AlexHopmann.com

TechCrunch has a new post up on Google’s new PPA product. TechCrunch concludes that the affiliate networks like Commission Junction and LinkShare are screwed. Unless I’m missing something in how Google’s new product works, this is totally misunderstanding how the existing affiliate networks are used. They aren’t used in the traditional ad-sense model of “sprinkle a few links” on the page- if they were, the actual action rate would be so low that it would be a disaster for the publisher. For example, I tried out the Amazon Omakase links for a bit in various places which works in that model and got absolutely nothing.

Most existing usage of the affiliate networks is much more targeted. I’m mentioning a specific product, so I include a link directly to the product. If you are reading about the product on my site, you might be likely to buy it. If Google were to offer publishers a product where they could place specific ads on their sites, THAT would be a huge earthquake in the industry, but this one doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal to any of the existing players (yet).

I’m looking forward to the premier of the new This American Life TV show on Showtime. While its almost the stereotype of public radio, I really enjoy the radio version and Kat and I went to the live taping in Seattle two weeks ago. It was great getting to see the preview of the TV show and watching a radio show be taped can be a surprisingly fun event.

There was one interesting bit though- Ira Glass was chatting about the TV show with his director Chris Wilcha. They were talking about what a puzzle it was to figure out how to visually put Ira into the show and Chris said that he came up with a completely original, never done before concept. They would stick him at a desk in the middle of some landscape, by a road, on a beach etc.

I just hope they aren’t so clueless to think this is an actually original concept vs. one of the most brilliant but well known device in the history of television. I just hope they give a little shout-out to the origin of this device by having Ira say “And now for something completely different” at his desk some time.