Ever since Amazon launched their “Simple Email Service” (SES), I’ve been wanting to try it out. Yesterday, I finally got around to sending my first test message. I used a PHP class created by Dan Myers based on one created by Donovan Schonknecht. But I wasn’t quite satisfied with it.

The biggest shortcoming is that it [...]

This morning, Terry Dean asked the question:

What are the qualifications to being a successful internet entrepreneur?

He lists several important ones: good communication skills (written and/or verbal), good time managements skills, personal motivation, etc. I’ll add a few — but first, I’m going to change the question slightly:

What are the qualifications to being a successful, ethical [...]

Once again, Seth Godin has written something that make me think:

When Google + launched, millions of formerly optimistic people became optimistic again. Maybe this was going to be the one, the social network with just the smart people and none of the lame stuff, none of the spam or the pitches or the people we’re [...]

A few days ago, ClickBank posted some welcome news on their blog:

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing high quality products to consumers, ClickBank is adjusting certain fees relating to refund and chargeback rates for ClickBank vendors. These changes will affect a very small number of ClickBank vendors, and will not affect affiliates.

Beginning October [...]

Last Friday, after publishing the post about Google’s quality raters handbook (which I’d found through a post on “Pot Pie Girl’s” blog), I spent a little time looking over her older posts and found an interesting one showing the results of an email subject line test she ran back in March.

I thought I’d share the [...]

I found an interesting post from PotPieGirl this morning that included a link to Google’s 2011 Quality Raters Handbook. I’m not going to talk about the same things that she talks about, so I recommend clicking over there and reading her post.

Near the end, she writes:

…if we can each train ourselves to be Google Raters, [...]

The other day, somebody asked me to do more “how to” type blog posts. Here’s one: “how to create a blog worth subscribing to,” or, more accurately, “one way to create a blog worth subscribing to.” Obviously, it’s not the only way.

I was going to call it “how to get me to subscribe to your [...]

If you’ve read this blog long enough, you’ve probably heard me mention my free PDF, The Great Big Picture of Internet Marketing. In just a few pages, it gives you an overview of what you need to do to start your internet marketing business off on a solid foundation.

Seth Godin reminded me of the importance [...]

Marketers spend a lot of time trying to get customers to choose them. One thing that makes it easier is to spend some time up front choosing your customers.

Back in July, Seth Godin wrote:

Many organizations will take any customer, any time, and bend and writhe to accommodate money in whatever form it arrives. Other, happier [...]

I’ve got a question for you today. I’ve been considering which affiliate programs to add support for to Affiliate Afterburner/WP (I just added ClickBank support), and it got me thinking about different types of affiliate programs and the capabilities they offer.

Individual vs. Networks

On the one hand, you have big networks like ClickBank, Commission Junction, etc., [...]