The CantBarsed Affiliate Marketing Lifestyle Experiment...

I've been around the UK affiliate marketing industry since the early days and there are so many great things about the industry every now and then I take time out to have a look around and see what other affiliates are up to and to remind myself not to take anything for granted because standing still really is going backwards in this industry.

Learning new stuff and trying out new ways of making money are two of my favourite things and two of the most important qualities anyone interested in making a living from affiliate marketing will need along with determination - lots of determination.

It's not easy to think outside the box, especially on demand, but my background as a product designer means I'm adept at coming up with alternative ways of achieving the same result and when I suffer from designers block I buy other websites and take a look under the bonnet which gives me an insight into someone else's mindset. Because they're selling up there's every chance it turns out to be a cul-de-sac but nevertheless it's always fascinating.

My fascination with websites extends to domain names and I'm always on the lookout for new domains to support existing projects and inspire new ones so feel free to pitch yours to to me!

I'm not a domainer but I can spot a good deal when I see one. I recently enquired about a domain which the current owner thinks is worth a lot more than I do - nothing new there if you read my earlier post about domain name haggling. I asked one of my favourite web developers with domain name expertise Paul Lasikiewicz for his opinion and he reckoned the asking price was about double what I felt the domain was worth. The owner isn't budging so I'm content to let the credit crunch bite and have another go later. Learning to play the long game is another essential skill affiliate marketeers need to learn.

Affiliate Marketing feels like a game of Monopoly to me. On the roll of the dice (my google rankings) I cruise the board buying web properties which I develop adding houses and hotels on them in the hope that people will eventually land on them I and make money.

I got chatting with Paul (this means typing in MSN in JoeSpeak) and it turned out he has been busily developing his own web properties including a nice discount code related domain Discount.org.uk and we struck a deal and now I have another code site to look after - it's good to type!

I tend to look for domains with two keywords or something catchy that's brandable and I've never been a fan of generic domains. I also hadn't really considered org.uk domains as worthwhile properties until that purchase but Paul explained the site could rank well for searches like "[retailer] discount" and "discount for [retailer] and I can see his point so I learned another important affiliate marketing skill - listen to what other people have to say and adapt to prosper and stay in the game.

We chatted about SEO and I realised not being a domainer isn't my only lack of expertise - I'm no SEO expert either! It just goes to show that however much you learn about affiliate marketing (and I've learnt a helluva lot) you must never stop learning. I make a decent living as a jack of all trades but the challenge is to do even better. I love being my own boss, I get to choose when I work and I'm a tough taskmaster.

My conversations with Paul really inspired me and I'm working on new projects and looking forward to battling with my fellow affiliates for those top slots on all the search engines.

It's the a4u Expo this week so I've been working flat out to get things done before my head explodes to free up some headspace for new stuff at the Expo sessions. I've already picked the sessions I want to attend and have added them to Evernote so I can read or change my itinerary from any machine or my beloved iPhone. It all depends how quickly my cold clears up, how much beer I drink and whether I'll be able to get in or stay awake to all those sessions! I managed to soak up some useful stuff last year without any planning or effort, doffs hat to Mr Lee Mccoy, so my plan is to be just a little bit more professional this year.

For starters I've got some shiny new business cards to give out, assuming I remember to carry them with me, and the in/famous cantBarsed booby lady remains a key feature - after seeing her traded for poker chips at a previous a4u event I know she has legs! However, in my quest for professionalism on these overly PC times I've cut up some post-its and censored the sensitive areas by hand so peel to reveal or not - the choice is yours! I'll cover them with a scratch panel next time. If you do see me wandering the Expo or asleep in the sessions do say Hi and ask me for a card.

Affiliate marketing CantBarsed style really does suit me and, like the best experiments, it's much more exciting when you don't know the final outcome.

Affiliates to Give 200% Cashback to Charity

If that got your attention perhaps you'll also be snagged by a new breed of spam emails featuring incredulous and witty subject lines. I'll admit I was enjoying this spam and I was a bit dissappointed when they dried up as spam filters around the world sussed the format so for posterity here's a few highlights:

• NASA to use Space Shuttles to kill birds
• Switzerland To Be Devoured By Black Hole (one for James Avery there)
• Home Office to deport anyone with IQ below 100
• ICAN To Shut Down Email Services World Wide
• Obama Captures Osama
• Mccain vows to withdraw all troops from the US
• Paris Hilton to operate new atom smasher
• Paris Hilton's Vagina Bites Penguin
  

A different email spammer is sending out more believable subject lines which just don't have the same appeal:

• Ronaldo leaves Man Utd
• Cancer cure from American plant
• UFO sighting in downtown NY
• Steve Jobs to resign from Apple
• London Olympics cancelled
  

...and so on
It really goes to show the importance of your email subject lines and for affiliates sending out newsletters there are lessons to be learnt.
I filter my incoming mail by subject line into folders and when I send out my weekly newsletters I always start each email with "CantBarsed.com" to make it easy for my newsletter subscribers to do the same and now I'm wondering if I would get a better open rate if I mixed up the subject line so it wasn't so easily filtered or maybe that would just annoy my subscribers?

Witty one line comments welcomed ;-)

Is Less More?

Salesperson: "Hello Sir, Mobile XYZ here phoning about your mobile phone contract, we..."
Me: "It's an iPhone."
Salesperson: "That's lovely sir, anyway about your mobile..."
Me: "They're exclusively with O2, you're wasting your time... and mine."
Salesperson: "..."

It's happened twice already.

In my vision of an Apple inspired future I hadn't foreseen the welcome side-effect of the demise of mobile phone contract parasites (or that being scewed by O2 would have an upside) and it got me wondering what else in our lives would be better if we had less choice?

Do we really need to choose which company sends us a bill for our electricity, gas, water etc? If comrade Stalin-Brown nationalised the lot again we'd have less choice but we'd all pay exactly the same and we wouldn't have to endure those pesky comparison website TV adverts.

Do we really need so many seperate remote controls with myraid buttons we'll never use? I don't. Apple's remote control is an marvel of self-restraint which everyone can use without a manual, it just works. There's even an Apple iPhone App(lication) which lets me control iTunes from anywhere in the house. All we need now is some smarty pants to come up with a box of tricks which let's me control everything from my iPhone and I can throw all my remote controls away - I see there's already a company working on this, but I'd rather Apple took charge and did the job properly.

Less is more was always my favourite design philosophy but it hadn't occured to me having less choice might also be a good thing. I'm certainly losing brain cells quicker than I'm making new ones these days so working smarter is good but working simpler is where it's at.

Given a free choice I choose less choice.

Apple iPhone 2.0 Updated At Last

After my earlier rant I finally managed to upgrade my iPhone to 2.0 at around 8pm Friday evening.
It wasn't a good user experience and days later the MobileMe service is still a bit clunky so it's hard to get a handle on how useful it will be to me.
I've just discovered there's now a Windows MobileMe control panel to set sync preferences and now my email, contacts and calendars on iPhone, Mac and PC are all in sync which is cool.
I've just spent some time in my happy place (new tech toys to play with) browsing around the new Apple Apps Store downloading and playing with some of the excellent Apps.
Here's my first thoughts:

The Facbook App The original web app was great and although this app doesn't really offer anything new it feels more seamless and it's cool to instant message with other online Facebook users.


