Having a blog means that I get to sound off on whatever topics catch my fancy. It also means that readers get to comment on those posts and call me an idiot or sing my praises (not surprisingly, I prefer the latter).

Recently, however, the Revenue blog has been inundated with spam comments. Last week I spent about five hours deleting thousands of spam comments and still didn’t make a dent in the pile. Every time I thought I’d made some headway, I’d scroll down and there were still hundreds and hundreds more. There wasn’t a word of praise or any kudos in the bunch – just lots screens filled with links and more links to drugs, cures for performance issues and sexy babes that really wanted to chat with me.

We are currently using an open source (read free) blogging software product and the documentation and customer support for those types of products is not exactly comprehensive. I gave it my best shot to stop the spam comment flood, but my technical wizardry is often surpassed by most tweens. So, I turned over the task to our IT folks. They couldn’t figure out how to block the spam comments or perform a mass delete of them, so the comment feature has been completely turned off.

Anyway, I realize that some of you might have something to say about our most recent posts regarding the Affiliate Summit. If so, you can email me and I’ll post your message (provided it’s not profane). I’ve already heard from Peter Figueredo, CEO of NETexponent: Here’s his unedited message.

Lisa,

I am sorry that you did not enjoy the Future of Affiliate Panel at the affiliate summit. While I agree the panel could have been better I think your review was overly harsh. The panel was geared to discuss the Future of Affiliate Marketing, not the past or present. As I mentioned during the session, all of the panelists made a conscious choice not to let this panel take on a “Jerry Springer” type form. For those two reasons the discussion about CJ and Azoogle was not appropriate. The goal was to prepare merchants for the future of affiliate marketing and to get them thinking about pressing issues. I feel that we did accomplish this goal. If you recall there was a segment where Todd and Joe each gave their thoughts on the role of ad networks. This allowed them to discuss their opinions about what happened without getting into specifics about their recent troubles and pulling the panel into a discussion unrelated to the future of affiliate marketing.

You should know that the feedback I have received from several conference attendees has been very positive. Perhaps the session could have been more entertaining and for that I apologize and take full responsibility. I appreciate your feedback and your opinions even if I do not completely agree. You can sometimes learn more from your harshest critics than your biggest fans. I also welcome the feedback of affiliate summit attendees, as it will be valuable in getting a balanced look at this panel and help to improve future panels. I will encourage all who attended to complete the feedback survey that Shawn will be distributing soon.

Thanks,
Peter

Peter and I may disagree, but that’s what makes this industry interesting. If you’ve got any comments about recently blog entries or just want to let me know about your experience at the Affiliate Summit shoot me an email at lisap@revenuetoday.com.

© 2006 RevenueToday.com and Montgomery Media International. All rights reserved.