PopShops Blog

Here’s an example of a product that I popped in using the Product Popper and the after-post widget. See the screencast of me doing this here: Apple Leopard OS X Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard Price: $119.98 I really love this product!

The road to my first Gnomedex was a haphazard one. In fact if it wasn’t for a well-timed word from Todd Martini of Alex’s Coupons, I would have missed out on an amazing event. Good Eats Chris Pirillo knows that the way to every convention goer’s heart is through their stomach. Gnomedex featured the best overall spread for breakfast, lunch and dinner of any convention I have ever been to. Chris had me from the opening night’s network event at Bell Harbor which was beautifully catered and featured coconut shrimp. The man know my weakness. There were several moments where I carefully weighed the option between talking to the many interesting people there or making off with an entire platter of shrimp. Fortunately I kept my self control and only ate four plates of the delectable hors d’oeuvres before focusing on figuring out what these bloggers where all about. Are they really heckling the speaker? It has been my experience that convention sessions often range from the occasionally informative to the depressingly dull. I had obviously never been to a Gnomedex. Chris wisely mixed marquee speakers like Guy Kawasaki, imparting his self-deprecating but no less dynamic wisdom on world of VC funding, with Sterling Allan who was oddly interesting as he imparted his list of strange devices like the Ammonia Heat Pump. Such sessions while informative and definitely not dull simply delivered what I expected from the speakers. It was the Jason Calacanis session that caught me off guard. To give you a frame of reference here, during my previous conference experiences if a speaker said something that members of the audience didn’t agree with you might hear a snicker of derision but never any burst of heated debate. That was always saved for colorful forum threads after the session was over. Jason Calacanis had chosen the topic of the internet’s own environmental crisis from spam and how Mahalo was going to be the antidote when there came a peppering of murmurs from the crowd. To me, it was almost like hearing the first sporadic pops from corn kernels under extreme heat and suddenly a deluge of sound. The deluge was delivered by Dave Winer who took up the cry and heckled Jason for “conference spam”. The heated exchange hardly ended during that session and leaked onto the net in variety of blog jabs, counter-punches and eventually an apology of sorts. For me, it wasn’t so much the topic I found fascinating as the frank exchange during a session. Regardless of what I thought of either of their two positions on the topic, the willingness of the audience not to meekly accept what the speaker was serving to them and the passionate exchange between both parties was an refreshing change from the normal lukewarm sessions on the conference circuit. Otters, Jazz and other Highlights Gnomedex kept things interesting in the after session networking events as well. The official event took place Friday evening inside the Seattle Aquarium which is easily one of my favorite retreats in Seattle. With its new make over complete the aquarium has a lot to offer. Watching the otters do playful laps in their pool and getting to meet Gregg Spiridellis of JibJab fame where two highlights of the evening. In every large group there is the one person that seems to know everyone. I have found an easy way to identify the likely candidate is look for the one person furiously taking pictures who isn’t necessarily part of the event staff. In the affiliate industry that person is Deb Carney. For Gnomedex it’s Renee Blodgett who was kind enough to introduce me to some great people including Marc Orchant who organized a wonderful evening at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley where we caught the Charlie Hunter trio. Until Next Dex Chris Pirillo definitely made a convert out of me. After all how can you say “no” to a host who is constantly placing a shoe on his head? Plus he know my weakness for coconut shrimp. Now if I can only get some of the bloggers I met to try out our new Wordpress plugin so we can make it even more useful… -posted by Angel Djambazov

If you want to add affiliate products to your WordPress blog, you now have some choices.

1. Wait until our killer WordPress plugin is released
2. Install Exec-PHP and Disable WPAUTOP and pop PHP into the “code” tab of your posts.
3. Paste JavaScript
4. Paste HTML (new)

To paste HTML, just choose “HTML” from the “Pop it in” tab of PopShops after you finish choosing your products. Here’s an example of a shop that I pasted in using HTML.

Pug Pupperweight $9.99 This adorable Pug Pupperweight by Leslie Anderson can be used as a paperweight or doorstop. Anderson’s illustration is silkscreen printed on 100% cotton, stuffed with non-allergic fiberfill and weighted with plastic pellets. Pug Shots $11.86 Description not available. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.

My Lucas is always hanging around while I work on PopShops and wanting to build shops of his own. When he was three, I turned on the iSight and let him at it. Here’s what we got. The niche? Bulldozers. - JessieJ

Many of the PopShops.com team (even our geekiest introverts) will working booth #42 here in Miami at the Affiliate Summit. If you happen to be in the area, come by, say hi, and pick up a pen and a Magic 8-Ball. We’ll be here today (July 9) and tomorrow. We look forward to putting putting faces to names! - JessieJ

Now that we are back from the LinkShare Symposium and Golden Link Awards, I thought it would be nice to share some highlights.

Text Messages, Napkins and Award Ceremonies
The announcement of the Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate award winner was a particularly fun moment because three people who are all friends were competing for the same award. Which, of course, meant that each was sure the other would win and that no matter who won everyone would be happy. I know — I polled them. Affiliate Fair Play represented by Kellie Stevens, informed me via cell phone she was sure Revenue magazine would win since they are a great publication with broad industry coverage. The consensus at Revenue Magazine was mixed with Lisa Picarille leaning towards AFP and Tobias Siegel thinking Eric Ewe was a shoo-in since he was the only individual named, was active in the community, and represented a LinkShare merchant. And of course Eric was so sure Kellie would win that he placed a friendly wager with her involving beer that Affiliate Fair Play would be named the winner.