Shazam Load this up and play any piece of music and in around 15 seconds it'll tell you the track, the artist along with links to YouTube videos and more - perfect for setting arguments and combating brain freeze. The only downside is this is a time limited version - so how much they want for it will decide whether it remains on my iPhone.

Remote Control your Apple TV and iTunes music libraries from your iPhone. It's free and works really well but I also want to be able to play the music on my iPhone via remote speakers. There's also a remote control web app which replicates the Apple remote features and I'd like to see these two remotes combined into one killer app.

Twittelator Twitter on the move from your iPhone and it will also update your Facebook status (if you have this set this up in your Twitter account preferences).
In addition to posting twitters you can add photos from your camera roll or take a snap. There's a "panic" feature which posts your location along with a shout for help which is bound to save someone's life before long.
There's also Twitterific which is available as a free ad sponsored version or a premium version costing £5.99 which removes the ads but Twittelator gets the job done for free so I'm not sure there's a future for a paid version.

Shanghai Mahjong I'm not into console games but I do have a weakness for Mahjong when I need to chill for half an hour. There are already 6 different Mahjong apps on the Apps store priced from £0.59 to £5.99 so I plumped for this version from MobileAge which cost me £2.99 and it's an excellent implementation with some great features and a wide range of tile designs and backgrounds. I do need a zoom feature for this app because my eyes soon became tired of staring at tiny tiles.

iPhone Stuck In Hyperspace!

The problem with being right about the popularity of the new iPhone is I didn't get one and now my 1st generation iPhone is useless too!

For me the trouble started with Apple's decision not to sell the new iPhone online and I buy all my Apple gear from the UK Apple Store online and I didn't want to queue at a shop for their PR benefit.

Then O2 sent me an text message upgrade invitation, excellent I thought, I can still upgrade online and get an iPhone delivered to my door this Friday morning.

Then the O2 website broke due to overwhelming demand (event though O2 had been testing their servers all week to cope with a 250% increase in demand).

By the time I managed to get a working website the O2 online store had sold out and I decided to wait and have a play with the new 2.0 iPhone software on my 1st generation iPhone since I do most of my browsing via WiFi at home the 3G and SatNav features are not top of my priority list.

So I kept trying to download the new software via iTunes and eventually managed to download it mid-afternoon only to find after backing up and restoring my iPhone that the iTunes upgrade activation servers are down so now even my existing iPhone is stuck in Hyperspace.

Way to go Apple to piss off one of your most loyal customers.

Barbados - Message In A Bottle

I had several other working titles for this blog post:

"Barbados - The Pleasure & The Pain"
Pleasure because it really was a pleasure to spend time in the company of some of the nicest people around the affiliate marketing scene, some I'd known for years like Pete, Lee, Chris, Ian, Keith, J Lil with apologies to anyone I've forgotten and new friends Gulshan (my roomie), Nic, Meisha, Neil, Tom, Aldo, Elizabeth, Naomi, Hannah, James Avery, Mike, Sinéad, Siri, Ben, Sarah(s), Mark and quite a few others whose names I can't spell until you get in touch with me. I think we're all agreed Barbados is a beautiful island and it was a pleasure to explore and interact with the locals who are generally chilled, mild mannered, intelligent, respectful and delightful people.

Pain because I managed to badly sunburn myself the first afternoon. In my enthusiam to go bodyboarding, one of my favourite things to do wherever I go in the world, I picked up some waterproof SPF50 lotion slapped it on all over but it clearly didn't work as advertised because I ended up bright red for the rest of the week and now my skin looks like a contour map of the island! And there were the hangovers!

"Barbados - Mixing Business With Pleasure"
I can't imagine any better way for a network to switch me on to their message than jetting me off to Barbados and Affiliate Future have evolved this winning formula over several years which works remarkably smoothly. There were no formal presentations, no hard sell, just plenty of suggested outings and things we might like to participate in. The only onslaught is alcohol which, as an affiliate, is beer off a ducks back. AlcOClock usually kicked off after breakfast with a poolside bottle of Banks, the local lager, followed by Rum & Cokes (Barbados is famous for Mount Gay Rum which has to be the smoothest rum in the world) leading inexorably to Happy Hour and strawberry Dacaries before heading out for the evening - and we had some great evenings.

My highlights of the week were:
Scuba diving: I was really nervous about scuba diving, I'm comfortable in the sea hanging off my bodyboard but trusting technology to help me breath underwater is huge leap of faith and thanks to Andrew at Eco Dive and Frostie for making that leap a little less scary. We dived down to a shipwreck at around 15m and I also saw a sea turtle, octopus, shoals of fish, all in all a fantastic first experience and I can't imagine a better place for a first dive.

Touring the island in a Suzuki Jeep: We hired a bunch of vehicles and headed off to explore Barbados which is just 166 square miles (by my reckoning about the same size as the Isle of Wight) which means you can get around the entire country in a day! We headed off to a silver sanded beach up the west coast, stopped for lunch at an excellent restaurant, then headed up to the Flower Caves situated at the most northerly point on the island before making a mad dash down to Crane Beach on the Atlantic coast where we arrived at dusk. Don't ever follow Lee, or try to overtake him, which left me in an awkward catch 22 situation as he made an unorthodox manouvre just as a bunch of local schoolchildren started to cross the road off to my right. Ian shouted "KIDS IN THE ROAD" so I slammed on the brakes and stopped just a few feet away from half a dozen of them as Lee hurtled past in the opposite direction. Neither the kids nor Lee (aka "Team Fun") seemed in the least bit concerned so we put the episode behind us and we had our very own catchphrase for the rest of the island tour.

Bodyboarding on Crane Beach: We organised a gang in a local Taxi for an afternoon of boarding therapy. The waves were very messy with no opportunity to do anything other than hang onto them and ride straight up the beach or get wiped out. These waves were really mean - I got dumped unexpectedly more times here than anywhere else and I ended up banging my head on the bottom for my troubles - not the best place for beginners to learn but I had a fab time.

Karaoke: In the spirit of doing something outside my comfort zone I ended up singing Karaoke in the hotel bar. I joined in with James Avery, Ian and Lee for an interesting variation on "Don't Look Back in Anger" and after a succession of Mancunian anthems I roped in Ian, Tom and Lee for my choice of "Puff The Magic Dragon" and by the end of the evening there was incriminating video evidence on most of us.

Fish at Oistins: Great food after dark on the beach mixed with lively music and great company is my recipe for happiness and the Marlin and macaroni pie was the best food I ate on the island. I had planned to do a bit of shopping but I think it was Nic that put a stop to that with a bottle of Mount Gay rum and we started on Rum & Cokes. As I've grown older I haven't really got any wiser and that evening I went for it. I don't remember travelling back to the hotel, I do remember having a fab time in the hotel bar with Nic, Neil, Ian, Kieth, Tom, Sinéad, Chris, Sarah and Ben - who went to bed early and consuming a brain shrinking quantity of Rum & Cokes. I don't remember eating street meat and I don't remember how I ended up in bed face down with my clothes still on but it was a great night.

