Internet Geek Girl

It’s been a week since the Affiliate Summit Social Media bus rolled from Boston down to NYC.  I’ve just recently recovered from the experience.  If you missed Gary Vaynerchuk’s u-streaming of the bus ride I recommend you check it out (and have a good laugh).

Big thanks to everyone who joined in for the Affiliate Summit Social Media Bus and Blogger Lounge.  It was a fantastic event. There are some great round-ups out there including on Affiliate Tip,  5Star Affiliate Programs, and my favorite: the Tris Hussey Flickr shots!

One of the highlights of the show for me was the Cory Booker Keynote! It set the tone for a substantive and productive conference. You can catch excerpts here! Be sure to follow Shawn Collins on Twitter as he will post the full video and MP3 of Mayor Booker’s speech as soon as it goes up.

** ADDITION TO POST: Here’s the full keynote!

Personal thanks going out to Gary Vaynerchuk for his participation!  Also, big thanks to Social Spark and Market Leverage for their sponsorship support.

Missy/Shawn – as always, you put on a wonderful event.

And finally, a big shout out (and some link love) for all my bloggers peeps who stopped in the lounge. You guys RAWK!

Ari Greenberg

Ashley Edwards

Carsten Cumbrowski

Charles Ngo

Chris Brogan

Content Robot

David Fisher

Jay Berkowitz

Jeremy Johnson

Jim Kukral

Joe Garraffo

John Chow

John Hasson

Jonathan Dingman

Mark Wielgus

Maria Thurrell

Michael Buechele

MLTV

Oz Sultan

Peter Glaeser

Rick Burnes

Sally Chow

Sam Harrelson

Shawn Collins

Selina McCusker

Steve Hall

Ted Murphy

Tris Hussey

Trisha Lyn

Zac Johnson

Creating a connection between social media and performance marketing!

Join InternetGeekGirl and her social media friends for the fun-ride of the summer.  The Affiliate Summit party bus will be leaving NYC in just one month (departs August 9^th) and heading to Boston for Affiliate Summit East. Plus special guest, Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.tv, will be rolling down to NYC with us on August 13^th (the trip home).  Staff from mashable, Buy.at, Magnify.net, 1115Media, and many more great companies will be on the bus. You should be too. Tickets are still available, but selling fast, so grab yours today. Plus don’t forget to swing through the Affiliate Summit blogger lounge while your there and meet all you peeps and tweeps!

Affiliate Summit is shaping up to the be the best one yet. You can get a preview here. The Blue Man Group will be performing during the conference, and the keynote is Cory Booker. Registrations are still available, but act now, because they usually sell out!

BTW – Hotel reservations can be booked online – enter the following code in the group code box in the “additional options section”: AFSAFS.

More Details:

The bus will provide round-trip transportation to Boston from NYC and lots of social media special-sauce.   The blogger lounge will serve influencers and social media makers as their main operations hub throughout Affiliate Summit East 2008.

Other key highlights of the bus and blogger lounge promotion include:

• Free Signed Copy of Gary Vaynerchuk’s book: All participants on the bus will receive a free signed copy of @garyvee’s new book: “Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World.”
• $250 Voucher for Free Advertising Trial on SocialSpark:Given the system a whirl at no cost to you.
• Super Duper Schwag Bags for Bus Riders: MarketLeverage promo packs will be provided for all party bus attendees. Enjoy your MarketLeverage Nike bag, you can use it take to home your Affiliate Summit swag, including a 2GB USB Pen!
• Food and Drinks on the Bus and in the Lounge: Sponsored by b5 media, refreshments will be provided for participants. ** Special mimosa and bellini recipes to be provided by the experts at WineLibrary.com.

Please note: There is a car pool coming from Philly, and we will also wait for any Philly folks who want to take the morning departure from BoltBus.  The bus will leave NYC on Saturday, August 9th around 11 am and leave Boston on Wednesday August 13th around  10 AM ish. Location of departure will be provided to participants.

Plus you are cordially invited to join The TechSet in Boston: The TechSet will host an event on Sunday afternoon 8/10 at Tia’s on the Waterfront (http://www.tiaswaterfront.com/). Come meet the twitterati in Boston! Details posted soon!!

