Last week John Lammerton announced the launch of Easy Content Units (ECU), if you haven’t already signed up and had a play with them I suggest you do so now as they are awesome.

These days the majority of my websites are on WordPress  and even though ECU embeds pretty easily into a wordpress article I got to thinking there must be an easier way, so I looked at what plugins I was already using to embed elements into posts and decided that Youtuber fitted the bill, so a bit of hacking with the code and I came up with wp-ecu the output of which you can see below.

Click here to download the wp-ecu zip file.

Instructions

Edit the file wp-ecu.php

change ecu_mid=3  to your own id number or I will get the commission

Installation

1. Upload ‘wp-ecu’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

Usage

To embed one of your Easy Content Units in a post enclose the content units ecu_uid like so

[ ecu]77[/ecu ]  (remove the spaces I had to put them in to stop it parsing)

where 77 = the ecu_uid

This is an alpha release and not been thoroughly tested, I would appreciate if you could leave feedback below, or if you modify the plugin please send me a copy to have a play with, one thing I would like to see in a future release is an options page to save having to edit the file wp-ecu.php before uploading, if anyone can write something that will do the job it would be great.

In the main affiliate marketing is a fabulous industry to be in, most of the people involved are friendly and helpful often above and beyond the call of duty, however like everything else in life there are a few bad apples in the barrel, people who don’t want to play by the rules, people who don’t merely bend the rules but totally smash through them with the attitude sod the rules they don’t apply to us. Why should the entire affiliate marketing channel suffer because of a few rogues?

I’m not picking on one sector of the industry, PPC, voucher, cashback and content are all viable business models, and they all add to the user experience in their own different ways, but each area has an element that disregards the rules and they should be stamped upon.

You can spend forever taking about the problems but now its time to talk about solutions.

At the end of the day the onus on sorting out the rule breakers should not be on the merchant (unless they run an indy program) or groups of vigilante affiliates, no the action needs to be taken by the affiliate networks, they are the ones who should have the information at hand to see what is going on and the authority to do something about it.

I’m not saying that the networks are not already on the case, I’m sure they are, however examples of terms and conditions being broken abound so what I am saying is not enough is being done at this present moment in time, how long do we have to wait to see some justice handed out to the perpetrators?

There is a series of actions that can be taken, a warning should be given to first time offenders with a full explanation to what they are doing wrong and if necessary a helping hand to get them back on track, repeat offenders should be suspended for a period of time from the entire network, not just the merchant whose terms they have disregarded, after a suspension period has been served any further rule breaking should result in a permanent ban.

Networks should work together on this matter too, compile a blacklist and distribute it amongst themselves, this should help prevent playing a game of virtual pass the parcel.

No doubt much of the above is going on and in the main the networks do a sterling job as does the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council, however if we are ever going to have an industry where affiliates can compete on a level playing field ITS TIME FOR ACTION TO BE TAKEN and for it to be seen to be taken as a warning to others who are beginning to jump on the bandwagon with the attitude if you can’t beat them join them.

Amazon have launched MP3 Clips Widgets not quite sure how I’m going to use these myself yet but heres a preview.

As the MP3 downloads pay 10% referral fees I can see them being very useful for those affiliate people with music fan sites and mp3 player sites.

One thing I would like to see is a WordPress Plugin to make embedding them easier.

No doubt you all get strange emails at times, just received the following via one of my fashion blogs, it starts off OK poor misguided soul thinks I manufacture clothing but the next to last sentence is a classic and I still have tears streaming down my face as I type.

HELLO!

My name is Anat and I own a store.

I really like to import your clothing to Israel.

I think you’ll find it a great new knish.

I find your collections great for our girls and boys!!!

I must explain, that the store is an On-line department store.

We also host Sushi parties for girls between the age of 15-22. where we sell the goods.

Our website is currently in process but I will be more
then happy to send you the link when it’s done.

After getting really lucky with my 2008 predictions I was in two minds whether to dust off the crystal ball and have another stab again this year, but with some trepidation here goes.

• Deeplinking (1) some of the affiliate networks that have been seriously lagging behind in the deeplinking stakes will vastly improve what they have to offer.
• Affliliate Management one of the leading UK affiliate networks will outsource its internal affiliate program management to a leading affiliate management agency thus improving the offering and freeing up vital resources for the day to day running of the network.
• Deeplinking (2) one of the innovative affiliate networks will introduce a solution for creating affiliate links on the fly (ie the affiliate only needs to add the destination url to their website) this may take the form of a java script solution or some kind of plugin or widget, thus taking deeplinking to another level.
• The High Street – Not entirely affiliate related however I predict that a major high street chain will close its bricks and mortar operations and become internet only.

hmmm