I also enjoyed a couple of drinking sessions at The Ship Inn and a Bajan evening at Harbour Lights where the "young bloods" of the gang really made a lasting impression - one I'm still trying to forget!

Anyway, I settled on "Message In A Bottle" partly because my blog posts have a running theme of song titles and I can imagine sitting on a secluded beach somewhere spamming the oceans with messages in empty bottles of Banks:

"Please tell Deb to come and join me and give our kids the site logins so they can pay their way through university."

"THANKS to Affiliate Future for stranding me on Barbados and rescuing me from my daily routine"

The CantBarsed Blog is moving...

I'm in the process of moving the CantBarsed blog from http://www.cantbarsed.com/blog to http://blog.cantbarsed.com so I can use the new blogger.com template features to give the blog a makeover.
I suspect it won't be seamless and it could well be messy or unavailable in the short term but it should be worthwhile - I'll be back!

iPhone 3G brilliant BUT iPhone 2.0 Software & MobileMe Inspirational!

I've just watched Steve Jobs presentation to the WWDC and while I'm really excited about the new iPhone what I'm most looking forward to is the free forthcoming iPhone 2.0 software update and MobileMe (a revamped .mac service) which together will make a big difference to the way I work as an affiliate on a daily basis.

MobileMe is described as the "cloud in the sky" which synchronises data between your all your desktop and mobile devices in near-real time over the air (3G, 2G or WiFi).

This is perfect for affiliate marketeers. For example I'll be able to read and reply to an email on my iPhone and both my desktop computer and laptop will know I've already read and dealt with that email so I won't have to read it again or mark it as read on my other machines.
I'll also have access to all my contacts and spreadsheets anywhere and any changes made will be updated on my other devices seamlessly - no more multiple, but different, copies of the same documents on different machines.
I think I'll be able to do the same with dreamweaver web pages but putting the pages live will still be a separate task, I look forward to having a play to see what's possible and what's practical.

This time around Apple have made a huge effort to get the business world on-board. A whole bunch of Fortune 500 companes were signed up to the beta program and with full support for Microsoft Exchange, Cisco and the ability to open Word, Excel and Powepoint documents in place demand is going to go through the roof.

Add July 11th 2008 To Your Diary
That's the day the iPhone 3G goes on sale in Apple and O2 stores across the UK and it looks like they're NOT going to be available online (as an Apple affiliate that's REALLY bad news) and can only be activated in-store. I'm not happy about having to queue up and activate in-store but from O2's POV it makes perfect sense because it will reduce iPhone hacking/unlocking (again this is bad news for O2/CPW affiliates).
At an estimated 12 minutes per customer there's going to be some long queues outside stores which means lots of media coverage.
I can't decide whether to play their game or wait and play with the iPhone 2.0 software on my existing iPhone and run the risk of the iPhone 3G going out of stock, especially because at a price point equivalent to $199 they are going to fly off the shelves (although I want the more expensive 16Gb white model), decisions, decisions.

More Apple News
Last July I blogged about how iTunes was the Trojan horse which lets Apple loose on Windows machines and alongside a new Apps Store you'll also be able to install iPhone apps from iTunes and I'm looking forward to seeing how MyMobile interacts with Apple TV, where you can now rent and buy movies along with popular TV shows. It's all coming together rather nicely now isn't it?

I CantBarsed to Blog About The A4U Awards, Oh Allright Then...

Well I didn't win anything - which wasn't a surprise since I wasn't nominated but I still managed to get nervous for 2 award nominees I felt quite strongly about.
Happily Julie Wood romped home (judging by the cheers) as the Publisher’s Choice Of Account Manager and Kirsty McCubbin just missed out to Kieron for the Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2008. As I was waiting on the balcony alongside Kieron I reminded him I'd voted for Kirsty and he agreed she would be a worthy winner so I was delighted when he told me after collecting his trophy that he intended to give the sunshine.co.uk holiday vouchers to Kirsty and Duncan could so they could have a mini holiday after their wedding and before the A4U Expo.

Of the 14 other awards I correctly guessed 7 and was only left scratching my head over a few.
I expected sunshine.co.uk to pick up an award but Chris Clarkson picking up the Affiliate Manager of 2008 is a real achievement up against old hands like Zak and Graham.
Virgin Games winning the Gaming vertical award ahead of Jackpotjoy was odd. They'd been squeezed onto Kieron's "affiliate only" table and disappeared downstairs just before the award was announced so I'm guessing they only attended at the last minute and knew in advance they'd won the award - which is better than not attending and filming a cheesy video - probably! I wasn't even aware there was an independent Virgin Games affiliate program so I'm guessing they actively canvassed for votes which feels wrong to me but it's within the rules and even actively encouraged but I still don't like it. OTOH the Virgin Media guys sat either side of me and Deb at lunch and they were both really nice and we drank a glass or two of their celebratory Champagne so I've no cause for complaint - I bet Jackpotjoy Jasper and Claire will be canvassing for votes next year!

So as an 'umble affiliate plus missus was it worth attending?
The comedian Michael McIntyre made my face ache with laughter which partially numbed the pain of spending around £600 all in including tickets, hotel, breakfast, trains and taxis to eat and see a few mates pick up awards. From a business perspective I wouldn't get it past my expenses manager (happily I don't have one) and the A4U expo is a much better opportunity for networking. OTOH as a glitzy event to take the missus along too and spend some company money it was just about worth it but I probably won't attend next year unless it comes immediately before or after the A4U expo so I don't have to make an extra journey and hotel booking.
It's also always good to spend time in the company of Elaine and Dave, Kieron, Frostie and others. I also learnt Redcar is up north, oxygen can be flavoured and that I can drink a lot of Champagne, to date, I haven't been able to afford to find my limit.
I didn't give a toss about the involvement of the IAB at the awards - it's been largely irrelevant to my affiliate life and similarly I don't understand why people seemed pleased NMA wanted to be involved. As a magazine about new media they'd be stupid to ignore a sparkly event tailor made to fill column inches - maybe they were pleased NMA isn't as stupid as they thought it was.
Congratulations
Once again Zak from Prezzybox and Graham and Dan from Buyagift pick up awards and it was really good to catch up with Julian from IWOOT and talk seafood again. It's also always good to put names to faces of all the other merchants and affiliate managers I chat with by email, telephone and MSN on a daily basis and best of all it was great to celebrate Julie's win at our own mini after-after show party with Nadeem, Martin and Carl from the A4U forum.
As usual there were loads of people I didn't get around to chatting with but, thanks to Matt and the Existem gang, the A4U Expo is just a few months away so we can all catch up again there.

