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Digital Signage - Adding EAS Support
Last week, I discussed the ability of private TV channels and digital signage networks to disseminate emergency alert messaging when a threat is posed. I also pointed out that unlike Emergency Alert System messages transmitted by radio and TV stations or the wailing siren in the distance, the delivery of emergency messaging via private TV channels and digital signage networks can target specific warnings and instructions to a defined group of people, who may be facing a unique emergency, such as a fire in their office building.This week, I'll focus on main points you need to know if you want to prepare your digital signage network or private TV channel to deliver Emergency Alert System messaging from the National Weather Service or governmental authorities, including those at the local, state and federal level.EAS warnings The Emergency Alert System stems from the desire of the president of the United States to communicate with the public in times of national emergencies. In the early 1960s, the chief executive began allowing local and state authorities to use the system to transmit localized warnings.The system has been designed to deliver messages quickly and automatically in the event of an emergency. Among its most conspicuous featur

ntive affiliates and obviously paid search affiliates.

We found what makes most affiliates successful is less about the model they engage, as a matter of fact many of them employ multiple models, but what really determines there success is there level of dedication to innovating: finding new things and really optimizing what works. The space is constantly changing as well as the marketplace, so we find that those who are really dedicated to it find huge success in it.

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Lily: Yes. We really encourage our affiliates to always think about the end customer and stay abreast of not only industry trends but also product trends. Obviously for this holiday season it would be the PS3, Wii, the Xbox, etc. Some new top affiliates just this past month have solely built sites around these products and have simply turned the traffic to eBay. That's pretty interesting. We really encourage our affiliates to keep on top of that. I would say it's really tough to try new things and to really optimize space on the results that you see in the data that we provide you. A lot of our affiliates have been successful that way. Tips on Picking the Best Accounting Software - Top 2 Picks
The doors are finally open. The flashy sign proclaiming, Come On In,... is brightly lit on the front door, and your new business is booming. Life is beautiful, and you can’t help but think to yourself. My, this would be a good day to manage my liabilities and redeemable assets!Well, maybe not. Face it. Most accounting is boring, slow, confusing and, sadly, very necessary. There are terms to learn and facts to know, and for most small business owners, you simply couldn’t afford to hire your own accountant. Fortunately there are lots of great accounting software programs available, but to in order to use them they way they should be used; you need to have a basic understanding of accounting. Take a deep breath, close your eyes and dive in.But…where?The best first step is to learn as much as you can about accounting. Find simple books on accounting at your library, and work your way up to the meatier topics. Study general terms (profit, overhead, depreciation, revenue, etc.) The more you learn, the easier handling problems will be down the road.Learn about which type of accounting method you will be using. There are two kinds—cash accounting and accrual accounting. As the owner of a small business, it is usually recommended to use cash accounting, whi

Lily Shen: Thanks, Shawn. I'm definitely excited to speak with you and definitely look forward to sharing some more information. We have a lot of exciting things going on, so, yeah, definitely looking forward to it.

Shawn: Great. One thing that I am curious about it, if you could let me know and the rest of the audience, what sets eBay's Affiliate Program apart from the other affiliate programs that are out there?

Lily: Sure. I can't really speak for other affiliate programs per se, but I do have to say that the eBay Affiliate Program offers a really competitive payout, very easy to use tools, and the unparalleled breadth and depth of products that are currently on eBay.

In terms of our compensation today, we pay out on both ACRUs, what we call Active Nearly Registered Users, and we pay anywhere from $12 to $22. We also pay on the rev share side anywhere from 40 to 65 percent of revenues generated to eBay buyer affiliates, and that launched just late last year and it's proven to be very successful for many of our publishers.

In terms of the marketplaces, we have an amazing breadth and depth of products with over 50, 000 categories, and even just in Q3 we had 584 million new listings added to eBay worldwide. We also have a global presence in over 33 markets with users from every country around the world, so we definitely provide a great playground for our affiliates and our publishers to be successful.

Shawn: Great, sounds fantastic. Can you tell me a little more about some of the tools and resources that eBay has innovated to help affiliates to succeed?

Lily: Yeah, absolutely. We actually have a dedicated team here just looking at products, tools, and infrastructure for the eBay Affiliate Program. We have a number of tools that our affiliates employ to really get them up and running quickly.

To start, we have a flexible destination tool which instantly allows affiliates to create trackable affiliate links to any eBay URL. We just this year launched an RSS feed generator that obviously creates RSS feeds that include affiliate links. We offer free APIs for our affiliates, and just a couple of months ago we launched an API plug-in tool that allows affiliates to conduct some research and become more familiar with eBay's API data in Excel.

We also have hub pages, very vibrant discussion boards, and community newsletters et cetera. I don't know if you are aware of this, but we are actually looking to launch in probably the first half of 2007 a product called AdContext, which is a contextual advertising product that will allow affiliates and our publishers to basically take some code and put the product on the site, and we'll essentially call the content from the site and surface up the most listings that will help our affiliates be most effective. We're currently in beta mode at the moment.

