The internet as it should be used and bringing back my teen nostalgia.

I have a confession to make – as any normal teen growing up in the mid-90s I absolutely loved and adored a special little short-lived American show called My So Called Life. Ah yes, Claire Danes and her bright red hair (which I adored) and her oh-woe-is-me-for-I-am-a-teenage-girl-in-the-mid-90s-and-wear-my- sleeves-over-my-hands-because-I-want-to-GAWD! attitude which I, at the time, could like TOTALLY relate to (mock me if you will but I adored it). Including the whole crush on Jared Leto (before he became the renowned douche that he is now). I loved that show and as recently as a month ago was discussing its merits with Mike (once again, he never ceases to surprise me – first big surprise was a conversation we had about my mock Marc Jacobs ‘Mouse’ shoes, a story for another time methinks).

Now the producers of that fabulous show and my early to mid-teens nostalgia are back – all grown up and near enough my age group. Apparently, the producers of the show Quarterlife premiered as a pilot in 2005 on ABC in the US. However, it seemed ABC weren’t too keen on the show or direction of the show and decided to scrap it (insert shock horror here). The producers (Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick), frustrated with the way networks are interfering with the creativity and integrity of shows (yadda yadda) have decided to take their dissed show onto the interweb! Yep boys and girls, Quarterlife is premiering and showing purely online! Screw you boring ass US networks, we’ll get to see what we want when we want it and all online!

Herskovitz and Zwick have struck a deal with Myspace – which will stream the show weekly starting from November 11th. Myspace will have the rights to each episode for 24 hours after it first airs and then it goes onto the show’s website. Now I know what you’re thinking – ‘It’s been done before. Myspace is sooo over (still on my teen kick – sorry. Still mooning over the good old days – braces mysteriously vanished from my mid-day daydream)’ and ‘can anyone say Arctic Monkeys’ blah blah blah. All very good points, however it’s a tv show and not yet another band with a Myspace page.

I especially love the stick it to the networks attitude of Herskovtiz and Zwick – kind of like ‘well you don’t want to air our show we’ll take it to the masses anyway – via the internet!’. I love the fact that they’ve found another way, it’s kind of like old skool internet land isn’t it? Going back and doing what the internet was meant to do in the beginning – getting your stuff out there with minimal interference from networks, suits, ratings, etc. The fact that they’ve teemed the show with a whole social networking scene may be of interest to a lot of you dear readers out there. It’s just refreshing to see someone taking the chance, and I’m sure they’ll be plenty of people who follow once the initial risk is taken by Quarterlife. There is always lots of chat about using this medium for tv etc, and to an extent there has been a lot of use of it. However, this is the only show I know of (correct me if I’m wrong) which will have the look and feel of a real, big budget network show but be purely based online.

And best of all, after seeing the trailer I really can’t wait to see it. It looks like the evolved My So Called Life – it’s grown up, gone to university, and is figuring out what to do next minus all the flannel. I really hope it doesn’t let me down, as I’m rather dorkily looking forward to it (man I use a lot of parentheses).

Can merchants restrict SEO affiliates from ranking for their brand terms?

I made a rather flippant remark earlier on in the year regarding increasingly difficult (at times outrageous) demands from merchants when it comes to affiliate prorams and their brands. Said flippant remark along the lines of: ‘Before you know it, they’ll be forbidding affiliates from outranking them on their brand terms in Google! Scoff scoff!’. Hmmm, and yep, the rumblings are starting all over the place. It doesn’t seem to be a big issue just now but I can see the dust of the forthcoming raging hordes gathering over the hilltops.

First of all, let me say that I am 100% behind a merchant protecting their brand name – they’ve spent a lot of time and money on this brand and I totally get it, and to be honest I don’t see why many exceptions should be made. Now I love affiliate marketing, and I get that a lot of affiliates get jerked around by merchants but on somethings I really disagree – it’s just like: ok so the rules have changed now, how can we make this work? Let’s all move on here. But if the merchants are in the wrong, then I will try my upmost to make sure affiliates get a fair shake – although I may not always be successful (sometimes, as with everything in life, you get more of an outcome if you just repeatedly bang your head against a brick wall).

Anyway, I digress – the point is, despite all the mixed feelings outlined above I’ve always thought it was a bit of a stretch to ask affiliates NOT to outrank the merchants in search engines (usually Google). I’m sorry, but come on! The merchant will likely have the brand in their url as well as all the usual bits and pieces that make websites all SE friendly. If an affiliate site actually manages to outrank you for your OWN brand term than maybe you should be giving your SEO guys a good kicking rather than your affiliates. It should be fairly easy for a merchant to rank on brand terms, and in the case that an affiliate outranks you then maybe you should look into exactly what your friendly, neighborhood hired SEO guys have been charging you for.

As anyone who’s tried to get a site up a search engine’s rankings will tell you, it’s difficult to predict where your site will turn up and control what it does while it’s up there. Sites, especially affiliate sites, are totally subject to the SE gods and their will. It’s not like a PPC ad where you can lower your bid etc, and semi-control what and where your ad shows up. I think the fact that more and more SEO affiliates are showing up, merchants and networks (and us lowly agency folk) will have to think up terms and conditions to incorporate the whole SEO camp to help protect their brand but totally forbidding affiliates to outrank them in search engine’s natural listings is bordering on the hysterical. I get a bit frustrated sometimes and want to just say: ‘Ok, let’s all take a really deep breath, relax. Ok now let’s use some logic here this time’. Merchants need to really start viewing affiliates as marketing partners, and affiliates need to hold up their end of the bargain by accepting what it means to be a partner and act like one.

And on that note, I’m off to listen to some Pony Up and my new favorite song The truth about cats and dogs (is that they die). Meh, I like it!

My musical twist today

I’ve been on a bizarre musical journey today – usually Radio 6 is quite good, but the guy who was filling in for Gideon Coe’s show this morning was pish. So instead it was on to Last.fm and youtube for a bizarre mixture of mid-90s and 80s pop, etc. Some of the highlights – The Primitives- Crash, Run DMC – Run’s House (planning on blasting it and moonwalking out of the eqtr offices to it – hehee), a LOT of Elastica, and of course a spattering of others of that ilk (thanks Last.fm) such as Kenickie and such. All in all, for a rubbish Monday, at least musically I’ve been kept alive and amused. So if you like the sound of all that, check out the handy dandy links and hope it makes your day a bit better!