Karma Chameleon - The Times They Are A Changing

Our recent 25th Wedding Anniversary party and my 50th Birthday seemed blogworthy enough milestones so here I am again.

We don't throw many parties because we're not fans of the traditional village hall format and the prospect of having our house trashed becomes ever-less tempting. I was explaining this to my friend Chris and we ended up talking about Packing Shed Island, which sits just above high tide off the coast of Mersea Island in the Blackwater River estuary, and we both agreed it would make a great alternative party venue so a few phone calls later the shed was booked for our anniversary party.

Booking the shed really was the easy part because everything from people to toilet rolls has to travel by boat to the island, and back again, which adds an extra dimension to even the simplest tasks with plenty of scope to FUBAR!

Parties need music so I spent a long time going through my iTunes collection picking must-have tracks from each decade and ended up with enough music to put on a music festival rather than a party!

I always enjoy browsing the pictures people traditionally put on the wall at parties but getting those mounted up and onto the island was never a practical proposition so I decided to put together a noughties style slide show using my Apple TV and an LCD projector. I generally hate scanning photos but it was therapeutic scanning pictures and amazing to see small snapshots spring to life on a much larger screen. The slideshow seemed popular so I've uploaded the lot to my .mac web gallery for anyone who missed it or wants copies of the photos you can grab them yourselves.

It's great to get presents but there's really nothing we need so we'd decided to organise a charity raffle and thanks to the generosity of our sponsors (especially IWantOneOfThose.com and Buyagift) and all our party guests we raised exactly £500 for our favourite charities.

From our perspective the party went really well. The island mentality led to us over-ordering food and we even had some alcohol left which is more a case of us getting old rather than over-ordering I think. Apologies to anyone I didn't get around to chatting with, that's always the problem with parties, but everyone had a smile on their face in the photos and they're also available online here or on the Facebook event page.

So fifty is bloody old, especially when I grew up in the cold war and remember being told the world might end today at infant school, so I've been counting my blessings ever since. We can't help growing old but we don't have to grow up and figuring out what's important is more important than learning stuff and milestones like anniversaries and birthdays make me maudling and reflective - please feel free to skip my self-indulgence.

I've been practicing Taoist Tai-Chi for over four years now and although the gentle body changing exercises have undoubtedly improved my physical health it's the taoist aspect which has been the key to becoming more comfortable with myself so here's what I think I've learned so far:

* Don't judge people too harshly. Most people are lovely, mostly harmless and often ineffectual but lovely nevertheless and the more people you meet and friends you make the more lovely experiences you will have in this life, it's simple probability in action so just do it.

* Do something outside your comfort zone every day. Say YES when you're screaming NOOOOOOOO on the inside and see what happens - it almost always turns out OK. I'm really uncomfortable at the thought of public speaking but it gets a little easier each time.

* Break your habits and embrace change. Challenge yourself, stop drinking tea or start drinking coffee - it really doesn't matter, changing your behaviour is the key because it challenges your self-image and ultimately how others perceive you. Be open to new ideas and experiences, life inexorably narrows our potential so don't make it any easier.

* Be useful and be generous. From personal experience I know the law of karma works. Often being generous is useful too so it's already karma payback, did you see the movie Pay It Forward?


Finally, and on a lighter note, I'm reminded of this essential tidbit for men of a certain age: If you have the opportunity to go to the toilet, take it - and if you're lucky enough to get an erection use it!

Whistler, IWOOT, Curly Wurlys & Jet Lag

I'm not a fan of February(ies) in the UK so the idea of stomping my carbon footprint across Canada was appealing - especially when the entire trip was organised and paid for by IWantOneOfThose.com - the worlds favourite gadget site.
We flew with British Airways, the worlds favourite airline, that cancelled our flight because the pilot was "ill" - I still can't believe that excuse, the more I think about it the more pathetic it sounds. Do BA really not have a single backup crew?

The upside was a stopover in Toronto on route to Vancouver and Whistler mountain where the original plan was for a gang of affiliates to go boarding.

Instead we went up the Canada National Tower in Toronto, drank large quantities of beer and cocktails, with some serious eye contact, ate Twirly Wurlies and got into an outrageous pillow fight at a swinging party - I'd like to tell you more but fight club rules apply on holiday but you can read more about IWOOT in Whistler here - I'll just talk about me and skiing.

Learning to ski is easy enough but convincing your brain to let your body slide down a slippery slope with minimal control is a LOT harder - at least until the adrenalin rush kicks in and you're back on the chair lift for another run.

Harvey, my ski-lesson buddy, was fearless but clearly his brain doesn't work because he lost his ski poles, his lift pass, his googles and then ME up the mountain!

Everyone who knows anything about skiing says Whistler is THE place to visit but without anything to compare it with all I can do is agree with the instructors who reckon it's awesome dude, mental even and it certainly got under my skin in more ways than one.

I always suffer jet lag returning from America and it takes me well over a week to get back to normal so here I am wide awake at 2am yet hardly able to stay awake during the day - of course I'd love to do it all over again and to Paul, Julian, Julie, Ian, Jamie and Harvey I'd like to say thanks very much for your company.

Valentines Day Messages - Will You Marry Me?

It's that time of year again and we're publishing Valentines Day Messages on CantBarsed, anonymously if you prefer, so you can share a little love, or start some rumours around the office.
This is the third year we've run this online event and we've just had our first marriage proposal - How cool is that? It's also a leap year so look out guys, the tables have been turned!
Every message is also entered into a Free Competition to Win 1 of 5 Valentines Romance Calendars kindly sponsored by Prezzybox who deserve a mention because they've sponsored the event every year.
The closing date for entries is midnight 14th February 2007

Code Sites - Reasons To Be Cheerful?

Back when we started publishing promotional codes on CantBarsed.com there really weren't any dedicated code sites and we enjoyed top positions on Google, MSN and Yahoo for several years for most of the popular keywords. Happy days indeed but back then the general awareness of promotional codes was really low so those keywords were nowhere near as lucrative then as they would be now. However we did offer early internet shoppers a way of getting deals online they couldn't get by visiting participating stores directly and everyone was happy.

As awareness of promotional codes increased and we saw the launch, and increasing popularity, of dedicated code sites it became confusing for visitors to CantBarsed.com to find our promotional codes mixed in with our content and our stats showed a marked decrease in visitors so we bought DiscountCodes.tv and worked really hard to build the site database with daily updates so now by cross-linking the two sites we can offer our visitors the best of both worlds.

Code sites have recently come in for a LOT of criticism, some justified and some unjustified accompanied by bandwagon jumping, petty sniping, jealousy, back-stabbing and, worst of all, in-fighting and slanging matches between code sites owners which isn't good for anyone. However the glare of publicity has resulted in closer scrutiny of the way code sites work and has resulted in some positive developments.

To anyone thinking of launching a code site I would remind them about all the other seemingly easy ways to make money which turned out to be a lot harder than they first appeared. For example, how many decent cashback sites are there left? What happened to all the datafeed driven websites after google wised up to them? How many independent and useful broadband and utility switching sites have you visited lately (and how on earth do those comparison sites advertising on TV make any money?). I could go on.

