Affiliate Summit West 2007 was very interesting. I had only been to SES and Pubcons before and never to an Affiliate Summit. The volume of people was pretty amazing. I have never seen so many people at any conference. The Expo hall was just a sea of people. All the exhibitors that I talked to were thrilled with the amount of people present. Normally for SES or Pubcon I may have a quick lunch meeting with a company here or there but at Affiliate Summit I had business meetings pretty much booked solid throughout the 2 days I was there. I did not attend the sessions but a lot of people told me there was some serious self promotion going on. That usually turns me off. I know they were doing feedback forms on the conferences so I hope people do fill them out and let the organizers know if they felt that way. The panel I spoke at was pretty disorganized. The moderator never showed up and it was not until the session was half over that someone actually brought a microphone for the audience (it was only a q&a session).
Lastly probably one of the most interesting things was the Intermark Company Copeac T-Shirts that were handed out at a table there at the expo hall. Now I have been called controversial but I think these guys are taking it to a whole new level. I know it was in partnership with Wickedfire forums on this but I think its pretty ballsy to call out all the other major affiliate forums at the biggest affiliate conference with your T-Shirt 
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
ya dude I was wondering the same thing when I saw them passing those shirts out. I think there shirts would be the talk of the show if not for MaxBounty getting sued by MySpace.
umm dont you mean cpaempire
I followed the merchant track, except for the panel that you were on. The sessions on the merchant track very valuable. The first session with representatives from FTC, MSN, and two large IP law firms was worth the admission of the conference alone if you are a merchant. They discussed Terms of Service contracts, affiliates as independent contractor employees, CAN-SPAM (of course) and some things the FTC is pushing for in the affiliate and online marketing space.
As for your session Shoe, you got screwed. But I still think you did a great job picking up the ball and running with it. All three of you gave some great advice.
And the shirts…well Jon is a medium and I’m guessing he wanted a lot of extras. That way he could take them home and wear one a day for the next YEAR without having to wash them and get faded. They ordered hundreds of mediums but and only two dozen XL.
Hahaha… hat down in front of WickedFire and Copaecs for having balls to create such a great T-Shirt.
> I did not attend the sessions but a lot of people told me there was some serious self promotion going on.
I’d love to know who was doing this – I don’t recall seeing any mention of it in all the feedback forms.
shirtbait!
Glad I didn’t go if it was filled with Self-Promotion. I hate that.
Yep, they probably need to crack down on the self-promotion and take more of a hard line like SES. I walked out on the keynote because of that. Hate to say it but I walked out of the Q&A because of the no-mic, no mod issues and Jon F’s a bit of an acquired taste. But I will say that ShoeMoney stepped up in a big way when the audience was getting surly early on.
You should be able to spell Copeac correctly considering the picture of the shirt has it right there shoe.
Sorry buddy had to say it.
I agree, Jon is a pretty ballsy guy pretty outspoken so the shirt didn’t really surprise me
. Copeac being involved however did.
Speaking of self promotion as a bad thing? Weren’t you and Jon both wearing your companies shirts
.
I think over all the conference was great and the Q&A session was handled very well except for the mike fiasco but jeremy was definitely the guy with all the answers!
my bad fixed
I totally wore my shirt. Its my suit. Its my blog which you are reading…
I did not mention any of my companies at any time during the presentation in fact the only companies I mentioned were people who attended. Pretty much the same thing I do with my blog.
Jon mentioned his forum many times although he was directly asked about it a few.
(the video will be out soon enough and we will see how good my memory is)
I remember when they had the tshirt contest on Wicked Fire and that design came up…I never laughed so hard.
I swear i break out in zits everytime I go to WickedFire. There are so many ‘You are so Gay’ jabs. I swear the average age there is about 14.
The shirt is hilarious sure. But they Gay stabs are just juvenial. Sure we can make the jokes amongst our friends and even drop an N bomb or two. But you don’t print it on a T-Shirt… Unless of course you are drawing more 14 year olds to the N64 retro party in your moms basement.
This shirt is so cool hehehe
So, can we expect a similar Shoemoney shirt at the next SES show?
always amazes me how I get so much credit for linkbait =P Seriously its easier then SEO.
Wow gotta love the scrapers that then ping out.
I didn’t see any self promotion in the sessions at all…and I was looking for it. But it could have been in other tracks. In the sessions I attended, I’d say it was even less obvious than some SES or Pubcon. When I saw some of them had only one speaker, I thought it would be very slanted but it wasn’t. Everyone, such as Monte (Moniker) were class acts. The most self promo I heard was Jon but it fits his Wicked Fire style.
I’ve been to a lot of conferences and I can honestly say this was the WORST one I have attended. I’m not sure how they justify asking $1500 for it. The speakers were disappointing.. I sat there listening and felt I learned nothing and yes.. there was a LOT of self promotion going on.
Your Q&A was really good. All of ya guys did good. Jeremy, Jon and even andrew did well but I could tell he was a lil nervous.
WebmasterWorld is essentially google! If anybody don’t understand this their brains are not working…..
What is so great oaboout this TShirt? Can Anybody give a link to its photo?
What is so great about this TShirt? Can Anybody give a link to its photo?
Not only did you double post. You’re also blind!
http://www.shoemoney.com/images/copeactshirts.jpg
Wow! That Copeac shirt is unbelievable!(Maybe I’m just easiliy moved) I can respect the courage it took to pull the stunt off. But at the same time, I respect a few of the forums he’s dissin’. There is this little thing called the law of reciprocation. Obviously this stunt is producing. But at what cost?
Come on Shoe, just because you didn’t say “Shoemoney Media Group” in a sentence doesn’t mean there was self promotion on your part. You’re king of self promotion, and you were the first to field most of the questions.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I admire you for it in fact, and wanted to pick up one of your shirts also, but don’t call the kettle black. It’s unseemly.
BTW, great job handling that Q&A session considering how AS botched it.