JimWorld Gazette Issue #68 11/27/1998

Gazette - Issue #68 - November 27, 1998

CONTENTS

• What The Gazette Isn't
  
• From Our Community Members
  
• A New JimTOOL - NetNovice FTP
  
• Site Happenings
  
• The Rest Of An Affiliate Program
  
• Relief In Sight For Software Developers
  
• Why Aren't You Marketing To Hispanic Americans?
  
• New Copyright Laws For U.S.
  
• Gazeteer Freebies - Part I
  
• Get Linked
  
• Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g68

WHAT THE GAZETTE ISN'T

About twice a month, I get an email chastising me for being 'too verbose' in the content of the Gazette. In other words, I talk too much.

I've been hearing that since I was first able to talk. When I was about 5 years old my Mother and I were traveling by Greyhound bus to a new Army base where my Father was stationed. Apparently I was just a bit excited. I was in the seat directly behind the bus driver and must have been chattering at him for the better part of an entire state. I was talking going into the state and was still chattering as we left that state.

Out of frustration severe enough to overcome his reluctance to appear rude, he turned to me and announced "Sit down and SHUT UP." My Mother claims to this day that it only worked for a few miles and then I was right back at it. I find this hard to believe. I'm sure I went back to my studies of Shakespeare and only muttered an occasional succinct phrase or two.

It seems that now, even when I'm talking about talking too much, I still talk too much. Trust me on this: that ain't about to change at this late date. Old dogs and tricks, you know?

The Gazette was never intended to be a 'news feed' about 'events'.

It is an online training course in marketing in the electronic frontier. That's all.

We don't just print the news. We evaluate current events and developments and try to show you ways that you can put them to use to your advantage. Complete with enough background information to let you take our ideas and bend them and expand them to fit the needs of your online community. That's called teaching and it is the thing that gives me the most personal reward.

If you want the news, there are thousands of sites and zines out there doing an outstanding job of serving up the facts in a concise manner. The e-world doesn't need more reporters.

The world does always need more good teachers, and apparently the Gazette is filling some part of that need. It appears that we will usher in the new year having passed the 100,000 subscriber mark.

To the bus driver: Sorry.

FROM OUR COMMUNITY MEMBERS

I have been on the internet for about 9 months trying to get something going, working lots of hours and trying so hard and getting nowhere and am still nowhere, but after reading your article I have learned a lot - I need to slow down and pay attention to the design of my web site and keep it on the same subject, I was ready to throw in the towel until I started reading your article.

Thanks, I believe there is hope for me after all.

Shirley

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I would like to thank you profusely for the listing of where to promote or list your ezines. What a helpful article for we new published of internet newsletters. I get just about every ezine and yours is fast becoming one of the best.

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Dear Virtual Promote Team,

I'm sure that you have had thousands, maybe even millions of nerd novices thank you for your clear, concise and invaluable information.

My boss said to me, "You need to hire someone to promote the site, yesterday." But I didn't know what that person was supposed to do, so how could I hire them. Having found your site I was able to determine if we already had people in house who would rise to the challenge of new responsibilities.

We're only getting started, I found you last week. Now everyone has a signature and we're are all alot smarter, including the Chairman.

We have a long way to go, and not a lot of time. The opportunities are changing everyday, the competition is growing every second.

Thank you again for pointing us in the right direction.

Susan Guinan http://www.countdownarcade.com
Bringing savings to millions of members, everyday of the year!

A NEW JIMTOOL - NET NOVICE FTP

NetNovice FTP
$29.95 Shareware - Windows 95/NT (98?)
http://www.igsnet.com/netnovftp.html

HTTP, FTP, Telnet, Anonymous Login, host, binary, ASCII, permissions, CGI, Perl.... the number of seemingly impossible new skills that a webmaster must master can be overwhelming. We've all been there, even if we have conveniently forgotten how confusing it was when we started on the web.

NetNovice is an FTP program for your Windows computer that eases you into the world of moving files to and from your server, or any server for that matter. The interface is easily understood, there are extensive help files for every step of the process of getting started and then extensive help for every process you will need. This should make it easier for you to understand the FTP process, which is, once mastered, a very easy process.

There are some slick options in this program. For instance, download and unzip files directly from the FTP program. That one I like a lot. Or the ability for you to send an email to the support team directly from the FTP program.

For the experienced user, you'll like the ability to have multiple files being moved in the background while you continue with your other work.

All in all, this is a handy way to start learning FTP skills, without which no webmaster can succeed. It is a program you won't soon outgrow.