Back in the real world producing a functional code site is just the first (and I would say easiest step) of a HUGE undertaking. To properly maintain a code site people will want to re-visit you'll need to commit to learning everything there is to know about the UK online shopping scene and endless late nights!

This means signing up to every retail program and reading hundreds of merchant emails daily, investigating what each new merchant has to offer, removing stores which go bust or close their affiliate programs at a moments notice and that can be a full time job even before you add a single code.

Then there's the codes. Some last ages, some last hours. No sooner have you added a code you have to remove it. Some codes just don't work and others can't work because your site design didn't allow for every permutation. Some codes can be published, some cannot, some can be used by you and no-one else, some can be used by all affiliates, some can only be used my the recipients and others can only be used by groups like NHS employees and YOU have to decide this for each and every code you publish.

Of course you can look at other code sites (I do and I know we all do) and if they have a code I don't I'll go after the merchant, agency, networks for a similar code. However there's also a really uncomfortable balance to be struck between offering what your visitors want (ALL available codes) and what you can publish (NOT all the available codes) and it's very frustrating to be sitting on literally hundreds of codes we are clearly NOT allowed to publish and other codes which fall into a grey area.

In fact you'll soon discover there's more than one grey area! There are merchants that are completely paranoid about codes and/or code sites, merchants that still haven't heard of codes, merchants that don't handle codes well and just a few switched-on merchants and agencies which really get it.

I'd like to think I've made a positive contribution towards helping merchants understand discount codes and maximise this valuable marketing resource and further our aim to build long-lasting mutually profitable relationships with merchants.

Don't expect everything to run smoothly when visitors hit your shiny new code site. If your site can be broken it will be broken. If anything can be misinterpreted it will be misinterpreted and your mailbox will fill up - and it won't be with thanks and praise, remember the buck stops with you!

It's tempting to cut corners and steal content from other code websites, but anyone doing so will soon be found out. At the last A4U Expo a bunch of code site owners shared a beer and discussed the issues between ourselves and with a couple of enlightened UK networks (Paid on Results and Webgains) and we (the aforementioned bunch of code site owners) are working together to resolve the problems which have been thrown into sharp focus as code sites hit the headlines for both the right and wrong reasons recently.

There will be some self-regulation and there will be some rules that have to followed and although, in my opinion, these can only ever be a work in progress given the diverse nature of discount codes, it's a lot better than nothing.

Just like any other niche code sites appear, stagnate and disappear and just like any other niche a few sites eventually attract the lions share of the visitors. It's usually the sites which offer unique content and/or unique features that emerge with the visitors and they deserve their success OR sites which break all the rules and get away with it until at some point the rules change and their model no longer works. For the record, we're striving to be one of the good guys by creating a great site visitors want to revisit that doesn't step on too many toes.

I'm frustrated by the negativity surrounding code sites and frustrated being lumped together with a few rogue discount code sites. We've worked really hard to ensure DiscountCodes.tv offers our visitors unique content and exclusive codes. We've always worked within network rules and merchant terms and conditions (even when they are added retrospectively) and that's no different to affiliate marketing in any other niche.

Putting my thoughts about discount code sites into words has been a kind of therapy and we're already into rehab as an inexorable process of closer co-operation with the networks has begun so I look forward to a time when we're released back into the community and code sites are no longer newsworthy and the next bandwagon rolls into Dodge.

My Head Is Going To Explode

So Christmas was good and Happy New Year to you all while I'm in here struggling with the pixelmajigs. The weather is much like my runny nose and I'm not sleeping very well with so so many ideas buzzing around I think my head is going to explode.

The nub of my problem is the everyday mundane tasks that get in the way of my insatiable appetite to do something new - anything new! I'm not talking big ideas or ground breaking concepts here - some new or rediscovered music to listen to ((listening to Daft Punk at max volume right now), tinkering with my iPhones (Oh yeah! I won one of those legitimately UNLOCKED euro iPhones in a competition run by RedSave.com - how cool is that? - and I plan to hack it and write about it here - erm... soon) - so pretty much ANYTHING other than what I HAVE to do to keep our websites ticking along is what my body WANTS to do.

The end result is I always feel that whatever I am doing right now I should be doing something else so my blog posts are sporadic and rambling at best and I have so much unfinished business kicking around but when you look after a website called CantBarsed.com you can get away with it - up to a point.

With my sensible shoes on link building is one of those jobs I can't imagine anyone enjoys but, when done right, it can also be one of the most productive too. I've only ever been interested in linking in context with plain text links so don't bother offering me your link pages, but anything else is welcome. You can email me or get me on MSN via joe at cantBarsed.com and show me your wares. One upside has been some great chats with other webmasters and that's given me even more ideas - doh!

Sales are still going in the right direction and, inspired by several other affiliates publishing their stats, my snippet is total sales approaching... £5 million during 2007.

As others have pointed out there is also an unwelcome downward trend in commissions combined with an increase in advertising costs so it's certainly not getting any easier, especially for new affiliates. This can't be good for the industry in general and next time I'm in a bad mood I'll be dumping merchants with low or zero commissions which are unacceptable.

iPhone - MyPhone - The Story So Far

It's no secret I'm an "Apple fan boy" and I've been waiting to order a proper UK iPhone since playing with one in the Apple Store in Florida over the summer.

The only decision to be made was whether to drive into town on a dark cold winter evening to buy from my local O2 store or buy from Apple online and wait a few days for delivery. No contest!
So on Friday 9th November at 6.02pm and a few seconds I logged on to Apple's site half expecting the site to be broken but everything worked fine and a few minutes later my iPhone was ordered.
The iPhone arrived, as promised, the following Tuesday and I had my own sad unboxing and picture taking ceremony (see pics).

Apple packaging is always gorgeous and I can never bring myself to throw it away so everything ends up in the loft and I'm going to have to buy a bigger house or start a museum eventually!

I lost my previous Sony Ericsson mobile at the Latitude festival in the summer and replaced it with a Nokia N95 switching to the O2 network because I knew O2 had won the exclusive UK iPhone contract. The Nokia N95 is a nice phone, I liked the GPS feature but I couldn't surf websites reliably on it and the camera combined with my photographic abilites were both dissappointing.

As an existing O2 customer (if you want to keep your number and existing contract) activation is different so I've put together an O2 step by step activation series of screenshots for anyone who wants to see exactly what happens. It took around 20 minutes from start to activation but I was taking screenshots along the way so that's a worst case scenario and it was relatively straightforward but dull.

If you've ordered an iPhone and you're waiting for it to arrive read my iPhone setup Guide and when your iPhone arrives you'll be ready to synchronise and play in minutes.

I'm not going to hack my iPhone for a couple of reasons. First of all since I have an O2 contract so the phone features work(!) and secondly because Apple have agreed to open up development early next year and I can wait a few months for some "official" widgety enhancements.

However I do hugely respect the efforts of the hacking community because I doubt Apple would have released the SDK without being pushed, it's not in their nature.