In the end AFP won. So it was that I found myself writing furiously on a napkin in the moments before the announcement was made as Kellie text messaged her entire speech since she couldn’t be there. In five installments it arrived. Have you ever tried to write on a napkin legibly and politely at a dinner table? It’s impossible.

So let me send out a heartfelt congratulations again to Kellie! I am honored she allowed me the privilege of accepting the award on her behalf. Unknowingly she opened up a new cottage industry for me, as several attendees asked me to give an equally babbling speech on their behalf. Congratulations Kellie, you rock!

LinkShare Lends a Hand
One of the most difficult things as a third party tool set provider is informing people what it is exactly you do. After all, the definitions in our industry are pretty limited. If you work with a network, you are either a merchant or an affiliate, right? LinkShare stepped in and helped expand those definitions by introducing us as a technology partner to both merchants and affiliates. Joe Sabatino, the Vice President of Client Development, and Mike Kowal Managing Director of Marketing Services, were both very helpful in making introductions.

Who really went out of his way though was Abe Hsuan, the Executive Vice President of LinkShare who I finally got a chance to really talk to. If you have never met Abe he is an amazing guy who is whip smart while emanating a laid back non assuming confidence. What’s more is he’s genuinely interested in working toward developing a sustainable healthy growth within our industry that does not use parasitic or black hat tactics. Abe is also interested in agile companies, like PopShops, who can provide powerful tools to affiliates using an API. As you can imagine, we had a lot to talk about.

Dancing Past the Statue of Liberty
I didn’t go on the harbor tour LinkShare put on last year because there was a jazz concert that I just could not miss. This year I am glad I went. I got to meet and really hang out with Sal Conca from Puritan’s Pride and Peter Figueredo from NETexponent. Our discussions careened from martial arts to whether banning public smoking mattered considering the poor air quality of Manhattan, to the state of the affiliate blogosphere, and of course the beauty of the harbor around us. Other highlights on the boat included Asif Malik from GoldenCAN continuing his reign as the “Person Most Likely to Fill Up a Dance Floor” and Jamie Birch from Converseon who organized the after party (rumors of events at the Red Rock West Saloon are highly exaggerated).

On a personal note, it was very moving for me to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island up close. Having immigrated at a young age I don’t really recall the ordeal my parents went through but I am glad they made the effort of bringing our family to the States. I think Eric Ewe took a picture of me standing in front of the statue, hopefully it came out. I know my mom would want it.

That’s All Folks
The LinkShare Symposium was a great event for PopShops. I am really excited about working with the connections we made there. If you missed Jessie or yours truly in New York you can catch us in Miami with the rest of the PopShops’ team next at our booth at Affiliate Summit. We look forward to seeing you there!

-posted by Angel Djambazov

The PopShops team will be in New York from June 18th-21st. If you are a merchant or affiliate attending the Symposium, we would love to meet you. Please look for us and introduce yourself.

It is an event I am looking forward to because LinkShare spares no expense in rolling out the red carpet for Symposium attendees. The Golden Link Awards gala at the Cipriani is a perfect example. The Cipriani is spectacular. If you ever go, be sure to take a look at the designs on the ceilings, the marble columns, and the countless accents that the architects incorporated into the building. It really is an amazing place.

Dinning there is formal and it is one of the few times you will get to see the PopShops team (or most affiliates, for that matter) outside our comfort zone of jeans and t-shirts. I haven’t seen the other team members in formal attire yet, but invariably I look like I am a member of the Corleone family. Although this is useful in contract negotiations, it doesn’t help me remember which fork I am supposed to use, or which water glass is mine.

The food and the atmosphere are both amazing, although admittedly the corporate comedy can sometimes be painful. This year comedian Kevin Meaney is the MC. Hopefully he will be better than his work in Plump Fiction. (Hey what can I say–I have friends who drag me to bad movies.)

Speaking of food, I am always looking for cool little restaurants with amazingly good eats, so if you want to recommend your favorite place to get lox, gyros, seafood, vegetarian fare, or whatever, it would be much appreciated.

So remember, if you are attending the Symposium or live in the midtown area and want to introduce yourself, do please drop us an e-mail. We’ll see you there!

– posted by Angel Djambazov

We received an excellent comprehensive write up by Revenews regular and data feed expert Carsten Cumbrowski. Read it here.

PopShops will have a WordPress plugin sooner than later. But, until that time, here is how I put affiliate products into my WordPress blog and earn commissions. The example shop below is a shop I built in 47 seconds. It contains products from three merchants in three different networks (ShareASale, LinkShare, and Commission Junction).

1. Build a shop in PopShops (the one below took me 47 seconds exactly).
2. Copy and paste the JavaScript from the “Pop it in” tab into the “Code” tab of a WP blog post.
3. That’s it. You’re done.

You can also experiment with PHP-exec to copy and paste the PHP into your blog. That will get you the SEO love of PHP.