SITE HAPPENINGS

This week we added a new voting script to the VP home page. Stop by and add your experiences to this interesting feature that can be, when properly used, a significant source of information for every webmaster and marketer.

The current question is: Do you routinely use more than one search engine when looking for information? I'm curious to see the results. Will it change the quality of life on Earth? No. I'm just curious. Contribute your answer and see the to-date results of the poll including your response.

The script does a pretty good job of eliminating duplicate responses, so you only get one vote.

We'll find other questions as we go along that will add a bit of information to what we know about the cyber world.

I found the script at one of the free script sites and installed it. The installation was not terribly difficult, but should be easier. It also requires Server Side Includes and shouldn't.

I will be rewriting the script to be easier to install, easier to administer, more accurate at filtering out multiple votes, and won't include the need for Server Side Includes. When it is done I'll make it available on the Freeware Plus page.

Maybe I'll twist someone's arm to give me a hand with the coding. Already got the design done. (This is known as a 'HINT'.)

THE REST OF AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM

If you market products or services online, an affiliate program is the most profitable marketing tool you can use to rapidly expand your sales without investing a dime in advertising.

An affiliate program is a pretty simple concept. You have something for sale. You want tons of advertising, but you just can't seem to find where you put that spare million dollars you had laying around the house, so you can't really afford a big time advertising campaign without selling some of your Treasury bonds. Guess you'll just have to hit all the free classified sites and do a lot of praying. Maybe you'll get lucky.

NOT.

With an affiliate program you can entice other webmasters to do your advertising for you with no money up front. You set up a way for a webmaster to enroll in your affiliate program. You assign them a number and password. You supply several different banners, buttons and text ads for ezines.

The webmaster then puts those banners, buttons and text ads into their e-community and they sit back and wait to see a few results:

1. Does your product sell to their community members?
   
2. Do you actually deliver to your customers?
   
3. Do you pay your affiliates what they have earned? On time? The check clears?

If those things go well, you have now established a steady flow of new customers that only cost you advertising money after you make a sale. That is way cool.

Now multiply that first successful affiliate by several hundred and you are IN BUSINESS!

Finding enough affiliates to supply the number of customers you need to pay for that new yacht will require Kissing A Lot Of Toads.

For every five affiliates that sign up, only one will turn into a long term supplier of customers for you. So. to get 200 reliable affiliates, you are going to have to kiss 1,000+ toads. (I really should switch imagery. I haven't had breakfast yet and toad kissing is Yuck.)

In the Gazette. we have written much about the why's and how's of setting up an affiliate program. Now I'm going to tell you the secret ingredient to making it generate sales in a reasonable amount of time. Much faster than announcing it on your site and hoping that people will stumble across it and sign up.

For your personal copy of 'The Secrets To Filling Up An Affiliate Program - Quickly and Cheaply', just send $99.95 to Jim....

Oops. Forgot myself there for a moment. Must be the pressures of the holiday season and those nice people at American Express that keep calling.

The secret to finding those 1,000 toads is to launch the other part of an affiliate program: another affiliate program.

Wow. What a lot of blank stares coming back at me from the class. Maybe I can be a tad bit more clear in explaining this.

You need to find 1,000 webmasters that want to earn some money by running your advertising on their sites. They want a way to accomplish that without making tons of sales calls, gathering their communities' demographics, having their traffic figures audited, sending out traffic and demographic reports, creating a billing system, yada, yada, yada... all the things they will have to do if they want to get you to buy advertising on their site.

So they venture forth looking for affiliate programs where they can 'just do it' and see if it works. If it doesn't work, they have only lost a little time and bandwidth. They can sign up and try it today. No sales calls. No billing. No problems.

You, on the other hand, need to dig out these willing-to-give-it-a-try site operators.

There are three ways to do that:

1. Post your affiliate program offer prominently on your site and just wait for results. It will work... eventually. In the meantime. you've used prime selling space on your site that could have been used to pitch your product to potential buyers.
   
2. Launch an expensive pay-up-front advertising campaign. Buy banner slots on sites where webmasters hangout. Buy text ads in ezines that are read by webmasters. Face East while you pray to enroll enough affiliates before you exhaust your advertising budget.
   
3. Pay for what you get. Get others to find the webmasters for you, and pay them only for results.

Number 1 is what most people do. That's good for you, because it means they will never be a threat to your business.

Number 2 takes us back to tearing the house apart looking for that misplaced million bucks.

Number 3 is the Secret Ingredient. The 'Secret Sauce' to our affiliate program deluxe.