By belatedly following the advice in my iPhone setup guide I've now got all my contacts, photos, music and bookmarks neatly organised on my iPhone.

I work mostly online so the most important iPhone feature for me is WiFi support and internet browsing. I prefer the Firefox browser but Safari is a capable and reliable alternative and now for the first time ever on a mobile device I can browse my websites and login and make urgent changes from the iPhone - that's a huge step forwards in Joe World!

I have literally hundreds of passwords which I need access to on a daily basis and I normally use RoboForm on PCs and 1Password on my Macs. They're both excellent web form fillers and password managers and I recommend everyone gives one or the other program a try - especially if you're using the same password for all your online services.

I was scratching my head trying to figure out the best way to store all my passwords on the iPhone and was interrupted by the latest 1Password software update which now supports the iPhone - brilliant!

1Password generates a special encrypted Safari bookmark which is synchronised to your iPhone along with your other Safari bookmarks and although it's not automatic on the iPhone it's the best available unless you know different?

My friend Antonius has a hacked iPhone (it took him all weekend and the rest of family gave him a wide berth) so we met up to compare notes over a pint in the pub. The hacked interface is amazing with lots of toys to play with and I sincerely hope Apple takes a positive attitude to build a community of iPhone developers so we can all enjoy their efforts.

Time will tell, thanks for reading, if you have any questions fire away, I'll try to answer them...

How to (or not) Haggle for a Domain Name

Like many affiliates we "own" hundreds of domain names but we're not "domainers" and I find it quite entertaining haggling for domains that I really, really want but don't need.
I particularly enjoyed this conversation and haven't yet decided whether to continue the "negoiation" or not, perhaps your comments will help...

Dear Joe,
Thank you for contacting us about [domain.name]. The domain is priced at £5,000 or above.
[snip]
The price bracket indicated is based on a previous brief initial search of related websites and businesses using the term "[snip]", statistics such as Internet Traffic and advertising revenue and takes into account previous interest and offers on the domain name as well as the value of the term as a potential brand and Internet keyword.
We don't keep an exact price for any of our domain names on file... [snip] ...exact sale prices fluctuate over time so we research these on a case by case basis as and when required when we receive serious interest in a domain name.
If you do think this will be of further interest given the indication above and you would like us to look into this further for you and investigate a definite current asking price, or if you have any other questions or comments please let us know.
Best regards, ???

---

Hi ???, Thanks for your reply.
The domain has been for sale for ages (years) with no takers so I feel my £1000 offer is realistic irrespective of your estimated valuation. I don't need it, it's just a nicer fit for [snip]
Our main business is affiliate marketing through other websites.
As I stated in the initial form I have no plans to resell it for profit so you wouldn't be missing out and £1000 has to be better than it being parked for another year.
Regards, Joe Connor

---

Sorry Joe but that's not how it works, Regards, ???

---

Hi ???,
> Sorry Joe but that's not how it works.
I recently bought a domain where the initial asking price was 18k for 3.7k through Sedo so I know that's exactly how it is.
A domain is worth what someone will pay for it and given it's been sat there for years unused it's clearly not worth what you value it at.
I'll email you again next year ;-)
Regards, Joe

---

Hi Joe,
"Sat there for years unused"? you make it sound like an old washing machine! Like I say that is not the way it works and you clearly have no concept of my businesses model in this area, something which has nothing at all to do with whatever a bunch of jokers on Sedo may get up to.
I am not going to enter into a debate with you on this and explain the situation because I get hundreds of people come out with similar nonsense to me every year and I never normally reply.
But to put you straight though on this on this occasion it is suffice to say whilst your thoughts on this are a nice idea for you and your desire to try and secure this domain name; and a good attempt at an angle for you to try and bargain a lower price on it, they are fundamentally incorrect.
An asset in this instance a domain name like this one that is firstly appreciating in value and secondly generating revenue does not fit with your description, as someone who makes money out of parked domains with advertising on them you must surely be aware of this second point. If it were like an old washing machine and becoming out of date, obsolete and depreciating and something I had to pay storage and rent on and was falling into disrepair then, yes, you may have a point, and yes I would then be wise to look at trying to secure a deal, but the situation bears no comparison to that and your reasoning is clearly flawed.
So nice try, but regardless of your past experiences in buying domain names there is no way I will be selling this domain name for any less than the price indicated whether now or even if I still have it in 10 years time. If I were in a hurry to get rid of it and needed the money I know two places where I could sell it for more than three times your offer, immediately, today guaranteed.
If however you are in the future in the position to make a genuinely "realistic" offer if say your business grows for example and you have more money to spend feel free to let me know.
Best regards, ???

---

So the domain probably has a true value somewhere around £3000 and I could probably get it for £5000. Follow up suggestions welcomed...

Cheeselets - More Like CheeseLESS!

We always look forward to cracking open our first tube of the new Cheeselets season and this year United Biscuits have taken the biscuit - literally, about half of them by our reckoning.

It's not all bad, the useless opening pull strip that always breaks off is gone (hurrah) and they've changed the flavour again - they taste different, a bit crispier, but still good.
Our kids pointed out they're 40% less fat... less salt... less everything because the biscuits are 40% gone!

And it's not just one tube, we checked several, and it's not because they've compacted down either, if anything there's fewer broken biscuits than normal. Quite frankly we're cheesed off!

A4U Expo - Expose!

Congratulations to Matt and the gang on the best conference style event I have ever attended and for getting it near-perfect first time, that's a fantastic achievement.
In the spirit of constructive criticism, here are my personal observations:

Ticketing: I got a conference pass in the post but at the event the passes were all printed out again which seemed to be a waste of time, effort and paper - worse still my printout said "Agency" which marked me out as a conference leper before I started! I tore it off the bottom of my pass which then got me into hot water with one of the a4u staff (didn't recognise him).

Planning: I was planning to go to the after show party but main event finished at 5pm and I'd checked out of my hotel so had nowhere to go between 5pm and 7pm when the after show party started - which was too long to wait after a long day so I went home. I understand exhibitors had to pack up and get organised but next time somewhere warm visitors can hang out for a couple of hours to keep it seamless would be cool.

Music: I've mentioned this one for a few previous get2gethers. I love music but the volume of music in the after-show parties is way too loud. I know I'm getting on a bit but the volume got to a level where even face to face 1 to 1 converstations were impossible and the next morning my voice was shot - maybe that's a good thing I hear some of you say but I wasn't the only one to mention it.

Food & Drink: Generally, really well handled by the Excel centre (contract staff?). I liked the brown paper bags and paper packaging but a lot more could be done to improve wastefulness on their side. The Awards evening fish and chips was tasty but a real bun fight, with some people getting more than one and others waiting ages, that needs sorting if the same venue is used again.

