Top Affiliate Marketing Blog

LinkShare has just announced a new Web services offering for affiliates, called Automated LinkGenerator.  Linkshare’s Automated LinkGenerator creates LinkShare affiliate links for any product on a merchant’s site that offers LinkGenerator. 

Here’s what LinkShare says:

This new feature provides the same functionality as the LinkGenerator tool in the Individual Product Links interface, without having to log into the Affiliate Interface to get your links.  This new tool does not replace Merchandiser (LinkShare’s datafeed), but will be helpful for getting direct links from merchants that do not offer Merchandiser feeds.

If you are interested in using the Automated LinkGenerator, e-mail LinkShare at linkgen_request@linkshare.com to have this new tool enabled.  Once you are enabled, the Automated LinkGenerator will be located under the LinkShare Feed Synergy Services area of the Affiliate Interface.

To create an Automated LinkGenerator link, you will use a REST (Representational State Transfer) Web services to request links for a given merchant URL. You will then send a URL from the merchant’s site to LinkShare using the specified link format (see the Automated LinkGenerator Help area).  The URL can be sent through a browser, a tool like wget or curl, or an automated script.  For each URL provided, LinkShare returns a click link.  You can request up to 1,000 links within an hour.

Web services applications are accessible using SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and REST. Web Services use HTTP with XML for communication. These are ubiquitous technologies and any device capable of using these technologies is able to both host and consume Web services.  Web services concepts are simple to understand and with the addition of various tool-kits provide a low barrier to entry and easy software development.

For information on setting up a Web services, please visit the following sites:
REST - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer
Web Services - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service
Web Services & PHP - http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2004/03/24/phpws.html

I think this is a great  enhancement within the LinkShare affiliate network.  I like to use direct links whenever I can because they obviously convert MUCH better.  Many of the retailers I promote with in-house affiliate programs already offer this feature so I guess it’s about time LinkShare stepped their game up.  What do you think?

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

[tags]linkshare, automated linkgenerator, web services, affiliate links, representational state transfer, REST, simple object access protocol, SOAP[/tags]

Here are some disgusting numbers for you to crunch today.  According to a new research by IDC analysts, the total market around Windows Vista and the newly christened Windows Server 2008 will be more than $120 billion by the end of next year, including software and hardware designed for those operating systems.

IDC estimates that for every $1 of revenue coming in to Microsoft for sales of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, around $18 will be available for "as many as 200,000" other companies to divvy up. There are a number of opportunities, from services to software to hardware to retail jobs selling and re-selling software and services. However, according to IDC, more Vista-related money will find its way into the hands of hardware companies than software and services companies. That seems the natural order of things, as many consumers and businesses will soon find themselves getting Vista with their next PC upgrade.

Not only will the ecosystem be big in terms of money, but IDC expects IT employment related to the new operating systems — at least at vendor and services companies — to eclipse the one million mark next year. "It is growth IDC believes would not occur if were these operating systems not in the market," the report notes.

The report estimates 240 million units of Vista will have shipped by that time, and that Windows Server 2008 will be on 3.5 million servers worldwide, with 30% of all software sold ending up on either platform.

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http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

[tags]windows vista, windows server 2008, microsoft[/tags]

Understandably it took the Bloggy Network staff 35 hours to merge their two authority sites: Blog Top Sites and Blog Flux.  The end result of http://topsites.blogflux.com looks pretty good though and will be well worth the trouble.

-Ahmed, David, and Jacob, from the Bloggy Network state:

I would like to thank everyone for their patience - it was a rather complicated task, but I think we pulled it off well. We’ve grown 100% in the last 4 months, and look forward to generating a lot more traffic for your blogs (we just crossed 3 million hits out in the last month).

The integration of these two authority sites should significantly increase the speed of approval of the blogs you submit.  In addition,  if you are a current BlogTopSites.com webmaster, you DO NOT need to update the tracking code.

With over 77,000 blogs listed in their directory and growing it would be a good idea to submit your blog(s) today.  Sure, many people nowadays prefer not to sort through directories to find what they want….but the search engines do.  Using numerous free blog directories such as http://topsites.blogflux.com can dramatically increase your inbound one-way links and promote rapid search engine indexing. 

For additional blog directory sites please visit: Blog Directory and RSS Directory Submission

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

[tags]bloggy network, authority sites, blog flux, blog top sites, blog directories, search engine indexing, one-way links[/tags]