Today is a U.S. national holiday – the day when America commemorates the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., a passionate activist and proponent of the civil rights movement.
This morning I have spent a some time flipping through the writings of the Reverend, and two phrases especially spoke to me in light of the current state of affiliate marketing. These two were:
- “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
- “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
With the current spread of parasitism in affiliate marketing (I refer to such unethical operations as OneCause, We-Care, TrialPay, SaveNDonate, ShopForYourCause, to name but a few), and lack of both affiliate and merchant education on the subject, the above two statements put an additional emphasis on the situation. Let us not be silent, and keep on writing and speaking passionately to eliminate the deadly ignorance! It is our industry. If we don’t clean it up, no one else will.
I strongly believe that passion is a staple of success no matter what you do. Granted, you can make money doing almost anything if the bottom-line is all you care about, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be a veritable “success.”
It’s the difference between MSFT and Apple. One seems to care more about the bottom line, and will go down in history as a major corporation who’s influence on technology was actually limited in the grand scheme of history.
The other will go down in history as influencing HOW technology is designed and adapted to the actual needs of real people — and not just business who are trying to make money.
C.T.,
Thank you for chiming in. Interesting thoughts. Are you saying that the AAPL is the passionate one, while MSFT is not? Could it be that they are both passionate, but in different ways and on different levels?
Geno
A small group of people are passionately trying to find solutions to the lack of information regarding the current wave of toolbar or “technology” affiliates. Sort of loosely organized at http://affiliatetrust.org/ the real discussions are open only to contributors. One OPM has signed on and I think his point of view helps keep some from getting too far from the center. More opinions, feedback and information are always welcome from those in a position to give insight.
Re: AAPL vs MSFT, my first computer classes (1985) were on Apple computers in the public schools- as an adult continuing education course, but at that time it was AAPL vs. IBM-DOS. In the workplace DOS won out of course, and moved over for MSFT after Windows was introduced so that people didn’t need to learn to write their own DOSSHELL files and learn directory commands. The biggest difference between the two rivals has always been that MSFT wants to maintain the commercial opportunities built into Windows, while the competition is much closer to open source development. There is not a lot of crapware on a new AAPL but it takes weeks to try to find and remove it all from a new Windows machine. I use Vista because it is all I can get locally but not by choice. It is defective out of the box. AAPL is passionate about technology, MSFT about connectivity..and marketing.
I applaud AffiliateTrust.org on taking a stand! The more affiliates and affiliate program managers tackle the main problems of the industry in the open, thereby educating others, the sooner the good will prevail over evil.
One of the main U.S. Army field commanders during World War II, General Omar Nelson Bradley, said: “We are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind or whether to act, and in acting, to live.” Rephrasing the second half of this quote in light of the current state of affiliate marketing, I would say that the decision is ours whether to wait for the thieves to chart the route of where our industry is heading, or to act, and in acting, to help it live!