Find three commercial sites that operate in three different markets and offer affiliate programs
- Find three commercial sites that operate in three different markets and offer affiliate programs.
- Write up a summary: What do they sell? What do their affiliate programs promise, and in return for what:
- Classify each program as pay per sale, pay per click, pay per lead, or another type, and explain why you classified the way you did.
The Home Business Journal site provides services by providing advertisement to numerous companies. To mention, the Spyblaster, Diamond-USA, and Aternative Cancer Treatment Tian Xian are some of them. The Spyblaster software that eliminates malicious spyware and adware from computer, offers the site fifty percent commission per order made by the customer. It gives its payment every two weeks by check for collected affiliates. Spy blaster is currently located at 501 5th Avenue, New York, 10017, United States. Diamond-USA is another affiliate of Home Business Journal that engages in ring retailer and stock selling. Per order, it gives out seven percent commission. Tian Xian on the other hand, provides five percent commission per order.
The ‘MyTemplateStorage.Com site has affiliates professionalizing in design customization for web templates. Among the affiliates are Swifttemplates, Koala Template, and iLayouts. Swifttemplates gives off twenty percent commission on all sales generated; customers who visited the site but bought some other time may be linked to your own account. Koala Template provides twenty-five percent commissions on all generated income, with another twenty-five percent for every recruited sub-affiliate. iLayouts offers twenty percent commission per sale, which can be withdrew after a generated commission amounting to $100. Most of the affiliates can sign up for free.
Lastly, the Refer-it is servicing to companies such as Lamps Plus gives from eight to twenty percent commission depending on the amount of sale; 123eRugs.com has five percent per sale, and GreatBackyard.com gives ten percent commission for every item sold.
Choose a topic in which you are interested. Select three different search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and use them to look for information about the subject. Rank the performance of each site. A long list of sites that provide too broad a range of information is bad; a shorter list of sites that provide more narrowly defined information is good. Explain your ranking.
Google, Yahoo, and MSN as content providers are almost complete with information needed by their browsers. However, each can be categorized according to the services they provide or how the internet users perceive the usefulness of the sites. Given a subject about the origin of the language, it is obvious that one is better to use than the other. Google has 10,400,000 sources; Yahoo has 86,000,000; and, MSN has 24,500,000 sources. Obviously, Yahoo site provides the most information about the topic, while MSN comes next with about 35% data. However, Google has other two sites aside from what is usually used by users: the Google.Scholar.com and Book.google.com. Google.Scholar.com alone has a collection of 2,110,000 scholarly articles about the topic ‘origin of the language.’ Its Book.google.com has 16,000 e-books available online. Overall, Google.com has 12,526,000 sources, which is still less compared to other two search engines.
Comparably, the three sites have information on news, pictures, video clips, classified ads, job posting, online dating services, music, and live chatting. However, Yahoo site is more interactive in terms of live chatting than the other two. Yahoo has also created additional sites particularly blogs session for question and answer and job posting for people who are looking for a job. Remarkably, Yahoo is rated one in terms of services its provides, however Google could also be considered rank one in terms of providing scholarly information for students and professionals. MSN on the other hand has a live chat for business enthusiasts to assists the affiliates in their business transactions.
You are an exclusive for Bidway.com, an auction site that has successfully competed with eBay and Yahoo! In the United States. Management decided to open use of the site to residents of all countries. You were given an important assignment: collect intelligence that will ensure the company’s move from a national business to an international business is smooth. If you envision that there might be too many difficulties in certain countries, management will accept your recommendation to block bidding by residents of those countries, but you must be careful not to miss potentially profitable markets. Prepare an outline of all the aspects about which you will collect intelligence for each country, and explain why this item is important.
In the collection of intelligences for each country as a requirement prior to the plan of moving the business to international level, there is a set of guidelines to undertake in order to gather enough information systematically. It starts with evaluating the purpose or objective of the mission. This includes the data to be collected and the priority. Collection as an element of intelligence according to Shulsky “refers to the gathering of raw data, through espionage; technical means …; exploitation of “open sources”…; or in any other manner”. Collection is done by means of espionage usually by top officials from a certain countries (human intelligence) and technical equipments such as satellite, aerial photographs, or any other means.
The important information to gather for this special mission is technology available in a certain country, regulations and tariffs, payment mechanisms, the language of the country, cultural differences, political challenges, and legal barriers. The availability of computers and internet connection is important in order to gather more clients for the success of the business. Regulations and tariffs must also be considered since there are companies that are not ready to explore international businesses. Payment mechanisms applied when using internet is through credit card, thus finding the availability of the transaction could help in determining the possibility of executing the plan. The native language of the country as well as the knowledge of English language must be verified since the language used is commonly English. Cultural differences have to be weighed because that may lead to conflict rather than smooth relationship, as other countries may see sexy woman very offensive and awkward. Political and legal concerns may become barrier in some countries that are not open for international trade.
References
- Home Business Journal. http://www.homebizjour.com/dir/
- Management Information System 5e, Oz (2006) Course TEchnology
- MyTemplateStorage.Com. http://www.mytemplatestorage.com/
- Refer-it. http://www.refer-it.com/section.asp?cid=1019
- Shulsky, A. & Schmitt, G.J. (2002). Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence. Brassey’s.
