Ok, I confess, the title is disingenuous. Everyone knows no single entity dominates, much less creates, the web. But if anyone was still in doubt on that point, the latest Pew Internet study should finally put the issue to rest. According to Wendy Davis' story on Online Media Daily:

"As of last December, 35 percent of Americans had posted to a blog, created a Web page, shared online photos, or otherwise generated content. That proportion is more than double the 16 percent that had posted any content to the Web in January 2002, when Pew first researched the topic."

That translates to 48 million Americans, according to ClickZ' Enid Burns. Not only are the base numbers increasing, but the demographic spread is widening. It isn't just young, techno-savvy web geeks anymore, it's everybody. That shouldn't be too surprising, considering the growth of social networks over the past few years. MSN Spaces, for example, now has more than 100 million unique ... Read More →

Commission Junction Changes Their Links... This is major news. CJ has announced that they are changing from HTML links to Javascript links. What does this mean? Well, instead of having links that you would use typically, you will now have to place "coding" into the page for a link. What does this mean to you? Well the way you insert links is completely different now. Affiliate links are becoming a bit more like Adsense links. They will be "fed" directly onto your site by CJ. Some of the implications are that this does give the merchant/CJ much more control over your site and what is actually showing (as in the text for the link - not as easy to change any more as just changing a few html text). However, CJ is still saying that they will allow affiliates to control text and look/feel over the links - but havn't exactly said how that will be possible. Also, if you use data feeds or have a comparison shopping website, it is still unclear how easily you're going to be able to automatically have JAVA links inserted. Now for all you e-mail and PPC affiliates You don't need "me" telling you that you can't exactly insert JAVA scr... Read More →

The web is growing in every conceivable direction. Total number and demographic spread of users, international reach, variety of technologies, you name it. One of the most rapidly growing, and most interesting, markets is mobile video. Out of a total U.S. Internet population of 172 million, more than 2 million subscribe to mobile TV, according to Telephia data reported by ClickZ master of statistics, Enid Burns. (23% of those are Hispanic users, a very under served, but very active, Internet demographic.) In China, mobile users have outnumbered fixed-line users there since October 2003. They now number nearly 417 million, according to data from the Ministry of Information. (A questionable source, but made plausible by figures from other sources. In particular, eMarketer reports Informa data showing over 376 million mobile phone users in China, compared to 208 million in the U.S.) Though the latest Hollywood blockbuster probably isn't great source material for a cell phone (and they don't serve in-program ads anyway), there ... Read More →

MySpace is reported to be in talks with either Google or Microsoft for a deal to provide enhanced search and ads to the MySpace community. Emphasis on that word 'community'. Social networks, blogs, and the like, began with the goal of sharing opinions, experiences, and so forth online. They've met that goal and then some. Social networks are not just the latest hyped buzzword, but an online reality worth, potentially, billions in ad revenue. Obviously, both Google and Microsoft know this. (Yahoo! is reportedly less interested. Maybe they were turned off by the process carried out among the Big Three over AOL.) So does Rupert Murdoch, media mogul and now owner of MySpace. (Murdoch's News Corp bought MySpace last year for nearly $600 million.) Even more than Brin and Page, Murdoch knows how to turn eyeballs into dollar signs. He's been in the business, like it or not, for decades. Political leanings aside, he turned Fox News from a sleepy also-ran into a serious competitor to the major networks. He turned a failing New York newspaper into a competitor of the vaunted New York T... Read More →

If you're interested in some highly effective "white hat" methods for increasing your AdSense revenues, you'll want to download the May issue of Affiliate Classroom Magazine. In it you'll find: * How to cash in on high-paying topics, even in a low-paying niche. * Ways to find high-paying keywords using Google's own tools. * How to change your site design to get higher CTR. * What pays best - AdSense, Chitika, or Amazon? Excellent case studies by top-notch AdSense arbitrage and keyword experts. PLUS THESE EXTRAS: Click Fraud: Should you be worried? How Web 2.0 affiliates take data feeds and APIs to new heights. ... Read More →

