eBay's Troubled Affiliate Program

Well, I hate the thought of provoking an ebay revolt - for my modest amount of traffic, I am getting a few sales (nothing like what I did with CJ.)

However, those who are actively promoting the ebay affiliate program by ppc, etc, who have contributed to ebay success in the past and who know their stats like the back of their hand - they are the core of eBay traffic now. eBay is saving itself an absolute fortune in google advertising. Just think - how many times when you made a search for a product a year ago did eBay advertising pop up - quite often in the top three google results. How often does that happen now?

.... I hope that eBay is paying attention to the problems that the affiliates are reporting. If it was just one rogue complaint and everyone else was happy, I could believe there isn't a problem. However, on the net, people make a living promoting products. If eBay affiliate program stops paying out well, then affiliates are going to replace this lost income by promoting something else. .....

M

ps... I also belong to other affiliate programs where the merchants (eg eBay) get absolutely slated if they put third-party advertising on their site. The argument is that the merchants are effectively stealing from their affiliates by earning money on traffic sent to them and not passing on any reward.

Gallows Humor

The apocryphal story of the condemned man being led into the execution chamber. The condemned prisoner points to the electric chair and asks the prison warden:

"Are you quite sure this thing's safe?"

From William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1:

Mercutio is stabbed in a swordfight by Tybalt, Juliet's cousin:

Romeo: "Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much."
Mercutio: "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man."

As Sir Thomas More climbed a rickety scaffold where he would be executed, he said to his executioner:

I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up; and for my coming down, let me shift for myself.

Immediately after the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, but before the wars that secured independence, Benjamin Franklin is known to have said the following in danger of being accused of high treason to his fellow, often fractious delegates:

We must all hang together or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

After her career had declined and she had started aging, actress Tallulah Bankhead would answer the question "Are you Tallulah Bankhead?" with

No, darling, I'm what's left of her.

Author and playwright Oscar Wilde was destitute and living in a cheap boarding house when he found himself on his deathbed. There are variations on what the sentence exactly was, but his reputed last words were

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death; one or the other of us has got to go.

Perhaps one of the best examples of gallows humour in recent times is the conclusion to Monty Python's Life of Brian, in which a group of crucified criminals joyfully sings "Always look on the bright side of life".

Spotted recently in Largs

Horse pucky!

I love signposts!