Here's what you do:

1. Set up your affiliate program to compensate webmasters for sending you new paying customers. Get it running like a clock. Have enough of a track record in Beta testing to prove that your systems and procedures work correctly. Sell some product. Pay some affiliates. Test, test, test. Don't rush to market with this. Small problems can destroy your reputation forever. Don't put off essential elements like the affiliate sales tracking system. If the program isn't complete. you run the risk of getting a great opening, a painful middle game, and a fatal end game. Spree followed this pattern. Great big, flashy push when they started. The oft promised affiliate reporting system is still not available. Maybe you've noticed how little is written anywhere on the Web about Spree lately? Guess how long after they finish their promised features before I'll write about them.
   
   
2. Send a press release to the web sites that list affiliate programs. Send it to editors of ezines like the Gazette that teach and inform webmasters who are looking for ways to increase their income from their web efforts. Tell the editors about your company. Tell them about your product or service. Tell them about your affiliate program and give specifics about your beta test and give them some references to check.

Ask the reviewers and editors to review your affiliate program on its merits. Don't try to bribe them into a good review. The editors of ezines worth being seen in are not going to respond well to that. You can let them know that if they find your program to be worthy of being selected for inclusion in their directory or ezine, you would like to discuss a way for them to profit from any additional exposure they choose to give you.

DO NOT ask them to promote your program just because you are willing to pay them to help you. They didn't build a loyal and trusting following by endorsing junk and rip-offs. They have to believe in your program.

By offering them compensation for their help, you are simply asking them to do more of what they would do for free if they like your program. Instead of the one mention in the ezine you earn by the quality of your affiliate program, they might run a steady flow of mentions about you. Instead of just adding you to their data base of good affiliate programs, they could spotlight your program on the home page. Give it a higher listing in search results. Give it a full write up in their data base.

There are several ingredients to a successful Recruiting Affiliate Program

(Hmmm... I like that. We should use it. RAP for short.)

A RAP should:

1. Compensate the RAPer for customers sent to you that just want to buy your product or service, and not sign up for your AP (affiliate program.)
   
   
2. Compensate the RAPer for any affiliate that signs up as a result of the RAPer's efforts.
   
   
3. Provide a way for the RAPer to check on their progress... when they want to. Don't just send them a quarterly statement of results. That is counter productive.

Imagine this scenario. An ezine editor is putting together this week's edition. She has one unsold ad spot in the issue. She can take one of two paths. Just don't run that second ad this week, or she can run an AP or RAP ad to fill that second spot. We want her to run our RAP ad and she wants to run something that can generate some income even if it isn't as much as she would have gotten from a cash advertiser.

When our over-stressed editor has gotten to the end of her assembly job for the coming issue and she has to 'put the issue to bed' she has one task left. She has to fill that last ad spot.

She knows that she has several RAPs to chose from, but the first one that comes to mind is yours. That's because every time she gets a real 'sale' for you, she gets a Thank You message from you. You are at the top of her mind. She runs over to your RAP information site and logs in. She discovers that she has been earning X dollars every week from running your RAP ad. If that number is impressive, her decision is made. Your RAP ad looks just fine to her and she looks no further. Your ad is in.

Mission accomplished. By both of you.

You need some more information to keep your RAP program tuned to racing performance.

Let's say you pay a $20.00 bounty for every affiliate signed up by your RAPers. But some RAPers deliver better quality affiliates than others. Maybe 20% of their affiliates become successful where most of your others average 10%. That's important to know.

Maybe the affiliates they get you have 3 times the actual sales as those from the rest of your RAPers. Again, very important to know.

This information allows you to approach those better performing RAPers and sweeten their deal. Maybe you write them and without their asking, you increase their bounty to $20.00. Think that will keep their interest up in your program? You bet it will. Or maybe you offer to buy a permanent banner on their home page just to help them sign up even more affiliates, for which they will earn even more bounty money. No strings attached. Think that will help your relationship with them?

The editors and publishers that join your RAPer program require a serious, ongoing sucking up effort. Stay in touch with them. Keep them posted on any new features or products, and any significant milestones you pass. The better editors will not want to run your ad in their ezines without adding their own unique style to it. Give them the freedom to do it that way. They know their community better than you do.

For more information about affiliate programs, drop in on the Affiliate Program Forum in the Get High (Traffic) Forums.

http://gethighforums.com

Tell them Jim sent you. Maybe I'll write myself a little thank you note for sending myself some new traffic.

RELIEF IN SIGHT FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS

When we first started working on the Freeware Plus programs that we give away, it required a tough decision. Development time over features.

