James Seligman
The Ups & Downs of Administrating Forums & Affiliate Marketing

That is right after being out of school since 1986, a little over 22 years ago, I have decided to go back to school and take some computer classes. I will be going for my AA in Computer Science. After the first year I will get a certificate for an Applications Developer.

I have always been pretty good at html and some php. But I wanted to get into more SQL database development, XML, and Java.

So no I am not getting out of the business of forums or affiliate marketing. This will just make it so I can do most of my programming and not hire out as much.

So am I crazy? Or is this a good thing?

Popularity: 26% [?]

As I said earlier I was going to check out the eComXpo for the first time and I must say it was pretty interesting to say the least.

The first thing I have to say is that it is very confusing when and where you have to sign in to attend the show, it took me a little bit to find out where to log in. When I did log in on the home page, it told me that the show had expired. What? It just started!

So I finally read my e-mail and used the link in the e-mail to log into the show.

Overall impressions is that the show’s floor plan is very well laid out and easy to navigate. I pretty much knew where I needed to go most of the time.

Once I went to the exhibition hall I went to visit some of the people I knew and drop them a quick chat, to my surprise most of the booths were left unattended, why would you sign up to exhibit and not have someone there? On the booths that I did visit I was instantly asked to chat with someone from the company, sometimes by multiple people.

Overall it wasn’t a very productive show, although I did make some new contacts. Along with a bunch of spammy messages from other attendees.

Some complaints I do have is that, I wish that had it where you could read a small bio on the company without visiting the booth, a couple companies I thought were CPA networks or other related companies, were not.

The other HUGE thing was I wish they would have stopped sending me e-mails that the show is open. After I signed in and visited for a little while, I must received at least a half dozen e-mails telling me the show is open. No Duh!

Maybe next year I will be like Zac Johnson, sign in, enter my name in all the drawings and sign out and hope I win something.

Popularity: 15% [?]

I just arrived back from week long vacation and have a pretty busy week ahead of me.

First-off I am attending the eComXpo online today and tomorrow. Should be interesting and seeing what the deal is. I signed up to attend last year, but was on vacation.

Then on Saturday it’s the second meeting of The Seattle Affiliate Marketing Group at the Barnes and Noble in University Village. So if you’re in the Seattle area come on by and hope to see you there.

I have been pretty busy catching up with tons of e-mails as I only had very limited internet service where I was.

Also I was going to start watching the Top Affiliate Challenge, but after reading some blog posts, I may just skip it. I was really rooting for Ian Fernando, but it seems that he left the show.

I will be blogging about me experience at the eComExpo and I found a new way that spammers are using your vBulletin Forum to spam, it’s something I discovered right before I went on vacation.

Popularity: 37% [?]

If you have been following my blog you know that a couple of weeks ago Patrick O’Keefe contacted me via Twitter to see if I would be interested in reviewing his book; Managing Online Forums, I said of course without even hesitating. I used to listen to Patrick’s podcast that he used to do a couple years ago. It was a shame when he stopped. Well I finally finished reading it from cover to cover and ready to give it my full review.

So onto my review:

Whether you are a seasoned forum owner, just starting out or thinking about staring a forum this book is for you. It is an easy guide from choosing a topic along with a domain name and to setting up a forum without getting to technical and moves on to how to manage and deal with difficult members as well as choosing and managing your staff and much more.

The chapters are well thought out and planned so whether you’re either thinking about or just starting a forum you will be able to read along as you’re starting the process. One thing that I did find myself doing was taking notes, not just for this review, but for my personal use.

Patrick uses real life experiences that he has dealt with and gives plenty of examples from developing your forum guidelines, to examples of dealing with those difficult members and how you should manage your staff. These real life examples include e-mails that he uses when there has been a forum violation or dealing with an absent staff member. All are there for you do read and implement them on your own forum.

One of the curious things that he states in the book is that he does not have a feedback/suggestion forum for his members and he gives a reason that he/administrator has the final say and you shouldn’t let your members decide what should be implemented into your forum. The other thing is that most problems could only be fixed by him/administrator so now he just asks that people contact him directly and he can deal with the suggestion or feedback first hand. I kind of like this idea because as I have seen on other forums, including mine, once a member comes up with a suggest on what to add or implement everyone starts commenting and then your almost left in the position to have to implement the suggestion.

I could go on and on about this book, but I am telling right now this is a must read and I will be pulling off my shelf from time to time.

* The above is my own personal opinion and I did not receive any compensation other than the book itself.

Popularity: 73% [?]