So it seems that half of my blog posts have had me complaining about someone’s interface.  If you enjoyed those posts then I have good news, I am just going to run with this theme for a while.  Well, at least until I get bored with it.  When I started doing internet marketing, the first thing I learned was how to use Google AdWords.  AdWords is pretty user friendly and I had no problems learning it.  I actually found it quite easy.  Then I branched out to MSN adCenter and Yahoos Overture, and they were the exact opposite of easy.  But that was many years ago and they obviously have made drastic improvements over the years.  Right?  While they have become somewhat more user friendly, they are still way behind AdWords (even with their new, unpopular interface).  So now that we have decided that Bing is cool, I am going to let MSN know what they need to change in order for adCenter to start having the same appeal.

My first complaint is the fact that it doesn’t offer you the option to save your password.  This is something that Linkshare changed in their new interface and I applauded them for it.  I go to tons of websites everyday that have my password stored in the browser.  If I thought there was a chance of someone ripping off my passwords, I wouldn’t do that.  So why don’t you let me decide whether or not I want to store my password, and at least give me the option?  There are few things I hate more than having to be slowed down by typing in a password.

Often MSN adCenter, just like Google and Yahoo, will disapprove my ads.  Usually this is due to me typing in something wrong so I don’t mind when this happens.  However, adCenter give you no help in finding out which ads were disapproved.  Instead, it will simply give you a message saying that “Some ads or keywords were disapproved.”  This really does nothing to help either of us out.  Google has a nice tool that lists the disapproved ads so I know it shouldn’t be too hard for MSN to add this feature.  If they told me which ads were disapproved, I could easily fix them and then they would run, resulting in a win-win situation.  Instead, I just check the ads that are performing well to make sure that they are ok, and ditch the others, thereby helping neither of us.

Just like Yahoo, MSN adCenter makes it “easy” to import Google campaigns.  Please make sure that you notice the quotation marks, because it is a super huge pain.  The importing part isn’t too bad.  Well, actually it is a pain, but it is doable.  The awful part is what comes next.  Once you upload your campaign, you have to manually go through each of the steps just like you would if you were starting a new campaign, except this time all the information is already filled out.  So if you import 90 ad groups, you have to go through each of the 90 to make them active.

When most people were using dial-up to connect to the internet, I could see the argument for only listing so many items on a page.  It made the site load quicker and worked within the bounds of the technology at the time.  I don’t see why this still happens.  When I look for something on eBay, I want 200 items to show up at a time, not 50.  In the time it takes for me to load 4 pages, I could have quickly loaded 1 page with all the items.  So I don’t understand why adCenter only loads 50 ad groups at a time, when I have 91 of them.  If I am looking for a particular ad group across 3 or 4 accounts, I then have to remember to look on page 2 for it.  This is also something that Google’s new interface does, but it at least gives me the option to increase it to 100 ad groups.

With Bing now riding high there is plenty of momentum for MSN right now.  If these changes were made it would make me way more likely to recommend it to more people.   There are still plenty of other problems that I have with the platform, but I believe that these are the major ones that are holding it back from being user friendly.  Is there anything that I missed?  Let me know in the comments.

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Filed under: Microsoft, PPC Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines by Chris Cremen
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I never thought I would say it, in fact I never thought I would try it. I was certain that I was a one search engine type of guy for I would never cheat on my BBSE (Big Beautiful Search Engine) Google. On a whim I went to Bing.com today and it just so happened that on this day Hawaii was added to the U.S. so on the front page they have some lava. Lava is a very strange interest of mine so I was intrigued, I started poking around the main page of the site (which is more than I can say that I have ever done for Google) and started watching videos on lava, looking at pictures of lava and Hawaii and so on. I was engaged, completely engaged.

I started searching for other things, among them, myself. I binged myself (does that sound dirty) and up came a shorter list than would on Google (But bing got rid of all the duplicates.) I searched for stories about Search Engine Marketing and so on and one of the coolest features, if you mouse over to the right of the listing a small info tab comes up that mentions more and more stuff about the Search Listing.

I know I am late to the game but Bing is cool now excuse me while I go play around with it some more.

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Filed under: Bing, Microsoft, Search Engines by Dean Karasinski
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So I have to write a blog post, and I decided to make it easy (since it’s Friday) and give an update on the North Carolina affiliate tax woes.