About our Sponsors:

SocialSpark, a IZEA Property, is a Social Marketing Network that connects advertisers and bloggers through an online blog advertising marketplace. Advertisers are able to target blogs based on conversational topics and make cash sponsorship offers to the bloggers who publish them. Bloggers can make money by either placing display advertisements on their blog or by writing sponsored content. The sponsorships offered through the SocialSpark marketplace allow advertisers to build buzz, generate traffic and maximize social media exposure.

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MarketLeverage is one of the web’s largest “Cost Per Acquisition” (CPA) networks. MarketLeverage enables web Advertisers and web Publishers to harness the power of performance marketing. The company also hosts MLTV, one of the first ever video news sources for affiliates!

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I’m incredibly honored to announce that InternetGeekGirl was selected as a finalist for a LinkShare Golden Link in 2008 for the category of Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate. My fellow finalists, Revenue Magazine and Scott Jangro, surely deserve to win this one. I think it should be a tie between those guys.  While I’m definitively *vocal* and I’ve been in the space for 10 years, my evangelistic efforts pale in comparison to the likes of Lisa Picarille and Scott Jangro. I feel pretty darn lucky to be listed among such distinguished nominees. Kellie Stevens of AffiliateFairPlay (last year’s recipient), will be passing on the crown! I thank LinkShare for selecting me and look forward to another great Symposium.

I would like to point out that I have spent a lot of time over the last few years talking about the impact social media and web2.0 is having on affiliate marketing. I work to evolve new strategies and share the power of performance marketing with other communities online that lack understanding about this monetization strategy. More and more people are starting to listen and do something about it. Affiliate Summit is hosting an entire event dedicated to the topic in October!  I hope the leading companies in performance marketing pay better attention. The networks can no longer sit idly by while the online marketing landscape shifts to a more technologically advanced, flexible, user-generated, socially connected infrastructure. Times are changing my friends, it’s best to change with them.

The Affiliate Karma team looks forward to seeing all of you at the Pre-Party to the Golden Links next Monday night at the Monkey Bar at 5:30 in NYC

During my visit to Orlando, Florida last week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ted Murphy at Izea headquarters. As Ted’s shirt insinuates, he likes “creating chaos.” His business ventures have a tendency to do just that. PayPerPost caused quite a stir in the last year, and his new company is getting loads of attention – for different reasons.

SocialSpark is Izea’s newest attempt at creating a marketplace between bloggers and advertisers. This time around, Ted has gotten it “right” (according to many – including Jason Calacanis) with policies that include: 100% disclosure, 100% transparency, 100% real opinion, 100% no follow. If you’ve got content, creativity and influence – check out SocialSpark and jump into the marketplace.

I have to give a quick shout out to Ted’s web2.0 reality TV show, RockStartUp. Ted and the team share their start-up journey with the world. As someone who has worked at quite a few start-ups, I’d have to say the show is spot on!

Don’t forget to check out my interview with Ted back at @sxswbloghaus in March.

Rock on Ted!

It’s time for Affiliate Summit East and InternetGeekGirl and friends are heading up to Boston on a party bus!

Affiliate Summit is all about networking, so why not network on your way to and from the event? Join some of the leading experts in Affiliate Marketing as they make their way from NYC to Boston (and back). Participants will receive special gifts, provided by sponsors, and have the ability to win prizes. Refreshments will be provided on the bus. The bus is a typical charter bus. Unfortunately – no wifi, but bring your aircards and phones as we will be twittering away.

Click here for event details and to sign up for the Party Bus to Affiliate Summit!

Please note that this is not being organized by the Affiliate Summit team, so if you have questions, please contact me.

We will leave on Saturday, August 9th from NYC sometime in the morning (exact location TBD). Mimosas anyone!?! We arrive in Boston with plenty of time to get settled in and attend the Affiliate Dinner (hosted by Schaaf Consulting). Remember activities start early on Sunday, so arriving Saturday is recommended. We’ll head back to NYC in the morning on August 13th (so you can stay over for Tuesday night festivities). Tickets are round-trip only.

As a friendly reminder, the hotel is filling up fast (or may be already filled). Here’s the URL in case you haven’t called yet: http://www.seaportboston.com/ The show code is AFS8.

Looking forward to another great Affiliate Summit East. See you in Boston.