I’m off to attend the LinkShare Summit all day today. I expect the day to be jam-packed with networking and sessions. I’m really looking forward to hearing the keynote speaker Ian Ayres, a professor at the Yale School of Management and author of the book Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart. I always get something valuable from speakers with an economic, academic or business background.

I had a family emergency and had to leave work unexpectedly today, so I didn’t make it on the GeekCast podcast this week. It was all the boys. However, if I was able to participate in episode 3 of GeekCast here’s what I would have said. Listen to the show and insert my comments wherever you choose.

I have a full plate this week, so let’s get right to it.

The LinkShare Summit is being held later this week in San Francisco. I love when the performance marketing folks converge on my home turf. Too bad, the weather is not cooperating. Oh well, I still expect the event to be packed with good information, have the chance to strengthen old relationships, make some great new connections and have lots of dinner and drinks with a great group of folks.

I have a full plate this week, so let’s get right to it.

The LinkShare Summit is being held later this week in San Francisco. I love when the performance marketing folks converge on my home turf. Too bad, the weather is not cooperating. Oh well, I still expect the event to be packed with good information, have the chance to strengthen old relationships, make some great new connections and have lots of dinner and drinks with a great group of folks.

One of the most challenging issues facing online merchants is recruiting new affiliates. In fact, we have a feature article on that very topic in the latest issue (January/February) of Revenue. And while Senior Writer Alexandra Wharton talks to a wide array of publishers and merchants about the complex and often frustrating issue of affiliate recruiting, the show promoters of Affiliate Summit have come up with a unique approach to give merchants unprecedented direct access to top earning affiliates.

If you’re not checking out GeekCast.fm you are totally missing out on some very interesting audio content. The site just launched this week as a podcast aggregator. It is the brainchild of Shawn Collins, Jim Kukral and Sam Harrelson – three of the online marketing world’s heavy hitters. I love the concept and the t-shirts.

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast my fabulous co-host Shawn Collins and I talked about the new MacBook Air at announced MacWorld, a hosted version of OpenAds, why relying solely on Google AdSense is not a good idea, Shawn’s continued fatblogging efforts, the Great Affiliate Road Rally charity event at Affiliate Summit West, and Pepperjam’s launch of new affiliate network. Listen to the show.

Affiliates are very charitable bunch. Over the past several years online marketers have joined together to support a variety of very worthwhile causes .

At every Affiliate Summit a charity is selected and co-founders Shawn Collins and Missy Ward come up with a fun way to raise money. The upcoming Affiliate Summit West to be held in Las Vegas at the end of February is no exception.

I know not too many online marketers made the trek this week to Las Vegas for the massive Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but most are still interested in the new technologies and gadgets being shown at the tradeshow.

Many of these new technologies will eventually make there way into online marketers personal and professional lives. Plus, many online marketers may actually end up working with the merchants to promote these new products.

I’m thrilled to announce that Revenue has been nominated for an Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award in the category of Affiliate Marketing Advocate Award. The other nominees in this category are ABestWeb.com founder Haiko de Poel, Jr. and affiliate/blogger Scott Jangro.