My stock portfolio convinces me regularly that I have a very limited ability to predict the future. But two fresh news stories suggest that I may have gotten at least one thing right when I talked about online video. Consumption is up by a healthy 18 percent in the six months from October 2005 to March 2006, according to comScore. And � surprisingly, perhaps � the usage (though not the amount) is about evenly split between men and women. Add to that statistic another, perhaps even more astounding: 3.7 billion streams were viewed, at an average of 100 minutes per month. (Though males, unsurprisingly, watch more at nearly two hours per month compared to females at one hour twenty minutes.) Taking the smaller figure as discounting porn, even at an hour per month � with the growth of and low resistance to video ads � that's equal to the average time spent on search. As reported by Zachary Rodgers on ClickZ:

"But while certain demographic sets consume more video than others, the report... Read More →

Google has announced their much-anticipated contextual video ad program. Ads will be displayed as static images, but clicking starts a video with fast-forward, pause, and volume controls. A separate click takes the viewer to the advertiser's site. Now's a perfect time to jump on those video podcast sites and download the tools you need to turn your ads into eye-magnets. You can bid for play in the same way as usual (CPC or CPM) and geo-target locally, nationally, or internationally. So, brush up on the version of English the other country speaks, too. When you think about content, consider that teens are more graphically and video oriented than adults and they represent between 12 and 15 million shoppers in the U.S. alone. (James Maguire has some excellent tips for designing your site to attract and appeal to teens, here at e-Commerce-guide.com.) The one thing above all else to remember is: keep it interesting. Teens bore easily. And what's one of the top things teens buy online? Music, o... Read More →

A big botnet is on the loose. Unlike the ultra-cool robots in science fiction movies, this piece of scumware is out to cheat you of hard earned cash. Linda Buquet of 5 Star Affiliate Programs posted a piece of the story reported (among other places) on Help Net Security.

"PandaLabs has detected a network of computers infected with the bot Clickbot.A, which is being used to defraud �pay per click� systems, registering clicks automatically and providing lucrative returns for the creators. According to the data collected so far, the scam is exploiting a global network comprising more than 34,000 zombie computers (those infected by the bot)."

Even hackers have turned materialistic these days, and are willing to create payloads that don't delete files or splash annoying messages, but artificially click ads. They click away, mindlessly making money out of thin ether. But like any non-productive activity, it doesn't create anything of value � it simply steals from h... Read More →

Activity among the major search engine companies is... well, active. Yahoo! has redesigned the home page and added a nice feature to local search, by including phone numbers in results. Bill Gates is talking about integrating Internet search into the Windows operating system. (Which, given some of the new features in the upcoming Windows Vista release, Microsoft may well do.) And Google is... doing everything under the sun, as usual. All this, and more, is part of each of The Big 3's vow to � let's be nice now � compete strongly. Normally, I stay away from recommending one over the other. One major reason is that they all do a great job or a hideous job, depending on your goals. As a user, Google often provides results I find useful in research. As an affiliate marketer they � let's be nice again � fall a bit short of being ideal. The same could be said of MSN and Yahoo!. Usually. But today is unusual. Search on "affiliate marketing" and Affiliate Classroom will come up first i... Read More →

We recently reported that nearly 800 million persons now use the Internet. According to one recent report, that number may be 20% too low. eMarketer states that:

"Internet access became available to one billion people worldwide, with approximately 845 million using it regularly."

Not too many years ago people would say, in a tone of awe and disbelief, that there were one billion people in China. Many who said it were alive when the entire world population wasn't much more than that. A little more trivia. In 1906, a first class stamp cost two cents and women in Finland got the right to put in their two cents via the vote. Around the same time the first communication cables were being laid between San Francisco and Asia. Now, what has all this to do with � to use another nostalgic expression � the price of tea in China? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Today, the Chinese have the largest, single-country, active Internet population (111 million) after the U.S. (175 million). ... Read More →