Thank you Jason Calacanis
26 February 2008 – 2:38 pm
The keynote address yesterday at Affiliate Summit West 2008 was delivered by the outspoken and usually controversial Jason Calacanis.
His engaging presentation that seemed to focus primarily on what’s bad about the affiliate marketing industry elicited strong reactions from many of the hundreds of affiliate marketers in attendance.
You can get more in-depth sound bites from some other folks who gave more details of the presentation, like Sam at Revenews. But his basic message is that Internet Marketers are pissing in the well, polluting our rivers, overfishing our oceans, insert your own tragedy of the commons metaphor here.
While he delivered his message it in a way that shouldn’t have surprised anyone, I am glad he did it.
To those of you who took offense to what Jason said, I say grow some skin and really think about what this guy is saying. Would you really rather have someone here telling us all how awesome we are while blowing smoke up our collective asses?
News flash. There ARE internet marketers out there who are making a mess of the Internet.
It doesn’t matter if Jason gets it or not. It doesn’t matter if you think what you do is “affiliate spam” or not. It doesn’t matter if he insulted our boy Zac. (Zac will be just fine).
What matters is this is what a not insignificant portion of the world outside of our little industry thinks about us.
And it’s not people that don’t matter to us. It’s the people who have control over our traffic.
For example, take a look at the past several years at all of the moves that Google and the other search engines have done to clean up this so-called mess. Look at Google’s infamous “Florida Update” which sent thousands of affiliate marketers back to square one, if not back their day jobs. Look at the many PPC rules that have been put into place to govern the bad actors.
How many of these updates have impacted you and your own affiliate marketing activities?
Do you think they looked at what was getting whacked as a whole (don’t think for a second that they didn’t take a good hard look at who got hit) and said, but look at all these great affiliate sites and said wait, we can’t hurt the good guys?
This will continue to happen as the search engines must get more and more aggressive to clean up their waters. Do you think they’ll get better and better at just cleaning out the “bad guys”? Clearly that’s a very difficult task. And instead they’ll tighten things down such that lots of what we consider good websites, useful content, services for shoppers will get sucked out with the mess.
So, in response to Jason Calacanis, yeah, get mad. But don’t get mad at him. Take a good look in the mirror.
If you’re an affiliate network, are you rewarding some of this bad behavior by allowing it to exist in your network, or worse encouraging it?
If you’re an affiliate manager, are you turning a blind eye to some tactics used by your affiliates that may be producing big, but creating a bad experience for users?
And while I don’t expect the “quick-buck-seeking, criminal mindset, marketers” as Jason affectionately labeled them to read this and say, “yeah!”, as someone who is building good stuff, consider what the world would look like if the still somewhat open resources like organic search and PPC got replaced with sites like Jason’s walled garden because the “curated web” is a nicer place to live for Grandma and Aunt Gertie.
And every time you see a PPC advertiser beating out your good ads and driving up your prices with some sneaky tactic, think about this keynote.
Every time your minimum bids get jacked up or your ads get deactivated for “quality issues”, think about this keynote.
Every time you look at a search result page and wonder why the hell that crappy site got ranked above yours, think about this keynote presentation.
Nobody can define a broad definition “good user experience”. We affiliate marketers can argue with each other about whether it was an iceburg or a torpedo that put the hole in a sinking ship instead of looking at the water pouring in and figuring out what to do about it.
That’s not to say that the Affiliate Marketing Ship is sinking, I’m not at all that fatalistic about it. But I think we all can make a pretty good educated guess as to what the companies who control the search engine results feel about what we do while painting our world with their broad brush strokes. There are surely some torpedoes all set for deployment.
And if you have a hard time with that exercise, Jason gave us a pretty good view into that mindset. People like Jason are the ones deciding whether your websites and your marketing is seen in their search engine / directory / advertising platform.
This runner up for the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle “Affiliate Marketing Advocate Award” is glad someone has the balls to stand up in front of us and point out the elephant in the room.
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27 Responses to “Thank you Jason Calacanis”
I didn’t go to the summit, but have bin reading all the negative posts about his presentation. This one is a great angle to think of things.
Some people thought he might have bin going for shock value to hype up his Maholo. But it sounds like he was just providing the facts of what still happens in this industry
-Brian
AM @ Pingo
By pingo on Feb 26, 2008
While I agree with everything Jason said, I don’t think Mahalo is really any better. It’s a lame directory filled with links from all the big players everyone already knows about.
Look up a movie, it’s all IMDB, Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes, etc..
Travel pages are loaded with TripAdvisor, Frommers, Concierge.com, etc…for every travel related page. Real creative.
Part of me just thinks his “ballsy speeches” are just a great way to get us doing exactly what we wants…talking and linking over to Mahalo.
By Jason Forthofer on Feb 26, 2008
I think this is perhaps the best coverage/perspective of the discussion i’ve seen. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.
Jason Forthofer: We do select a lot of the “big players everyone already knows about” because they are the highest quality sites. We do find a lot of things that are not the top sites and try to include.
In fact, our system is open so you–the site owner–can not only suggest your site, but you can also discuss with us why you think it’s better than IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, or Wikipedia. If you can’t make a case for it being better are you suggesting that we put a worse link above a better one?
That doesn’t make much sense for me. Diversity of sources is NOT what users want. Users want the BEST results that inform them the most, that they can trust the most, and that are, well, “the best.”
