After waiting for 10 or 15,000 emails to arrive flogging Traffic Secrets 2.0,  Voice of Reason Rick Butts takes on the super-affiliate army pitching legend John Reese’s latest bag of tricks.

Rick seems to think that affiliates are just whores for promoting a product that returns them a commission … if they compromise their principles for personal gain.  Somehow he can tell who’s sincere and who’s not.

He admits that John Reese 1.0 had something good to offer in 2005.  “It was a seminal work of great value.”  Rick doesn’t seem to know or care about what’s in TS2.0.  He “simply cannot imagine a “course” being worth more than a couple hundred bucks”.

OK.  I get it … I guess.  It’s not ok to sell a load of crap - unless it’s only a couple of hundred bucks.

Does it make sense to pay for something that saves the business owner time and trouble enough to justify the $ outlay?  Or is the Free University of the Web with its massive time investment the only way to go?

In less enlightened business universes, one doesn’t expect to purchase a million dollar business for free or $47 or $4997.  But then I guess there aren’t as many magical beans available outside IM.

Dr. Mani weighs in with a prescription for his friend John Reese and fellow gurus.  Child-like is good and childish is bad.  So “man up” if you’re a pro.

It would seem that working at the controversial edge gets response, while playing nice and polite gets lost in the noise. Is John really that thin-skinned, or is this all part of marketing the message?

Read the good doctor’s  Rx at  Blogging for Influence and Attention.

Don’t take my word for it folks.  Read John Reese’s grilling of Mark’s canard about Apocalypse 2.0.

The Death of Twitter joins the ever-lengthening obit list on the www.

So stop spamming for fun and profit, and follow the gladiators in their fight to the death of (your choice here).

Dick Zigun says he supports plans to redevelop Coney Island on a grand scale, but not if it means turning it into a mall.

The Mayor of Coney Island has been working since 1980 to preserve the old landmark neighborhood and promote a future fitting the magical  nexus of sand and sea and four subway lines.  His not-for-profit Coney Island USA “interprets the past and experiments with the future of American popular culture and offers a growing panoply of arts events and exhibitions rooted in the traditions of P.T. Barnum, vaudeville and Coney Island itself”.  High aspirations in a time and place about a century removed from the glory days.

But there remains a loyal tribe steeped in the hustle and carney scene around the Bowery and the Sideshow - an underground hipster vibe on the fringe of the city, only minutes away from the LES.  Unique and worth preserving?

Zigun: “People find the seediness charming, and I realized that in terms of the way capitalism works and real estate works, you can’t become enamored of the seediness,” he said.

“That’s not what Coney Island was in its heyday.”  Read more in the NYT
So, the mantra today on the web is “keep it raw”: people are suspicious of polished video and website design.  That’s not what marketing was in its heyday, either.  Simple and aw-shucks is fine.  But with good production values - well-lit with perfect sound, and a well-executed script.

Look at the sideshow - in the seediest of surroundings, absolute pros gathering the thirsty crowds with rehearsed and polished pitches, getting them in the tent with previews of the highly practiced and professional stars of the show, and best of all collecting the toll as they turn the tip.  The production values are spectacular considering the price of admission and the scene.

Take a stroll over to JohnCow.com for a thorough course in planning, preparation and creation of a new blog, as the cornerstone of a new business. You’ll learn to satisfy your reader and, also, the search engine bots.

“You see there is a gigantic difference between building blogs and building a business. In all honesty anyone can build a blog, there are loads of free services out there that make it completely free to jump online and start writing. This however is not the way to go about truly making money online for the long term.

Our hope is that over the next few weeks, we will be able to transform your viewpoint on “blogging” and educate you on how to truly achieve solid results. We will show you what the difference between a “Traffic Broker” and a true “Asset Maker” is and why you want to be an “Asset Maker”.”

Read the rest and see how you can win one of the many prizes, like these …

• A FREE copy of David Cavanagh 52 Week “Getting Started On The Internet” Program - includes 52 weeks of live conference calls, 1 on 1 coaching and membership site. Also includes 4 day live workshop in Pattaya Beach Thailand ($9,997 Value)
• A FREE copy of Ultimate A-to-Z Information Marketing Brain-in-a-Box from Yanik Silver ($3,000 Value)
• A FREE copy of Dominiche (Ed Dale & StomperNet) — The Art Of Buying & Selling Websites(Electronic version) — ($1,500 value)
• A FREE copy of the StomperNet Home Study Course - 15 DVDs ($1,997 value)
• A FREE copy of Ryan Deiss’ Wholesale Traffic System ($1,997 value)
  
• A FREE copy of Eben Pagan’s Altitude Home Study Course ($2,497 value)
  
• A FREE copy of Jeff Mulligan’s QuickieProfits, one year membership ($359 value)
  
• A FREE copy of Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula 2.0 ($1,997 value)
  
• A FREE copy of Frank Kern’s Mass Control ($2,497 value)

Let me know what you win.

POP QUIZ: What do Donald Trump, Mark
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ANSWER: They’ve done Virtual Book
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I’ve even made special arrangements
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Click here to get private phone
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Dave Winer believes we’re getting closer to the end in the warfare defined by social networks.

Now that Google, MySpace and Facebook are going nose-to-nose, is the winner there?

Or, could it be “two kids in a garage that no one is paying attention to.”

Stay tuned.0

The challenge with any new marketing tools is getting a high enough Return on Time Investment.  2.0 sites like Twitter can seem to be bottomless time sinks (how does Scoble follow 22,000 +?)

Fortunately, the  more gifted start tweaking almost immediately and make the new and interesting, new and usable for us grinds.

Today’s find, thanks to Bill Hibbler, is Twitter Groups.  Great leverage.  His video  tells how and why.

Anne Holland of Marketing Sherpa suggests short(er) subject lines increase open & click rates. Worth testing?