When writing programs that gather information from the Web and display it to you as HTML pages, there are two choices:

1. Gather the information and send it to your default browser for display. This is OK, but it makes the usability less than desirable. Output can't be shown to you as it is gathered. The program must wait until the report is complete and then call up your browser to show it. There is no way to use that information interactively to let you instruct the program to do things with the information gathered. Bummer.
   
   
2. Imbed a browser window directly into the program and have all of the advantages listed above as problems. That is an easy choice, right?

Wrong. Only Internet Explorer lets you imbed a browser window into a program, Netscape does not. And since most (regardless of what you read in the Microsoft press releases) webmasters use Netscape, how are you going to convince everyone to download and install Internet Explorer just to use your software? Especially since it is more fun to have a root canal than to take Internet Explorer off of a system once installed.

To the rescue comes Netscape - finally. They woke up after receiving what must have been a steady flood of angry email complaints and announced that Navigator 5 (Due for Beta release before the end of the year) will allow you to imbed browser windows using Navigator routines!

Thank you Netscape. It is sad to see a company that was built on innovation become so detached from its market that it takes months to notice the obvious. Maybe if you stopped worrying about Bill and crew and just got back to developing technology you could stay the market leader.

On the other hand, now that America Online is making a move to acquire Netscape, innovation in browser technology may vanish from the landscape completely. With AOL's overwhelming installed infrastructure, they have not been able to innovate for several years. It's all they can do to maintain the status quo.

Full story at: http://www.iw.com/print/current/news/19981116-netscape.html

WHY AREN'T YOU MARKETING TO HISPANIC AMERICANS?

Scenario: Two businessmen with the same product, same skills, looks and manner, approach an English speaking Latin client. One extends his hand and says the only three Spanish words he knows, "Mucho gusto señor", the other says, "Er...Hello, pleased to meet you". Who do you think is going to make the sale? Of course, the business person who took a personal interest in his client. Granted, most Hispanics in the US do speak English, but by accepting a culture and making an effort to embrace it, you've taken a huge step towards endearing a Latin customer.

Many US businesses forget the meaning of the acronym WWW and read it as if it were just a name, the World Wide Web. As they approach the Web as a marketing tool, they treat it as the (English)WW. A few main stream media have been cashing in on the purchasing power of the so called "new found Hispanic market". Taco Bell with their absolutely refreshing Spanish language commercials "Quiero Taco Bell" using the cute Chihuahua, and Burger King playing Flamenco music "Bombelero" by the Gypsy Kings. I wonder if McDonalds is feeling the heat? This newly discovered market has been not been tapped on the internet yet. Americans are slowly coming around to the fact that we aren't on this planet alone, and not everyone speaks English either.

According to Selig Center for Economic Growth, Percentage Changes and Compound Annual Rates of Growth in Hispanic Buying Power for U.S. and the States, 1990 -1997 was 65.5% and expected growth will be 7.5% (1).

Growth in Hispanic-owned businesses, 1987-1992, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data: The rise in Hispanic-owned businesses has been phenomenal - 83% for the five-year period from 1987 to 1992 (from 422,373 in 1987 to 771,706 in 1992). Compare that to the overall average growth rate of 26%, and we can see this is a sector on the move.

The rise in receipts for these Hispanic-owned businesses has been even more amazing. For that same five-year period, receipts grew a startling 295%, from $24.7 billion to nearly $72.8 billion. The average Hispanic-owned firm generated $94,000 in receipts. These are very positive trends. That is a lot, but it is not nearly as great as the $3.3 trillion in total sales in the whole economy. That tells us that we have lots of opportunity for growth.

In today's world of a global economy, more and more smart businessmen are realizing that Spanish is a vital language in our hemisphere and in the US. It is predicted that by the year 2030 30% of the US population will speak Spanish. More people speak Spanish in our hemisphere than any other language. It would be an excellent idea to include at least the US Hispanic population your marketing strategy.

Things are changing, and to be at the cutting edge of marketing, you must include, at least, the US Hispanic market. Having a lead-in web page in Spanish, or just your keywords, title and description in Spanish could mean the difference between you and the other guy.

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Robert Levy http://www.ipee.com
Director of IPEE Spanish Language School, Costa Rica
(The Professional Spanish Institute for Foreigners)

NEW COPYRIGHT LAW FOR U.S.

Web Hosts and ISPs May Not Be the Only "Service Providers" That Must Register Under New Copyright Act

As you should be aware, the Digital Millennium Copyright Infringement Act of 1998 has become law and requires online service providers to register with the US Copyright Office in order to qualify for limitation of liability for 3rd party claims of copyright infringement. Failure to register results in a loss of immunity granted in the legislation.

