Another year, another chance
To start our lives anew;
This time we’ll leap old barriers
To have a real breakthrough.

We’ll take one little step
And then we’ll take one more,
Our unlimited potential
We’ll totally explore.

We’ll show off all our talents
Everyone will be inspired;
(Hmm…while I’m writing this,
I’m getting very tired.)

We’ll give up all bad habits;
We’ll read and learn a lot,
All our goals will be accomplished,
Sigh…or maybe not.

Oh well, Happy New Year anyway!

By Joanna Fuchs

For sometime now my youngest daughter Samantha who is 6 has been asking, pleading, well practically begging for a website of her own, she has seen her sister and me working away and wanted to get involved, so I asked her what she wanted to do a website about, the answer was “stuff”, what sort of stuff? “er well animals and stuff”, right I said (mainly to get a little peace), during holidays I will sort one out for you, then I promptly forgot about it, lol she never and the nagging got worse and I was also being cajoled by family and friends, so I eventually got round to it and on the 20th December Sammys Little Blog was born.

What she writes about is entirely up to her, she does her own research and original artwork, I have to admit I am very proud of her, and a little misty eyed when she wrote about me.

First of all, as it is unlikely that I will update this blog again before next Thursday , I’d like to wish all my reader(s) a very merry Christmas, if you are sat waiting for a card from me I’m sorry but you will be disappointed, I am the worlds worst card sender and have only sent one so far and don’t intend sending many more.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone who has sent me Christmas presents and cards this year (for the cynics amongst you this is not a bragging post I work damned hard for what I get and you can achieve the same too).

Special thanks too…

• Webgains – Beer Hamper
• Paid On Results – Bottle of Jack Daniels
• Existem Affiliate Management – Bottle of Mount Gay Rum
• BeCheeky – Chocolates
• Scifind Ltd - Lottery Ticket
• Big Idea Media – Lottery Scratch card
• Affiliate Window – Premier Cru Champagne and Fine Wine Set
• Equator – A cookie (from their server)

…  will add to the list if any more arrive, I truly hope I’ve not missed anyone out.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Way back on New Years Day I wrote my 2008 affiliate marketing predictions so how did I do?

Consolidation – there have been an awful lot of new network startups in 2007 some good, some bad, some will simply fade away others will stand the test of time, however I predict some consolidation, very possibly we will see two fairly major networks joining forces.

In February Buy.at was acquired by AOL and now operates as a business unit of AOL subsidiary Advertising.com under the name Platform-A.

Growth of Mobile Technology – something I hadn’t considered before the affiliate summit when Shaun Collins spoke about how a significant proportion of his blog visitors use mobile devises, then at the expo my good friend Ray Theakston spoke of his plans to launch a mobile site. Initially I expect the growth of mobile to be slow, maybe a network or two will introduce a mobile interface so we can check stats, and hopefully A4u will also go mobile, after all if facebook can do it We will probably have to wait until Autumn before we see mobile shopping, I expect Amazon to be the first major merchant to go down that route, in time for next Christmas.

On December 3rd Amazon.com announced the throwing open of its virtual doors to iPhone and iPod Touch users everywhere with Amazon Mobile.

Widgets – Prezzybox have already given us a Wordpress widget expect more to appear as other merchants catch on.

We have seen a few innovations in this area not least the excellent Sunpress from Sunshine.co.uk

Video – merchants and affiliates will be racing to produce bigger, better more lavish films to promote their wares, video casts will take over from podcasts on the more technical blogs.

Quite a few videos about for affiliates to use including Iwoot, Buyagift, Firebox and Prezzybox, if you know of any more please add in the comments below.

Also Matt Wood and his team have launched affiliates4u.tv

International UK affiliate event – We got a taste of this in March 2007 when DFDS took a number of affiliates for a day trip to Amsterdam, this year I predict a full blown UK affiliate event to be held abroad (not Wales Jude although I’d love to come to Swansea sometime) .

My timing is slightly out on this one, A4uexpo goes to Amsterdam on 28th and 29th April 2009.

Eat your heart out Mystic Meg

Not sure if I will attempt to do the same for 2009 no way I will get that lucky again.

Nice healthy debate going on over at the a4uforum at the moment regarding brand bidding plus generics got me thinking there must be an easy way to see all the advertisements for a specific keyword / phrase a bit of a dig round proved I wasn’t wrong. Google have a great tool that reveals every ad for a specific search term even if bids are set so low they don’t actually trigger on serps listings check it out here or use the box below.

Here is what google has to say about what these results reveal:

Google shows “Sponsored Links” from our advertising network in the right-hand column of the search results page (and sometimes also in a colored box above of the search results). If you click More Sponsored Links below the listings on the right side of a search results page, our Ad Search engine compares your search terms to the ads in our network, and then provides you with a page showing all ads that match your keywords.This feature makes it easier for users to search through our entire ad inventory for relevant matches to their search terms. It also makes it easier for advertisers to view their ads.

Have a play its certainly very enlightening.