Jason Calacanis - You’re all nasty spammers!
I didn’t go to Affiliate Summit so I don’t have first person experience with this.
Jason Calacanis gave the keynote speech the other day at Affiliate Summit West, and there’s been a lot of buzz about what some are calling a controversial speech. Calacanis was controversial? No! Really? Jason is either loved or hated, there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground with him. For a little background, Jason founded Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, Weblogs (Engadget and others), and currently Mahalo, which is a different search engine that relies on human editors to clean the results. His current mission is to clean the internet of spammers, affiliate marketers, and non value added search results. Or it could be just to scare people into using Mahalo, which is what he’s been accused of since launching.
So in his speech, Jason pretty much said that affiliate marketers are pissing in the pool for everybody and can be collected into the same categories as spammers that add no value to the internet. And of course, as someone that does affiliate marketing and does add value to the internet, I need to say something about this.
If Jason is talking about the MFA (made for adsense) sites, covert SEO and search engine gaming, then I agree with him. Marketers, spammers that do not give the people what they want are cluttering the web with garbage websites and that does need to be cleaned up. But I can’t blame them for trying to make a buck since these people where clever enough to see the opportunities created by the search engines’ own business model.
If Jason is grouping something like a little travel blog, where the blogger tells stories about foreign travels and so happens to place affiliate links about products he or she is writing about within the posts, in with spammers then I think he is way off base. I do agree that there should be a disclaimer somewhere that just states every once in a while there will be an affiliate link, but even if there isn’t one a blogger like that is adding value to the reader with interactive posts.
I’ve seen a presentation by Jason where he had no love for Seth Godin, the guy that wrote the book (well several of them) on marketing. So it may be that Jason just thinks that any marketing means spam. I believe as long as we are increasing the value to the user we are doing a good thing. If someone searchers on “camping equipment” and the search engine lists my site with a post about camping and I’m writing about a relevant product with affiliate links, then I’ve answered the users search. I’ve done something good for someone and I have every right to be paid.
The funny thing is, Jason has been accused of using the same SEO gaming techniques that he’s argued against, like gaming the search engines. It’s also been said that his anti-search engine, anti-SEO, and anti-affiliate marketing is just a very clever ploy to sell Mahalo, which he markets as the solution to the problems stated above. Either way, Jason is a pretty brilliant guy.
I say, yes we need to get rid of the trash out there to add value for people. However, lumping all affiliate marketers with spammers is short sighted and a temporary solution at best. The internet needs to be a free market and has shown to correct itself. If Mahalo is a sticky idea, the market will tell us.
What do you think?
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