To catch everyone up, North Carolina is proposing a Nexus Tax, similar to the one passed in New York last year. This law states that online retailers must collect and report sales tax on any sales made to residents and such in the state of North Carolina, but only IF these retailers have affiliate marketers located in North Carolina. The affiliate marketers are considered a physical extension of the retailer, giving the retailer a physical presence in the state, which forces them to collect sales tax.

From what I’m gathering, the tax portion of the budget has been the biggest problem with the budget being passed. Governor Perdue has insisted she will veto the tax section as a whole if it includes certain items. She does not have the ability to veto specific lines in the tax section, just the whole thing.

So here presents a problem. Several outlets have spoken with Governor Perdue, and it’s become very evident that she doesn’t understand what the Nexus Tax even means. With that being said, it’d be no shock if she just pushed that tax law through.

The proponents of this tax law are equally disillusioned. Their battle cry now is equality for brick and mortar businesses. They believe the sales tax will create a level playing field, make things fair, take away the advantage of selling online. What they refuse to see is that people don’t shop online because of the lack of sales tax. In fact, out of everyone I know, I can’t name a single person who would even factor sales tax into the equation of whether to buy online or to buy at a store. The sole reason people go online is to get better deals and the sheer convenience of not having to leave the house! I can be sitting at home, order a book from California, and never have to put on pants or leave the house!

For affiliates, this has been a nightmare. July 1st was when the budget was supposed to be passed. June 28th, Amazon removed all NC affiliates. The budget was pushed back to July 15th. But that didn’t stop the publishers. They took initiative and systematically removed their NC affiliates. Now it’s July 25th, and the budget still isn’t passed. The tax section, which includes the Nexus tax, isn’t agreed upon. In fact, it’s been leaked that they’re going to start from scratch and redo the tax section. Whether this new version will include the Nexus tax or now remains to be seen. So we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, 7even Leaf Clover isn’t sitting idly back awaiting our fate. We’ve already formed PA businesses to operate under. We’ve visited PA to look at houses and apartments, and we’re making plans on relocating if this passes. It sucks to think about, our fate is in the hands of ignorant lawmakers who refuse to listen to the industry, simply keep their blinders on and stick to their old ways, still believing they’re smarter and better than the rest of us.

Yup, I’m angry. And we’re still fighting. If this is about equality, if this is about being fair, then why are affiliates the only people being affected? Why are they losing their jobs, their businesses, being forced to move out of the state? How is this even close to being fair?

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Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Google, Microsoft, Nexus Tax, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines by Tim Caspersen
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In a not too shocking but definitely unexpected move, Google announced that they will be entering the OS race based on their already popular browser, Chrome.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

You can read the rest of the article at The Official Google Blog and download the Google Chrome Browser on their site.

But what does this mean for everyone who wants to use Chrome? Well, think about this Google already suggests that you sign into their web page to do search, look at maps and so on. This means they are collecting RIDICULOUS amounts of data about all of the people that are using their service. They can track you pretty closely, but now with Chrome OS it is possible they will be able to track what you do on a daily basis, what sites you visit without using Google Search, what programs you run on your desktop, how many pictures you have, how much music you have and so on and so forth. Scary right? Perhaps SkyNet isn’t that far off. Essentially Google is going to be controlling everything, people look to them for everything online, they have become a behemoth. Now I have nothing against Google I love them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they need to be kept in check and at least out of some portion of our lives. Lets hope they don’t put a little Analytics code into this OS of theirs. This is all really bad for privacy on all fronts.

Now the OS market only has so much room but a large company like Google should have no trouble getting into it, but can it stay there? Google has always been known for its streamlined, no bones, minimalist look and feel. So it may have a hand up against Microsoft and its bulky Windows. But Microsoft has had this market cornered for a long time, they have been dominant and continue to crush the competition. Only recently has Apple been able to achieve 10% market share of the OS market but I suspect that is due to things like the iPod, iPhone etc… introducing people to Apple and eventually leading them to a Mac. With that said Google has been a major thorn in Microsoft’s side ESPECIALLY online, they have pretty much shut them down in all aspects on the web, so if Chrome OS is a web based OS maybe Google has a chance. Little is known about Chrome OS so all if this is just speculation, I guess we will just have to wait and see what is going to happen and where this is going to go.

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Filed under: Google, Microsoft, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines by Dean Karasinski
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