That’s one of the issues I think a lot of Affiliate folks miss: the world may not need your page on “Blade Runner.” If you can’t make a page that is better than the top 10 pages out there I suggest you don’t bother, because the future of the world is the top 10 results actually being the top 10 pages on the internet!
best j
By Jason Calacanis on Feb 26, 2008
Jason,
You just quoted Scott in your post. Why not give him a link instead of making your readers copy and paste the link??? Sorry, but that is very arrogant.
By Vlad on Feb 26, 2008
Jason Calacanis,
Thanks for the reply and explaination. Agreed. I guess over time, your results will change and more of the smaller guys, but who also provide great content will be included.
By Jason Forthofer on Feb 27, 2008
For every negative comment about Jason’s keynote, there are about ten other attendees that got what he was saying and his intention. Only affiliate marketers with something to hide would find what he was saying to offensive or “scary”.
By David Deangelo on Feb 27, 2008
@David Deangelo,
What Jason said was arrogant and not scary or offensive at least not to me.
That is wonderful that every tenth person finds his remarks useful and helpful.
My problem with Jason is that to him a page containing an affiliate links must be spammy.
I have nothing to hide. I just think Calacanis should not be pronouncing on the matters he has no authority to pronounce on.
I have nothing to hide, but as Joel Comm wrote there are are many shades of gray in between black and white.
By Vlad on Feb 27, 2008
From what I understand he stated during his remarks that Mahalo is not competing with Google, just to write the following few hours later on his blog:
How about that?
By Vlad on Feb 27, 2008
Amen to your perspective, Scott. Whether or not Mahalo is this or that or Jason is a this or that… the message is what is important. There IS a LOT of crap out there, not doubt about it. When I started getting into this whole arena, I wanted to get things moving quickly and get as much stuff out there as possible. It didn’t work and I felt uneasy and embarrassed about my efforts. I decided to build a community around a website with great content and now I not only feel proud, it’s slowly starting to pay off. I think the premise is correct. Build great stuff and build a better site than everyone else and it WILL pay off.
By Chris O'Byrne on Feb 27, 2008
Whaou a jason calacanis comment on your blog i’m jalous!
By design hotels on Feb 27, 2008
more here…it is time to bring it to a head.
WHO are these affiliates? WHO are these people?
They are spammers and blackhats- not valid affiliate relationships. (Again I am NOT an affiliate.)
But I am reserving my sermon…I want to know where civic responsibility comes in? WWJD? (no offense intended) What Would Jason Do? IMHO he would build something that in my opinion is actually behind the times…
web pages? SEO? Either I am a retard or way ahead…and im not talking just virtual.
From what I read? He is content to let the well get extremely polluted so polluted that it is horrible and makes it better for him…scott, perhaps I feel that you should have thanked me…ive spent years tackling some bad stuff, but I realized as of late, I was barely making a dent. Perhaps blame me- I should have reached out to Jason C.?
Where were the “digerati” the “a-list”? and who is behind what. They have no clue.
Well I think I have one more post in me…when the notch needs to get kicked up- I have zero problems.
Good to see you not on JangroCam
By Wayne Porter on Feb 27, 2008
@Vlad
You’re way off mark. Jason has EVERY right to comment on this affiliate marketing world. He ran a blog network, including Engadget, that had affiliate links in different forms.
His whole talk was about creating something of worth so that it would be easy, relevant and useful to users. Jason was targeting those who would create sites and blogs that detract from reliability of information for the sole purpose of placing links for income.
By David Deangelo on Feb 28, 2008
@Vlad
Btw, I said for every 1 affiliate marketer that’s offended, there are 10 that aren’t and who take his advice and prepare themselves for long term survival and prosperity.
By David Deangelo on Feb 28, 2008
That was a fantastic post and it’s the perspective everyone is missing. We need to clean up our industry, add value for the searcher or reader, and we all need to think bigger
By Mike 11|15 Media on Mar 1, 2008
Scott, I think your comments on PPC are misplaced. Who deserves to be able to bid on paid keywords? Affiliates lead the way in paid search and continue to prosper in the space because they are good at it. I personally disagree that landing pages are spam, though they may not pass muster with the Google quality score.
By Brook Schaaf on Mar 6, 2008
I don’t think misplaced Brook so much as maybe misunderstood.
I’m not talking about all PPC affiliates. I’m talking about those who game the system.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
By Scott on Mar 6, 2008
What do you mean by “who game the system”?
By Brook Schaaf on Mar 6, 2008
Things like ignore the merchants policies, e.g. bid on kws that aren’t allowed.
Play games with display urls, mispellings, etc. to get an edge even though it’s against the spirit or the letter of the merchants’ terms.
Dayparting and geotargeting to avoid detection.
Wasting people’s time and money with cat and mouse games.
You surely know the games, Brook.
By Scott on Mar 6, 2008
Violations of merchant terms have caused me many headaches, but I don’t see how they relate to Calacanis or Google quality score.
By Brook Schaaf on Mar 6, 2008
It’s not specifically what Jason was talking about, but all part of the pollution.
People doing things for the quick buck, because they can, resulting in heavy methods to prevent it that come with casualties.
By Scott on Mar 6, 2008
Agree it’s a problem. Disagree it can be characterized as pollution. And I doubt it’s what’s being combated.
In these situations, affiliates are violating merchant policies by bidding on certain terms or using the display URL or using certain copy, etc. While this may be aggravating to the merchant, it doesn’t do a disservice to the consumer, because they still get where they’re (presumably) trying to go.
By Brook Schaaf on Mar 6, 2008