Last Chance Affiliate Summit East Tickets

We are now less than two weeks away from Affiliate Summit East 2007 in Miami, Florida. If you did not sign up yet, you really must do so now. Just the other day I was on the site looking to get another registration pass and the event was SOLD OUT! I quickly contacted Shawn to see what could be done. He said he was in the process of trying to add a few more seats. Consider yourself lucky if you were waiting on signing up… they still may be a few left! If you can’t make the event, don’t stress too much, I’ll be blogging the whole event right here!

Jim Kukral may have won "Blogger of the Year"… but I got him beat on Affiliate Summit attendance! A couple of years ago Affiliate Summit had a small cruise out New York City, that went to Nova Scotia, Canada. This was the last of the "cruise" summits… but was still awesome and very fun. Unfortunately Jim missed this one… but I’ve always met up with him at all of the other events. Today Jim made a post on "Going To The Affiliate Summit? Here’s Some Things You Need To Know". Whether it’s your first or third time attending the event, be sure to check out the post… it may stir up some new marketing ideas or remind you to bring a few extra things. See you at Affiliate Summit!

BONUS COUPON CODES:
You can still take advantage of my 10% off coupon for a Full Affiliate Summit pass, or the exhibitor pass. All you need to do is sign up for the event at their site, then insert coupon code "MSPKFL" for 10% off a FULL PASS, or insert "MSPKEX" for 10% off an EXHIBIT HALL PASS.

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FunnyReign T-Shirt Winners

Thanks to everyone who made a comment or blog posting to enter the "Free T-Shirt & Pen’s Contest". Here are the 10 lucky winners!

Fred
Michael Kwan
Sabrina
Brian Aldrich
Dave
Vijay
Jason
Jyse
Bob Jones
Brilliances

If you were one of the lucky winners, please visit the contact page and send my your full shipping address and requested t-shirt size. Don’t be discouraged if you didn’t win, I’m sure I’ll have another contest up and running soon enough!

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Resorts Casino Sucks

As mentioned earlier, I love casinos and gambling and visit Atlantic City often. I have been playing at the Borgata since they opened a few years ago and avoid most of the other casinos along the boardwalk. At the Borgata you don’t have to deal with the walk-in crowd that come off the boardwalk and it’s a much nice atmosphere. On June 6th, Reena and I went down to Borgata for the night and went decided to stop by the casinos on the boardwalk the next day. We just happened to stop and the Resorts Casino and played there for a bit. It was my first time there so I decided to get a players card for the time I was to play there. A few hours passed and I had accrued over $550 in comp dollars from my game play. I was playing my usual betting, but a $1500 bet on RED (Roulette), probably helped a bit. New to this casino, I went over to the players card area to talk to someone about what I could do with my comps. I met with a very informed member there that insisted I get my own casino host, since my game play was so high. In addition to having over $550 in comps, I had went from a Red Player card (that everyone gets), to an ULTRA Players Card (passing right past their 2nd tier ELITE card). So within a few hours of game play I already had their highest players card. The players card attendant told me I would be able to use my comps in one of their Destination Rewards gift stores, or also in any of the Atlantic City outlet stores, which are pretty high class. I was also assigned a casino host, which I talked to over the phone since he had already left the casino. In the end, we listed to the woman at the Players Club area and saved the comps for our next visit, and I would talk to my casino host to setup our next trip to the casino. I always wondered why anyone would go to these old crappy casinos on the boardwalk over the Borgata… after receiving over $500 in comps in my first visit I soon found out why. The woman in the Players Rewards area also stressed how much of a rewarding casino they are high rollers and how much they offer.

Over the next two weeks Reena had been extremely sick with strep throat and various high fevers and being nauseous. We were both excited and looking forward to our next trip to Resorts, since we had a nice amount of comps waiting for us. I also promised Reena I would get her a nice Coach purse from the outlet stores with our comps. I called up my casino host on June 20th and asked for two nights stay for Friday and Saturday. The Sopranos cast was to be at Resorts for promotional pictures and a meet and greet with special guest. My casino host also offered this option to me earlier in the week, but when I called to make reservations, he said it was now full… and they were almost full on rooms. He called me back a few hours later and confirmed the rooms, but nothing on the Sopranos.

Friday came and we finally were at the Resorts Casino. Before arriving, I called my host and told him we were almost there. He said to meet him in the VIP Lounge check in room. He also asked where we would like to eat, and we setup reservations later that night for their Asian Spice restaurant. First we went up to the room, (hoping for at least a suite!). The room was decent sized, but NOT a suite, though it probably was better than their cheap rooms, however definitely not up to par compared to the nicer rooms of the Borgata (where I usually get free suites!). We were only in the room for about half an hour before we headed off to dinner at Asian Spice.

On the way down to Asian Spice I decided to check my comps from my previous visit. I went to the players card machine and it said "Your comp minimum is not available at this time".  We tried several times, hoping this was an error but kept getting the same result. My host was to meet us at Asian Spice to make sure we get there fine, so I would ask him about it then. We met up and I asked about the comps and he explained to me that I shouldn’t use the machine to track my comps and that he is handling them and I should ask him if there is anything I need. I went on to tell him about how I had $550+ in comps and how I was told I can use them at the Destination Rewards shop and at the outlet stores…. he said this wasn’t the case. His phone started to ring and he had to make errands elsewhere… I’m still not sure on the game plan. Besides the dilemma with the comps, the food and service at Asian Spice was great, I had no complaints at all. It was actually very nice because it was very quiet and not busy at all. At the end I received the bill for $75, which also came with a comp receipt that was to cover up to $160 worth of food. (was this taken out of my $550+ in comps???)

