New year, new reviews and your team expect a feedback and more money. You definitely want to incentivize the good performers to go further in their career and work harder in 2011. The ones you are promoting inside your organization or in the affiliate team tells a lot about your core culture. Look at different aspects of their performance and relationships within the organization – teamwork, performance, focus on the goals and revenue generated. The way we promote our affiliate managers, or any employee in your organization, will send signals to the entire company.

It was another great Affiliate Summit for the Leadpile team. We are now returning from ASW and are excited to move forward on all the great things we discussed with our partners. Unfortunately, we did not have time to meet with all those publishers and advertisers that we wanted to, however if we were unable to connect with you, please reach out to us to get something going!
Leadpile’s message this Affiliate Summit was for the excitement we have for 2011 and all the exciting new things we are going to be getting into. Leadpile is looking at getting into some new verticals such as insurance, senior care, and credit reports (which is already live). We are currently working in bankruptcy, auto finance and payday loan lead types, and we are looking for lots more traffic on all of these verticals. The sky is the limit in 2011, and if we are not already working with you, we definitely want to!

Starting February 10th, people will be able to purchase the iPhone from Verizon services instead of just AT&T. President of Verizon Wireless, Lowell McAdam, recently announced their plans to carry the highly-demanded phone. The prices will remain the same as AT&T’s price with a two-year contract. Although many people are already exciting about having the option to purchase an iPhone with Verizon, it will not offer the 4G network that AT&T does. The Verizon version of the iPhone is still running on the older 3G version, but Verizon claims the demand from consumers to immediately have access to the phones was so high that people should still be satisfied. Despite not having the 4G network, the Verizon iPhone does have the ability to connect to other devices. Customers who are already using AT&T will have to pay $325 to break their contract.

All Mac lovers now have an App store very similar to the App store available on the iPhone! Today, the App store went live with more than 1,000 Apps or programs. As with the set up of the iPhone App store, the App developers set the price for the apps and receive 70 percent of the revenue for sales with Apple taking the remaining 30 percent – purchases are made through the consumers iTunes accounts. The LeadPile team loves Mac products and can’t wait to see what fun Apps are waiting for us!

One of the biggest brands out there has to be Starbucks. Well they must think so themselves because they are now going to be giving their Starbucks logo a pretty big facelift by removing their name off the logo. The company is about to celebrate it’s 40 year anniversary, and it seems that they find the best way to do that is to make a logo change.
According to the Associated Press, “Starbucks leaders say the changes to the logo are in some ways a metaphor for the company dropping the boundaries of its own business and growing into new areas. Marketing experts agree.” Starbucks is looking at other big name companies who have successfully dropped their name from their logos. Hopefully this new facelift will be as successful for Starbucks as it was for companies like Nike and Apple. You can truly say you have made it as a company if you do not even need to show your name on your company logo or any other advertising. We hope it works Starbucks!

About one in four digital TVs are internet ready and Netflix has decided to continue their success with this market. Already having 16 million subscribers, Netflix will now have its own button on remote controls for  Blu-Ray players, TVs and other electronic appliances that are connected to the internet. Brands like Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and more will be on board with the new button. The button displaying the Netflix logo will give people instant access to stream movies as well as several popular TV shows from ABC that were added last month.

Start 2011 off right! Here are some financial tips to get your finances back in order.

1. Get your credit score and report: Knowing your credit score can help you check for inaccuracies on your credit report. A higher credit score will get you lower rates on loans and credit cards.
2. Get Organized: Knowing where all your bills and bank statements are can help you keep track of your spending and saving.
3. Track spending: Track all spending for 30 days. Evaluate and see where you can cut spend, such as eating out less.
4. Do an insurance checkup: Meet with your current provider and see if the converge you have is really what you need. Find our about loyalty discounts and good driving perks.

These simple tips can help you get your finances back in order!

Leadpile offers many great financial offers such as Credit Score and Bankruptcy. Contact us today for info on our affiliate programs and offers!

Facebook has again made adjustments to things, hopefully this time making life easier to see what you care about rather than smaller or more confusing! The news feed is now easier to sort through with filters that allow you to choose only status updates, photos, links, pages and games – depending on what you want to see ( thank goodness I don’t have to see updates on Farmville anymore!) You may also choose to sort by specific friends only. The only downfall – these settings are not permanent and they must be reset each time you login.

You may read about details for each setting and new filters here: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/12/21/design-news-feed-filters/

Apple TVs have continued to make strong sales since their launch 3 months ago. The new product sold over 250,000 units in the first six weeks of being sold. Apple TV offers people a way to instantly stream videos from their iPads or iPhones, it gives people the ability to rent movies for only .99, and it is priced at only $99. Highly due to the convenience and price, Apple TVs are expected to reach $1 million later this week, before the Christmas holiday even happens.

Exciting news for online advertisers! Online advertising spend comes in at #1 in 2010, totaling $25.8 billion, closely followed by print publications at $25.7 billion. Many advertisers have shifted offline spend to new online campaigns, some even dabbling in social networking media buys. Advertisers are shifting offline dollars to campaigns that have more measureable results such as banner ads or email campaigns. Even more stunning forecasts are that online display spend will overtake search ads by 2014.

Do you own a Smartphone? Email, text, IM clients/ colleuges from anywhere at anytime? Check out these 8 rules to Smartphone etiquette and see how badly you are misbehaving.

1. Be considerate: If you are contacting a client after hours ask if they are free to talk. Just because your friends may immediately respond to IM’s or texts doesn’t mean your client wants to. Have the same expectations as you would from an email correspondence.

2. Remember the concept of “business hours”: Follow the weekday 7am-9pm rule. Not everyone wants to speak to you late night or on weekends, you must respect that.

3. Only contact the people you talk to regularly: Texting a colleague that sits next to you is totally acceptable. Texting a client you rarely speak to is not.

4. Put your phone away during face-to-face meetings: There is nothing more annoying then having a conversation with someone who is constantly checking their cell phone. If you can’t focus during a 30min meeting what kind of impression does that give your potential clients.

5. Texts and IMs should be reserved for simple, non-critical topics: If your texts is longer then a sentence or requires deeper communication send an email or schedule a call.

6. Be wary of abbreviations and emoticons: Be aware of whom you are texting, if you would not include LOL or a smiley face in an email to them why would you via text message.

7. Never send sensitive information: Hackers can easily obtain this information and cause severe damage.

8. Stay professional: Be sure to still use spell check and write professionally via text as you would by email. Remember you are still conducting business.

While people ranging from ages 18-30 have been spending more time on the Internet as opposed to the television, others ranging from age 32-44 are starting to do the same. A recent Forrester study revealed that people are spending more time on the Internet than they are watching TV, and it is up 121% since 2005. The average time people in the U.S. use the television is 13 hours, which is now the same as internet use. The rise of Broadband has contributed to these technological advances. E-Commerce remains the main interest on the Internet, followed by social networking which was accelerated because of the utilization of Facebook and other social networks.