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Shawn: OK. Gotcha. As far as engaging the eBay affiliate community, are you using any kind of Web 2.0 methods for communication or have any events or any kinds of things to get in touch with the affiliates and keep in contact?

Lily: Yeah, absolutely. We have a dedicated team of account managers both here at eBay and on the Commission Junction side, and we manage many, many of our top accounts. We actually do have a monthly newsletter that goes out that provides best practices, trends, product information to our publishers. As I mentioned before, we have very active discussion boards, and we also hold an annual invite-only affiliate summit for our top publishers, and we run this in parallel with our developer's conference. This year we are looking to build that out even more and have an affiliate track at the developer's conference, too.

In addition to that, we have very comprehensive pages on the affiliate site that provides best practices for our affiliates who are really looking to pursue almost any type of business model. We are always looking for new ways to share information and allow affiliates to really communicate with each other as well.

The community is really the bread and butter of eBay's business, and that is absolutely the same thing for eBay's affiliate community. We feel that it is really important that we develop the relationships with them directly and learn from them.

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more successful with your affiliate program?

Lily: I wouldn't say it depends on a business model, per se. We have a very diverse portfolio of affiliates ranging from content and portals and SEO, shopping comparison sites. We have auction tools, loyalty incentive affiliates and obviously paid search affiliates.

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Effective Marketing For Events - 7 Steps To Maximizing Your Budget
Promoting large events is one of the purest of forms of marketing. Timing is crucial, your event is happening on a specific date so you need to get it right first time and your results walk through the gates. Any mistakes are painfully clear. But it is the high profile nature of these events that provides the opportunity to implement a hugely efficient campaign. This allows you to maximize your budget using the multiplier effect. The high profile nature of events makes them attractive to the media. They want you to advertise with them as they will get the halo effect from your profile.This article intends to show how you can get the most out of your event’s marketing budget.Link ad spend to editorial It’s a time when you have the power in the relationship with any publication. Make sure that you use he time before you commit to maximise the amount of editorial each publication offers. It is amazing how much attention you get when you have an advertising budget! Most providers of advertising media will be happy to offer matching space or time. One useful tool is the use of competitions.Advertising providers are normally happy to run ticket competitions. Free tickets are a great tool to get more coverage at minimal cost.Involve sponsors Mos

Shawn: Great, sounds fantastic. Can you tell me a little more about some of the tools and resources that eBay has innovated to help affiliates to succeed?

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Lily: Yes. We really encourage our affiliates to always think about the end customer and stay abreast of not only industry trends but also product trends. Obviously for this holiday season it would be the PS3, Wii, the Xbox, etc. Some new top affiliates just this past month have solely built sites around these products and have simply turned the traffic to eBay. That's pretty interesting. We really encourage our affiliates to keep on top of that. I would say it's really tough to try new things and to really optimize space on the results that you see in the data that we provide you. A lot of our affiliates have been successful that way. How Your Phone is Answered Says a Lot About Your Cleaning Company
The way you and your employees answer your phone is extremely important to your business. Much of the contact you have with customers or potential customers will be through the telephone so you want them to feel that they're dealing with a professional, courteous business. Here are some tips for ensuring your phone answering skills are top notch: Answer incoming calls by the third ring. When answering the phone, be warm and courteous. Remember that you're representing the company and you want to make a good impression by having a pleasant sounding voice. Speak slowly and clearly. Don't talk so fast that the caller can't understand you. Speak with a moderate volume. Don't speak so soft that the caller can't hear you, and don't speak so loud that they have to hold the phone away from their ear. When answering the phone, have a standard greeting, and then identify yourself and your company. For example, "Good morning, ABC Cleaning Company, this is John. How may I help you?" Have a positive tone to your voice. If you're not having a good day, be conscious of it because the tone of your voice is easily detected. Be positive with yourar with eBay's API data in Excel.