Few web hosts and ISPs know about this requirement. More importantly, if you read the Act very carefully you will see that "service providers" who are required to register could also include businesses, libraries, schools, etc. providing "connections for digital online communications." In other words, a company that is providing an extranet as part of its business who has a customer posting copyright infringing matter might also be considered a "service provider" under the law and will lose protection because the company failed to register.

This story angle could be very significant because the Copyright Office is charging $20 for interim registration, not to mention the postage and handling costs. In addition, the regulations provide that the service providers will have to re-register and pay another fee which will "most likely be higher" once the final regulations are issued. Any modifications of the registration contacts also requires re-registration and a payment of $20 in order to maintain limited copyright infringement liability. We are talking tens of millions in fees and expenses hitting a wide segment of the business and academic community who are currently unaware of the provisions because of the assumption that it only applies to ISPs. But despite the costs, if they do not register, even out of an abundance of caution, they may well lose valuable protection from liability under the law. I think there is a need for greater awareness on this issue.

A new online registration preparation service from our Copyright Agents division is available to help web hosts, ISP's and other service providers register their Designation of Agent to comply with the requirements of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act of 1998.

You can view the statute and interim regulations and our registration service at our site: http://www.hostrader.com/copyright.htm

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Joe Deni II, Pres. and Top Agent
HosTrader.com, a Division of TRANSLEX Corp.
http://www.hostrader.com

GAZETEER FREEBIES - PART I

Once each month, Akshay Sikka, producer of the FreewareWeb site will be sharing with us his top picks of Free stuff for webmasters. Welcome aboard Akshay.

If you haven't yet subscribed to the FreewareWeb Online newsletter, you are missing a lot of cool free stuff. You can subscribe at http://www.freewareweb.com/newsindex.html

And now, this month's list of webmaster freebies:

ShortKeys Lite - (529kb) - New
http://www.freewareweb.com/macros1.html#ShortKeysLite

ShortKeys Lite is an excellent macro utility for Windows 95/98/NT, allowing you to setup replacement text or paragraphs for any given number of user defined keystrokes. It monitors the keyboard activity globally and anytime a user defined keystroke combination is typed in, it will be replaced with the replacement text. One of the best we've seen, great for filling out multiple forms.


SmartFTP - (290kb) - New
http://www.freewareweb.com/ftp2.html#SmartFTP

SmartFTP is an FTP program with the familiar explorer style interface. Supports Drag & Drop, multiple connections, a few unix commands, and can resume broken downloads. It has a built in FTPSearch, proxy support, as well a lineup of many other features.


FontPage - (675kb) - New
http://www.freewareweb.com/fonts1.html#FontPage

FontPage lets you examine and compare all fonts on your system, view them with all type specifications available (bold, italic, underline a.o. as well as in 3D) and print a font page of any installed font on your PC. A great way to choose when you have a lot of fonts on your system.

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Akshay Sikka
FreewareWeb Site Producer
http://www.freewareweb.com/

GET LINKED

Prospector
http://www.prospector.cz/

Do you have content on your site concerning Freebies? You know, free stuff on the web. Or do you offer something for free? If so, you should submit your site to the Prospector, a directory of free stuff.

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PhoneZone.com
http://search.phonezone.com

This search engine indexes all sites dealing with telecommunications products or services, such as Internet telephony, computer telephony, phone systems, networking, local/long distance phone service, fax solutions, unified messaging, enhanced telecom services, wireless technology, etc.

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WebSection.com
http://www.websection.com

A new business sites directory. Drop by and get listed.

SNIPPETS

The Censorware Project
http://censorware.org

Federal judge Leonie Brinkema's decision that the use of site blocking software by the Loudoun County, Va. library is unconstitutional came as a welcome sign that the end may be in sight for unethical blocking service providers. Maybe now these 'Blockers That Stole Christmas' will clean up their act and start actually providing the service they claim to provide.

There is a need for fair and accurate site filtering services, but it needs to accurately evaluate web sites and not just block entire ISP's just because one site on their server has adult content. The blockers claim to evaluate all sites in their database, when in reality they don't. They whine that there are just too many sites and they can't keep up with the workload. What makes it OK for the blockers to lie about their service, when every other business in America is expected to be truthful or feel the full weight of the U.S. Government come down on them?

Congratulations to judge Leonie Brinkema for having the personal strength to recognize the obvious and then act on it.