After dinner Reena wasn’t feeling too well so we went up stairs for a bit. After watching some TV I headed down stairs to play some table games, while Reena stayed up stairs. I came back about two hours later and Reena told me about how horrible she was feeling and that she couldn’t sleep. She also mentioned how hard the bed was and that the pillows were flat and uncomfortable. I soon realized this as well, because it was the first time I had actually laid down on the bed as well. It was like laying on stacks of cardboard and the pillows were old and flattened. The Borgata has large glamorous beds with several big fluffy pillows. I can not stress how uncomfortable this bed was… even the covers were like thick sheets of layered paper.

It was around 2 am now and at this point I was very angry and Reena was upset. We were both looking towards this weekend for a while now. Now we are both just thinking about leaving. But first… I thought, "Hey, I’m a black card holder and this casino should actually go out of their way for me". I headed back downstairs to meet with someone in the VIP Lounge to see if they can help. I waited their for about a minute and no one was there. I then went to VIP Check In… same result. I ended up at the front desk and asked if any VIPs or hosts were available for me to talk with. I was then told they all went home… what kind of service is that!? I then asked who I could talk to… they gave me the phone and forwarded me to marketing services. I told the woman on the phone how horrible our the bed in our room was and I wanted to be updated to a suite or another room with better beds. I also told her I was an ULTRA card holder. At first she told me they were booked, then put me on hold for a few minutes while she checked again. Same result when she came back, and told me I should talk to my host tomorrow or see if they have any room openings then. I then told her I probably wouldn’t be here.

Very pissed off now I went back up stairs and told Reena to get everything ready as we were leaving. We headed downstairs and checked out… even had to pay a lousy $7.58 for tax on the room we were barely in. If the Resorts Casino and Hotel was a decent place at all, I would be there right now, instead of telling you about them. I’ll be sure to pass my frustration off to the casino, my host and the player rewards attendant that told me where and how I could use my comps. In the end… Resorts Atlantic City Sucks!

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Niche Marketing

Yesterday I was searching Google for a way to convert a WMV to DVD format. In the process I was never able to find a freeware or shareware product that allowed me to do so, they all required payment for full editions. In the end I wasn’t able to convert the file… but that’s not what matters. Instead I came across yet another niche market that people are making a ton of money from. Take a look for yourself, go to Google and search "convert wmv to dvd format", you will see there are a ton of targeted sites, as well as paid advertisements on the right (through AdWords). I avoided all of these paid listings, since I figured they would of course charge for a product, but I found the same result while going through the free organic listings as well. I also found that a large majority of these sites were all directing to the same Affiliate Programs and pushing the same software.

Now, if you go to the Overture Search Tool and search "convert" or "file convert", you can see what volume and key phrases there are for file converting. This may not be a heavy volume niche, but that’s better for you, as it’s less competition. If you were to create a content heavy web site around the concept of file sharing and file converting well enough, you could earn a nice amount of revenue from getting listed on page two or three from the search results. Not to mention any long tail keywords you might get listed for. I’ve also been experimenting with building my search engine positioning through purchase "search term related" text links through Text Link Ads, and so far I believe it is greatly helping with my indexing. (Though this usually takes 1-3 months to see a difference)

What’s the point of this post? More than anything, this is a motivational posts and a simple reminder, no matter where you go online, someone is making money. There are thousands of software sites out there, but if you focus on a small niche area you can specialize and bring in some nice results. You don’t necessarily need to focus on software, this was simply an example I wrote about from yesterday’s experience. Imagine the possibilties? What are some of the best selling toys? Top celebrity searches? DVDs, Movies, Electronics and Sports… the revenue potential is endless. As I once said at my second speaking presentation during Affiliate Force 2003…yes, my friend… "there are Riches in Niches". Feel free to comment on if you’ve done any niche marketing.

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Free T-Shirts & Pens!

Oh no… I missed posting the past three days! How horrible! There’s only one thing I can do to make it up to you…. GIVE AWAY SOME FREE STUFF! A year or two ago I ordered a ton of t-shirts and pens for some of my sites. I really never ended up doing anything with them, so now I have a ton of them. Time to unload some of them! The shirt features one of my sites I’ve had for many many years now, which is FunnyReign.com. Originally a free greeting card site, now in the process of something much bigger… videos, forum, games and more. (minor changes/updates are still being made on the site)… but this is about free t-shirts, not critiquing sites!

If you would like a free t-shirt, simply reply to this post that you want a free shirt or how great the blog is! (If you are feeling generous you could even link to this post off your blog, it will automatically ping list you) On Monday I’ll randomly select 10 commenters and make a post listing the winners. The winners can then send over their shipping addresses and desired shirt size. Don’t worry about shipping, I got it covered… :). So post away and good luck!

You can look this good too… just make a comment to this post!

With each shirt I’ll also throw in a bunch of blue/black ink pens!

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