6 Comments

Messer Gives Transparency of Athena

Jun 14, 2005
by

Kudos to Stephen Messer for taking time during lunch at Affiliate Summit to give transparency to what went wrong with the launch of Project Athena. You may recall that many affiliates were unable to re-register their Linkshare accounts. The problem was, Linkshare gave no information aside from “try again in a few days”.

That response is odd since Athena is part of Linkshare’s move toward transparency.

I thank Stephen for giving such a clear description of what happened. However, I hope that Linkshare uses Stephen’s speech as a framework for future communication with affiliates. The networks often give little or no transparency into what they are doing and why. We are all extremely busy and spend far too much time staring at computer screens. It would be refreshing (and productive) if we could get clear, concise communication of what is really happening.

[Note: As I missed Todd Crawford at lunch today, I am leaving it to the rest of Revenews to write on his lunch discussion today.]

About David Lewis

David Lewis is the CEO and founder of 77Blue which operates online shopping websites. Prior to that, he worked in business development at GoTo / Overture. David was a product manager and accountant in past lives. In 2006, David won Commission Junction’s Horizon Award for Innovation and was a finalist for Linkshare’s Golden Link Award. You can find David on Twitter @thedavidlewis.

Twitter: thedavidlewis
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing
  • TrustNo1

    [Comment from anonymous author deleted.]

  • http://www.biddingfortravel.com Sheryl Mexic

    Could you please let us know what he said?

  • Trust

    [Anonymous commenter's latest comment included: "I guess people with nicks aren't allowed to asked questions in his blog." My problem is with anonymity. Comment whatever you like as long as you say who you are. You have used 3 bogus Hotmail addresses in a single day. Why are you afraid to have people know who you are? You say TrustNo1. Well, I don't trust anonymous commenters.]

  • Trust

    [Note: This post has been edited. I am leaving only the part about anonymity. If the poster would like to add to the discussion, he should identify himself.]

    “Why are you afraid to have people know who you are?”

    It’s called privacy. I don’t know you or your affiliations so why i should i give you my email addy?

    [Thank you for the great intro to a future post that I will write when I have time (Anonymity vs. Privacy). You have anonymity, not privacy. Anonymity is a plague on the Internet. If you would like privacy, send me an e-mail. Revenews is a public, not private site. You have used 3 different bogus e-mail addresses today (note that you can also use your URL instead of your e-mail address to avoid getting SPAMmed). You are right that there is nothing wrong with your question. Given that, why do you insist on remaining anonymous?]

    [If you do not know who I am from Revenews or any of the places that I have spoken (e.g. Affiliate Summit on Monday), then you need to get a clue. This is your last anonymous post here.]

  • http://NoCookie Beth Kirsch

    Trust, though I’ve never met you, I’ve read your posts and enjoyed your perspective and great humor :-) for a long time now. I know you have a ton to say, and I for one, would like to read what you have to say.

    I think David’s point is that he likes to write as a trusted voice and when he engages in a conversation, it should be with other trusted voices (which you are, I can tell by the way people treat you on ABW). Anonymous voices, by there nature are not trusted. Newspapers don’t publish anonymous letters to the editor for the same reason. That is all. I think that is a fair request. (and I’ll say what we all know, you can make up a name. ;-) — the solution is simple in this case )

    Trust, your question is fair. Messer said that Athena is about transparency so merchants know exactly who they are working with. This will help affiliates too, since I see people with top affiliate names, applying to affiliate programs all the time, when they just want to be anonymous.

  • http://www.anycoupons.com David Lewis

    Stephen addressed the issues not just of what Linkshare is trying to accomplish but what the problems were and why.

    I get calls from affiliate managers asking if we have applied to their programs. Since we are in just about every namebrand program, we don’t apply much anymore. Other people do. They try to pretend to be another site to get in and then send traffic from illicit sources. Athena is trying to cut back on that by verifying affiliate’s real identity.

    Many affiliates could see that there were problems with Athena verifying their identity. In many cases, it was LLCs that could not be verified. Stephen explained that it was due to the database they were licensing and the information it contained. Linkshare is not matching names to tax ids but to a database that contains information about liabilities (it may have more than that but this is what it sounded like from his description). If your company has no loans or leases, it is not in there and cannot be verified. While there have been bugs, this is a huge first step toward cleaning up affiliate marketing. Linkshare should be commended for this. Of course, more transparent communications would help too.