If times weren’t hard enough American FTC have decided that in some cases it’s wrong to review products and to implement a fine of upto $11,000.

Until now online promotions via blogs were not covered by any guidelines and this worried some consumer groups. The issue being that the links between the products being reviewed or talked about, the publishers (companies & individuals) and the companies selling the products was not transparent. i.e. if I reviewed ‘product A’, I didn’t need to tell anyone that I was an affiliate for that product and I would get a commission if my reader bought that product through my link.

I understand that it was a 30 year old law that has been updated, in order to get in touch with the times and I can appreciate a need to protect web users but all so often laws are implemented by people who have read reports but have not a clue how the web works or how to implement the said changes.

These changes come into effect on December 1, 2009 and you can read for yourself the FTC Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials:

What struck me was that everyone in the Internet Marketing business is going to be affected when I read this.

“Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.”

The new policy will also apply to Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and other forms of new media advertising.

Producing screen capture videos used to be quite expensive with Camtasia being the software of choice for many PC users. At over $300 it was not affordable for some. Well that’s all changed.

Watching video online has become as normal as watching TV and for some , watching video online is even more popular than TV. Let’s face it, your choice is vast. This shift in perceptions is one of the reasons a few software developers started to come up with free and low cost screen capture alternatives.

Camstudio is probably one of the better known free offerings in this software sector but as you would expect it has a few weaknesses compared to paid for products. Well Dave Guindon has now improved some of them making it a good place for marketers to start producing training or marketing videos of their own.

From the marketers perspective two of the main flaws of CamStudio were Read the rest of this entry »

This is a warning for anyone who has ever bought resale and usage rights for templates, artwork or image packs. Ignore it at you peril.

I’m pretty angry right now and I can’t name names because of legal issues (mores the pity) but the bottom line is that there are some ‘marketers’ out there who are acting illegally and you and me are the ones that will end up paying.

Here’s why.

These ‘marketers’ provide you, me (and whoever else) with packages to use or resell as our own. These packages contain images that are in fact licensed by another company and these ‘marketers’ don’t actually have the right to even use them. Let alone sell them or give them away. And don’t get me started on what will happen if you actually sell a licensed image. Even by mistake.

How does it cost you money? Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post about Tim Brocklehurst’s Freedom Class Videos I’ve been told that I should really have explained just how good the quality was. And these PM’s weren’t just talking about the quality of Tim’s training.

The videos that Tim had had produced and encoded for the web are exceptionally high quality. I can only imagine how much bandwidth is required for the viewable size and the speed at which they are streaming even with good video optimisation.

Even if you are not interested in how to build viral profits into your business, you will be very interested in the video quality. I can only urge you to see for yourself what can be achieved with online video.

As with all launches, Tim has run into a couple of teething problems which were overcome. Interestingly it seems that lack of bandwidth wasn’t the biggest issue. That happened when Read the rest of this entry »

As you’ve no doubt seen yourself, video is everywhere on the internet and it’s helping the people that are using it properly to make bigger profits online. Making money and using video are what this post is about.

For the last year I’ve been researching some of the new video technologies to discover what’s needed to make and distribute great looking videos to help sell just about anything.

I’ve found free video editors, great places to upload too and places to stream your content from. I’ve discovered short cuts, monetization channels and more than a few clever (but simple) ways to make your video efforts … profitable.

Put simply, there is a video that you can have, that will improve your profits. It doesn’t matter what business you are in. Motion makes money.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be sharing some of what I’ve learnt so keep your eyes peeled. If you haven’t already done it, subscribing to my feed will be the easiest way not to miss out so why not subscribe now.

So How do I Make Money Online? Read the rest of this entry »