A4U Awards: I enjoyed the David Brent lookandsoundalike (although he did go on a bit) and I'd like to offer my congratulations to the winners, especially Matt, Hero, Kieron, Bruce and Zak. From my perspective there were some distinctly odd results and daft categories but it was generally good fun. Again the noise level detracted and the stage being at ground level made it hard to see what was going on so, depending how important/prestigious the awards become, perhaps this should a more formal event held in the conference halls - I recently attended an-after show event at the Excel centre with 1000 attendees so it can be done.

The Exhition Hall: For me this was the really HUGE plus because it meant the network staff (at least some of them) are nailed to their stands. I finally got to met CJ staff for the first time (Yes, they are real live HUMAN BEINGS) and add more names to faces at all the networks - all prizes to the address in my profiles please guys :)
At previous a4u get2gethers I've been to everyone is in a bar with a drink in their hand and network staff tend to stick together which makes it a lot harder to break into their conversation.

I even joined a new network called alltogether digital run by James Little and Kenneth Cheung. Unlike most new networks, they have already got 2 merchants I want to work instead of the usual rubbish pseudo deals so respect and good wishes to them with that project.

The Sessions: These generally exceeded my expectations and are a great addition to the mix. They're also a welcome opportunity to sit down, nod off and learn stuff depending on the particular session. From the a4u forum gang Dixon, Jess and Lee did a great job, I missed Graham, Jason, Kieron, etc but with concurrently running sessions that was inevitable. Ciaran Norris was my favourite speaker, a natural public speaker, so upgrade him to the main stange and make sure you catch him next time. Perhaps an award for the best sessions could also be organised?

Merchants: It was great to see a few larger merchants with a stand. I had a really useful chat with Lesley on the Littlewoods stand which cleared up my mis-conceptions about how the Littlewoods and Littlewoods Direct and associated brands fit together. I also bumped into other merchants touring the floor. I learnt Elaine has a merchant program (Doh!) called Childrens Rooms on POR, I can't believe I missed it or that Elaine or Dave hadn't hassled me but I've signed up now so where's my codes Elaine? ;)

As the event was closing Frostie introduced me to the Euroffice duo, Jonathan and Vincent and they showed us their new site layout which look great and perfect for B2C customers - the old site converted well enough but seemed to have B2B focus so hopefully the new site will convert even better for me. I also had several good chats with Alyssa O'Mara from CardScan (part of Dymo group) who made the trip over from the US and is looking for affiliates with suitable B2B sites, you can check out their program which is running on CJ and Webgains.
I'd like to see more merchants taking stands rather than walking the halls so affiliates can find them more easily, perhaps smaller, cheaper stands in another hall, perhaps one day only, or even just informal merchant meeting points or merchant speed dating sessions would be a good addition to the mix?

Thanks to Matt, the gang and all the sponsors and I look forward to the 2008 event.

With discount codes being the hot potato ATM the a4u code site owners gang (except those that bottled it) held a mini summit meeting to air our views and now Frostie, Ray, Keith and myself are best mates - well sort of! :) Thanks also to Clarke for talking about POR's new system and Hero for her input explaining Webgains POV.

Finally, I'd like to thank all the usual a4u forum members for making the event even more enjoyable including Jess, Dixon, Keith/s, Paul, Julie, Elaine, Dave, Jason/s, James, Clarke, Jude, Zak E, Graham, Kieron, Malcolm, Nadeem, Pete, Kandevil, Mark, Bruce, Lee, Tom and put some faces to a few a4u members I hadn't met before - Hi to Kirsty and Duncan, Bruce, POR Graeme, Kenneth, Alyssa.
Apologies to anyone I've left out, especially one random guy in the loo - I was heading towards a kids urinal next to him when I noticed and exclaimed "That looks a bit small" - his reaction confirmed "low" would have been a better word to use!

Mac Undercover

Mac computer users should take a look at Undercover which effectively renders a stolen mac useless to a thief and there's even a chance it will help you get your Mac back or see what the thief looks like!

Once installed if your mac is ever stolen you visit the Undercover website and enter your unique ID number at which point they start looking for your mac.
As soon the the stolen mac connects to the internet the IP addresses and router address is logged which helps trace the physical location of your mac and, if your mac has an isight webcam, sends pictures of the thief every few minutes.

If you still don't get your mac back at least you have the satisfaction of knowing the thief won't enjoy using your mac for long. After half an hour Undercover simulates an intermittent hardware failure (even if the mac isn't online). If the thief decides to sell you mac or take it in for repair Undercover will track this and will shout and display a full-screen message alerting the reseller (or someone who bought the Mac from the thief) that the Mac has been stolen and should be returned along with Undercover's contact information and reward offer.

They seem to have thought of everything and the prices are really cheap:
* Single User license: $49
* Household license: $59
* Site license: $249
* Student license: $39
* Volume educational license: $8/Mac

I should mention I have no connection with Undercover apart from being a customer.

There's also iAlertU which is a free alternative to Undercover, it doesn't include the network tracking but is a more in-your-face deterrent. There's no reason why you couldn't use both.

iPhone - The Apple In My Eyes

I've seen an Apple iPhone inspired future and it's the stuff of science fiction. All the crucial elements are already in play.

iTunes was the Trojan horse which let Apple loose on Windows giving PC users a glimpse of Mac loveliness as they traded up their mp3 players for iPods and got used to doing things Mac style.

Making a success of the iTunes Store was the next crucial move which has made it (almost) painless to pay for our music, it's certainly a lot less hassle than all that peer-to-peer nonsense - and with music becoming available at higher quality and DRM free there's no excuse to steal music anymore.

Switching Macs to Intel CPUs has made it easier for programmers to get Windows software running on a Mac which both encouraged long time Mac users to stick with the platform and enticed more people to switch to Macs offering a comfortable transition.

The recently released Apple TV is a stealth device - it also integrates seamlessly with iTunes and iTunes Store on both PCs and Macs. To the casual observer Apple TV appears over-priced and near-useless BUT it's being flown in under the radar to provide essential mission support as the iPhone establishes a bridgehead.

I firmly believe the iPhone will do to the mobile phone market what the iPod did to the mp3 player market and history is going to repeat itself - people are going to start trading up their standalone iPods, mp3 players, mobile phones and PDAs to the iPhone. We'll hear the same old bravado from other manufacturers about how they're not worried while they frantically scramble to produce iPhone clones but they've missed the big picture and there's no way back for them now.

In less than two years all we will need is a TV ('cos they're big and fun to watch together), a computer or games platform (to work and play games) and an iPhone (because they're Star Trek-like, damn sexy and portable). The stealth role for Apple TV reveals itself as the infrastructure to wirelessly manage everything on your iphone, computer and TV screen using iTunes and Safari.

The next battle for Apple isn't with Microsoft or other device manufacturers but with Sky Digital and terrestrial digital TV for control of our eyeballs. Movies and TV shows are already available via the US iTunes Store and these can be streamed wirelessly over the Internet to your iPhone, computer or TV screen. The only question is when Apple TV is renamed Skynet - finally the big picture is clear for all to see.

Click here for the latest iPhone news...

Shields Up!