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Lily: Yes. We really encourage our affiliates to always think about the end customer and stay abreast of not only industry trends but also product trends. Obviously for this holiday season it would be the PS3, Wii, the Xbox, etc. Some new top affiliates just this past month have solely built sites around these products and have simply turned the traffic to eBay. That's pretty interesting. We really encourage our affiliates to keep on top of that. I would say it's really tough to try new things and to really optimize space on the results that you see in the data that we provide you. A lot of our affiliates have been successful that way. Outsourced Payroll Results in Fewer Tax Penalties, Study Finds
A new study reveals that outsourcing payroll functions reduces payroll tax penalties. The study, conducted by Empagio Human Resources Outsourcing, was conducted online during the month of September 2006. 209 financial and human resource executives participated in the study. The titles of these people ranged from CEO, CFO, president, vice-president, director, and manager. The results of the study did not reveal the sizes of the companies represented.Reduced Dollars Spent on Penalties72% of those participating in the study said that outsourcing their payroll reduced the actual dollar amount of tax penalties being paid to various government agencies. Only 1% said their payroll tax penalties increased by outsourcing. The remainder, 27%, said there was no change in the dollar amount of tax penalties by outsourcing.Reduced Frequency of Tax Penalties69% of those participating in the study said that the frequency of paying tax penalties was reduced by outsourcing their payroll. 2% said the frequency of paying tax penalties increased by outsourcing, and the remainder, 29%, said there was no change in the frequency of paying tax penalties by outsourcing.Why Should Businesses Reduce Payroll Tax Penalties?There are three impotioned before, we have very active discussion boards, and we also hold an annual invite-only affiliate summit for our top publishers, and we run this in parallel with our developer's conference. This year we are looking to build that out even more and have an affiliate track at the developer's conference, too.

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Lily: Yes. We really encourage our affiliates to always think about the end customer and stay abreast of not only industry trends but also product trends. Obviously for this holiday season it would be the PS3, Wii, the Xbox, etc. Some new top affiliates just this past month have solely built sites around these products and have simply turned the traffic to eBay. That's pretty interesting. We really encourage our affiliates to keep on top of that. I would say it's really tough to try new things and to really optimize space on the results that you see in the data that we provide you. A lot of our affiliates have been successful that way. Choosing the Right Corporate Training
According to a Gallup Poll, 80 percent of employees said the availability of company-sponsored training programs was a factor in deciding whether to accept a new job or stick with a current one. And yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the average number of hours of formal training per employee per year is only 10.7.More companies are starting to realize that it's smart to invest in training, but faced with so many choices, how can an organization make sure it's getting the most out of its educational investment?What do you need?Training can take several forms, from simply encouraging subscriptions to key trade magazines to reimbursing tuition for degree programs. Before you decide where to put your training dollars, it's vital to do a full needs assessment. This might involve polling general employees one-by-one during evaluations or en masse via e-mail polls. It could even mean asking customers where they'd like to see your company improve in areas such as customer care, product innovation, communications technology or billing.Another piece of needs assessment weighs training outcomes against big-picture strategies and operational requirements. It's relatively simple to evaluate individual progress, but if the company as a whole doesn't gntive affiliates and obviously paid search affiliates.

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Shawn: OK. I know you have affiliate teams all around the world. Do you have any tips for affiliates that want to expand beyond the US borders as an affiliate?

Lily: Yes. We have programs in almost 20 countries today. We manage them in a very decentralized manner, and so we recognize the importance of localization in our affiliate program. I really encourage the affiliates to research the market itself and understand the end users there, but also spend some time understanding the programs of each of our countries.

You may find that the more mature markets may be more similar in nature. For example, you may want to start with English speaking countries if you're currently in the US. You may want to start with the UK, Australia or Canada and you've got a springboard to launch into some of the other markets. I would definitely say spend time localizing your content enough for it to appeal to the end consumer in the English market. I would say that geo-targeting has helped our affiliates a lot as well.

Shawn: OK. I've been hearing a lot about affiliates trying to play around with both video and mobile phone. Do you see either one of those playing a role with the eBay affiliate program in the near future?

Lily: Yes, absolutely. In terms of mobile it already plays a role in the program and we're looking to make that even bigger. We're actually launching a place off our API probably in the first half of next year that will really enable affiliate tracking for a lot of the folks that are building mobile apps for eBay. What we really want to do is allow affiliates to scale in this space. Certainly in terms of video, we believe it's a huge opportunity and we're just starting to work with a few affiliates now looking to plan this new and exciting space as well. We'll definitely have more information to come.

Shawn: OK, fantastic. I got some announcements in the past month that Project Rover and how the affiliate program has changed with that?

Lily: Sure. Project Rover is really a new HTML tracking methodology. We pursued this in order to decrease the number of redirects users may follow to reduce added cookie blocking and to allow for more global infrastructure improvements. The affiliate program itself hasn't really changed. We're simply looking for new ways to improve the infrastructure for our affiliates and to make things easier. Our goal is to simply provide more immediate and long-term benefits to our publishers with the project. I'd say that the program itself hasn't changed. We're just hoping to make things better for them.

Shawn: OK, that makes sense. That's all the questions I had. Do have any other updates or news about the affiliate program?

Lily: I think I covered a lot with the questions that you had. I just want to say that we really encourage our affiliates to innovate and to test and to provide us with feedback on things that we could be doing better as well. We're really here to serve our publishers and we're excited for a lot of the new and upcoming initiatives rolling out in 2007, such as ad contacts in the place off our API. Thank you.

Shawn: Thanks a lot. Thank you to Lily Shen eBay for joining us. For more information affiliates can go to affiliates.ebay.com to apply and learn more about the program. Thanks a lot, Lily.

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