “wisdom” that has been published here over the years. Our hope: that one of us can approach a topic and do our best to extract the most value from it for you.
Where to begin? Many think that Twitter is a great place to start as it embodies nearly all the lessons that we have to learn to become adept in this new world. It is also very simple and easy to adopt with a great many immediate benefits.
So, with that, the first of our guides: The Fast Forward Blog Guide to Twitter.
WordPress Plugins | alexking.org
WordPress Plugins | alexking.org: "WordPress Plugins
Please note: All of these plugins are officially unsupported. They worked for me on the version of WordPress I wrote them for. If you have any trouble with them, please post in the WordPress Support Forums where many nice people will be able to help you.
If you were unable to find the help you needed in the WP forums, my company does provide WordPress consulting services - feel free to let us know what you need and we can send you an estimate. Thanks for understanding.
The latest version, sometimes including unreleased changes and bug fixes, can always be found in the SVN Repository for each plugin.
Read about WordPress 2.5 Compatibility for these plugins."
Please note: All of these plugins are officially unsupported. They worked for me on the version of WordPress I wrote them for. If you have any trouble with them, please post in the WordPress Support Forums where many nice people will be able to help you.
If you were unable to find the help you needed in the WP forums, my company does provide WordPress consulting services - feel free to let us know what you need and we can send you an estimate. Thanks for understanding.
The latest version, sometimes including unreleased changes and bug fixes, can always be found in the SVN Repository for each plugin.
Read about WordPress 2.5 Compatibility for these plugins."
Friday, May 08, 2009
212 - About - About 212 Home
212 - About - About 212 Home: "212 is the galvanizing force for the Interactive advertising community in New York City, by providing a forum for ad agencies and publishers to interact, network and learn while making the whole process fun."
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