Promotional code sites like cantBarsed.com and DiscountCodes.tv are now so popular we're coming under ever closer scrutiny from merchants. Most are happy for us to promote their codes, which they see as a symbiotic relationship, others are ambivolent or turn a blind eye but increasingly we're being asked to remove valid codes which is definitely bad for YOU and makes our sites less relevant.

What's worse is that some of the merchants who have asked us to remove codes still give them away to newsletter subscribers (read our money saving tips about newsletters) and via their other advertising channels which leaves our regular visitors out in the cold.

If their aim is to get rid of code sites they're unlikely to succeed - a quick look at the US experience shows code sites are not going to go away so pulling codes is just going to drive the perceived problem underground.

We've always approached merchants to organise exclusive promotional codes for cantBarsed visitors so we've ramped up this activity which in the long run will hurt the stores not offering codes as their coverage shrinks at the expense of our exclusive promo code partners.

The challenge for merchants is to learn to work with us, not against us, and manage promotional codes intelligently so everyone is a winner.

Iny Meany Miny Mo, to the AW Event We Shall Go!

I'd already accepted my invitation to the Affiliate Window event before I realised it clashes with the A4U get2gether and cruise to Amsterdam. I can't do both events and keep Deb happy on her birthday. It's a shame when affiliate events clash but I've been meaning to put some names to AW faces and it looks set to be a great evening. I'll certainly miss my usual round of conversations with the guys from the a4u forum but I hope they'll be some familiar faces at the AW event too.

Dirty Pretty Things R Us

As ASOS' last affiliate of the year before they took their ball home I've been outed by ASOS Pearly King Nick Robinson as one of the "grubby little people in grubby studios growing income at our expense" which seems a bit harsh given it was ASOS that invited me to their London HQ, took me out to lunch and encouraged me to make more sales.
This all happened back in the days before ASOS turned their affiliate program into a virtual torture chamber and by no co-incidence shortly after affiliate marketing superhero Jess Luthi escaped her corporate shackles and took the ASOS brain cell with her.

Happy Christmas & New Year

I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and thank everyone who has used CantBarsed.com to save money while shopping online this year, it really is very much appreciated.

There are still a few stores taking orders right through until Friday and some stores have sales starting this week. Check our Christmas Last Orders & SALEs paage for the latest news.

The lingerie stores are always the last to call time - they must know us men will leave it until the last minute, which reminds me...

Breast Cancer Awareness

My wife Deb recently had a breast cancer scare, which thankfully turned out to be harmless, but it made us realise how suddenly family life can change and how lucky we are so we're going to donate £1 to Breast Cancer Care for each Christmas greeting message posted (up to a maximum £500) and you even get the chance to win some instant snow. We've left last years 21 greetings online to get you started so why not send your friends and colleagues to our greetings page?...

Following on from my last update we all enjoyed our day trip to London. The trains ran on time and the Blue Man Group were amazing, almost as good as the Las Vegas performance but the tickets for the London show were MUCH cheaper.
My tip is to buy Blue Man Group tickets in the front 4 rows, they come with free ponchos but only cost half the price and I haven't seen anyone get seriously covered in goo - yet!

Wow, I really can't be arsed!

Even I'm shocked how few entries I've posted to this blog this year and it's almost Christmas again! We've skipped right past Halloween - or I would have had it not been for my daughter Natasha's top pumpkin carving, bought to you in the widescreen format it deserves - go Natasha Tarrentino!


Since my last post I've driven an Aston Martin DB9, Lamboghini Gallardo and Ferrari 550 on a track day, courtesy of top experience company Buyagift, which was pretty damn exciting BUT ever since making airfix models and going to air-shows I've always been into planes and over the summer I got to fly a stunt plane through most of the manourves I've watched at air-shows dozens of times. It was the best experience ever... ever.

Things have also been hotting up on the business front. We finally managed to buy the cantBEarsed.com domain from the guy who has owned it since we set up cantBarsed.com and it's great to have that in our portfolio - although it was a painful expense.
With all the hype surrounding the launch of the .eu domains we also bought cantbearsed.eu and cantbarsed.eu to avoid going through the same pain barrier again.
At the moment all the domains end up at cantbarsed.com but if you have any ideas what we could do with the cantbearsed.com domain we'd love to hear them - making email accounts available on the cantbearsed.com domain would be quite cool but they would have to be paid accounts because we can't find a good free webmail provider to work with (suggestions welcomed) and we still have several thousand cantbarsed.com webmail accounts live.


I'm taking the kids to see the Blue Man Group in London and having seen them in Las Vegas I know they're going to love it. Will try to remember to report back.

In the meantime I hope all your Christmas preparations are going well, remember to use our promotional codes pages to save a few quid while you're shopping online.

Las Vegas, Nevada

I'm just back from Las Vegas courtesy of AstroBingo online bingo. We flew with Virgin Atlantic who did a great job getting me across the pond and back, their staff are always friendly and helpful and they're definitely my favourite airline.

I was staying in the Stardust hotel which is due to be "imploded" before Christmas to make way for a new hotel/casino complexes. This seems to be happening all along the "strip" - Americans often complain they have no history but what do they expect when they knock down and rebuild all the time!

The buildings along the Las Vegas strip are really impressive and the shows second to none. I watched "Le Reve", which is a Cirque Du Soliel style show, at the Wynn complex in a purpose built 360 degree theatre and it was amazing. Equally impressive was the Blue Man Show at The Venetian which combines mime, paint, drums and plumbing perfectly, it's a must see show.

Most impressive of all though was one of mother nature's best efforts, Death Valley in California. It's one of the hottest places on earth with 57C recorded in 2001 - that's salt not water in my holiday picture and it was a bit warm.

Nocturnal Tendencies

My 16 year old son is still in bed and it's 2.30pm and it's really winding me up.
It's not just the waste of daylight hours but when I'm in my happy place updating my sites in the early hours there he is mooching around tinkering with things, using up my bandwidth downloading stuff and generally spoiling my most productive working hours.
Suggestions welcomed!

Come On England!

I've always thought of Michael Owen as an honest player but given he never looked fully fit there's a nagging he knew he wasn't ready to play in the World Cup but kept that to himself because he desperately wanted to play. I hope I'm wrong.

I thought England played well against Equador on Sunday and it will be a really interesting encounter against Portugal and Scolari. If we can improve enough to win that match without extra time or penalites we're in with a real chance of winning!

We've got a page up with all the World Cup promotional offers and codes we can find, let us know if you have any other codes.

Valentines Day - January Sales Begone!

I find it hard to make romantic gestures but I've been updating the Valentines Day Gift Ideas pages and looking through last years entries to our Valentines Day Messages Free Competition and it's clear there are plenty of romantics out there (apart from the lady who sent in an entry last year wishing her former partner would drop dead!). Anyway we've decided to run the competition again, we've got two prizes up for grabs this year:
The winning entry gets to choose a thong worth up to £30 sponsored by BeCheeky.com and a free prize draw winner gets Nookii (sounds good? It's a board game in case you're wondering, but it's pretty much gauranteed to get you some live action with your partner) sponsored by Pre