Amazon drops price on their Kindle 2 to $299

staunch wrote: post #7

leviathant wrote: post #6

Yarr, smooth use of an affiliate tag there, kirse.

Not cool in my book. tag=f033-20 -- It seems like the affiliate ID is also intentionally made to look like it isn't one. LAME.

Does that actually make any money though? I often wonder what the purpose of chasing a few bucks here and there is if it doesn't make much and isn't scalable.

Maybe it does make some money.

Re: Amazon drops price on their Kindle 2 to $299

#9

Post by leviathant » Thu, Jul 09, 2009, 6:33 PM UTC

mediaman wrote: post #8

staunch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not cool in my book. tag=f033-20 -- It seems like the affiliate ID is also intentionally made to look like it isn't one. LAME.

Does that actually make any money though? I often wonder what the purpose of chasing a few bucks here and there is if it doesn't make much and isn't scalable. Maybe it does make some money.

Back when people bought CDs, I'd make several grand in the course of a week each time Nine Inch Nails album preorders went live on Amazon & I posted links on my (well-known among fans) website. Heck, I made $500 off MP3 downloads of the Ghosts album when that came out. This allowed me to get better hosting, and to send money to other people who've helped me with the site, as well as fund contests for readers.

The Amazon cookie persists for 24 hours, so if you click on that Kindle link today, but then tonight, go home and buy a defibrillator or 10 camcorders, the guy who slipped his affiliate link onto HN gets the commission on that.

I use those as examples because they're things people have bought after clicking through NIN mp3/pre-order links.

It's also worth noting that Amazon does a flat 10% rate on Kindle sales for affiliates... all other consumer electronics are a flat 4%.

Amazon Associates is like free money if you run a blog, and so long as you're up front about that, I think that's fine. Lots of people are going to Amazon anyway. Posting your own affiliate link to a site like this and not disclosing affiliation is a little skeezy.

Re: Amazon drops price on their Kindle 2 to $299

#10

Post by jraines » Thu, Jul 09, 2009, 7:03 PM UTC

leviathant wrote: post #6

Yarr, smooth use of an affiliate tag there, kirse.

I guess you're not being critical, but I'm going to defend kirse anyway.

I think it's disingenuous to use affiliate links if someone said, "Hey, where can I buy a Kindle?" or "what's the best ebook reader I can buy online?". But in this case, if you saw this link and said "Oh crap! This is news to me and I've been waiting for a price drop" . . . then by all means kirse deserves an affiliate payout.