Jon

Here it is, the much anticipated first section of the WickedFire resource area. We decided to run with the directory as the first channel to launch because it's something the industry really needs, and without bullshitting, it's our bread and butter.

We had originally planned to have this launched in October sometime, but due to delays with programmers, constantly hiring and firing because they either couldn't do what was promised or just stopped working, it was a total pain in the ass to deal with. Also, I didn't realize just how much work was involved in creating this from an image into the real working thing. We had approached one of the lead developers of vbulletin.org to do the work for us, and he even balked at it because he said it was an impossible project and could not be done. Just to let everyone know, this is not made in php or some type of foreign page, it's completely coded within the realm of vbulletin, and it's the only one of it's kind ever done before. So we're really proud of our 3rd and final programming team for their amazing work. Also many kudos need to go to Ben for dealing with my ideas and designing what I wanted to see, and Brandon for being the real architect of the project.

Our goals with the resource area are to change the way affiliates and network folk get their information and interract together. This is not just another resource site or portal. We've spent A LOT of time and money on this to perfect it to the exact specifications I had thought of many months ago. While it's been a long road, it's also been a pretty educational one. We expect to keep everything free for the affiliate and make our money from advertising dollars. This was, in a sense, the "premium section" I spoke about in the summer, so instead of charging for it, it's all yours, for free, forever.

Screenshot #1:



Here we have the opening shot of the rough draft of the directory. As you can see, the header with the channel buttons and the WF logo are different, because work was started on this before we made any changes. We want to showcase the advertisers here based on relevance and rank rather than who can pay more for the top spot. There are no premium listings to purchase, and the part where it says "featured listings" has since been removed (or we'll just replace it with the top ranks of each directory category). We're going to be adding new directory slots as the directory itself is worked on and taken out of beta. Seperating and organizing them is also of great importance so that people find exactly what they are looking for. We've got between 8-10 sections we are working on within the directory, and each one will be different inside to cater to that specific category's topic. This way each advertiser section is targeted and can deliver the proper information that you are looking to find.

One VERY important part of the directory is that there is a list of minimum requirements that each advertiser's category needs to meet. The reason for this is so that you never wonder "well, are they on here because they paid for it, or are they really good to use". By making the advertisers meet a list of rules and requirements it forces the ones that probably shouldn't be listed out of our space, regardless of whether or not they can pay for it. For example, Commission Junction as an ad network will not be listed. Sure, they are a big and well known company, but due to so many complaints on how they treat their affiliates, hold back payments, and run a careless operation, they won't meet the strict requirements. I don't care if they offer us $50k a month, they aren't going in there until they change their policies and fix what's been broken. We want to be the first to set standards, and not make it about the money, and so far, there are no directories out there that have done it, so we're officially the first!

Screenshot #2:



Here we have the inside of the directory. For example purposes we chose Azoogle to showcase. As you can see, unlike every other directory out there, the advertiser doesn't just get a link, a logo, a quick paragraph and some stars made 4 years ago by 2 people ranking them as 10/10. Sorry, but that doesn't fly here. We wanted to really show everything about the advertiser so they get the maximum user interraction and are graded farily on how they present themselves and do business with affiliates. Perhaps this can be an incentive for the networks to keep up their good standings with affiliates and thus increasing their reviews and rankings on here.

As you can see on the left hand side we put every important piece of information to get the user searching as well acquainted with the advertiser as possible. All of their contact information is there, along with information answering questions that appear on every forum, such as payout cycles, types, whether or not they accent US/Intl, traffic types they'll accept, their contact information, location of business, AIM/phone contacts, conferences they attend, WF usernames of their AM's, plus a lot of other things not shown on the screenshot that have been added.

The advertiser's WF reputation is very important and depends on how they will appear in the listings within the directory. It's up to the users to rank them and write reviews explaining what they approve or disapprove of the advertiser.

In the middle section you'll see two sample reviews given to the advertiser by WF members. Although anyone on the internet can view the directory, only WF members with enough "trust" will be able to vote/review an advertiser. This is where rep plays a big part. The new sections also come along with a new trust algorithm giving WF members the ability to rate and rank one another depending on their activity and contributions to the WickedFire community. Users won't be able to give anonymous reviews or rankings, because we want the advertisers to be in touch with the users who review them and work out why a negative review or rating was given. Doing so will only help everyone, instead of just accepting a neg review/rating and thinking "I'll try harder next time". Now there will be no excuses for advertisers to just keep coasting along and operating the same way. We are here to make a change, and keep everyone informed, not ignore the problem (if there is one) and just go about our regular business without doing anything about it. Also, no more hiding behind your computer when giving negative reviews and ratings, so we should see a lot less abuse overall.

Finally, the far right section shows the contact information of the advertiser's top AM (in this case, for hosts it may be sales rep, etc.). Being a top AM means you should be getting privalages that other AM's don't get, and in this case, it's being the primary rep of your network, so in turn, you'll be rewarded with more affiliate signups under you. For the affiliates it acts as a great way to quickly get in touch with someone at the advertiser's company in case of an emergency or just to speak to a human being if you need answers. We're also showcasing their top converting campaigns, and their exclusive campaigns. These are two sections that the advertiser can edit and will be required to update at least once a week.

So there you have it. As you can see, there was a ton of work, creativity, and innovations being put into this section, and it's still only the first channel of a total of seven new ones to add to the forum. Personally, I'm glad we'll finally have something to show for our hard work and investments on this project. We hope to have all seven sections launched and complete by mid-March 2007, although we are ahead of our new schedule by about a week now.

If you have any ideas, feedback or constructive criticism, don't be afraid to tell us, we want to get as much of it as possible to keep everything up to date and as user friendly and easy to approach as possible.

Remember, without your help, we'd be nowhere, and without the investment of time on your part and the advertiser's part our industry will finally have a one stop shop portal/resource area that we so desperately need.

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Jon

Oh yeah, forgot to add, you can blog about this all you like now. We're planning to launch the directory into beta sometime between Thurs (tomorrow) and Sunday morning. Brandon and I will continue to work on it with the programmers even while we are in Vegas for the Affiliate Summit West conference. So if you don't see us around, that's probably why.

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jened

sweet - i'd give you rep, but your reputation is already beyond repute!

ltn1dr

Wow....Awesome.

Looks amazing.

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Jon

Don't just look at the pictures.. read what was written so you don't have silly questions later.

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Crynos

Looks awesome. Is the beta for everyone? Or just select people?

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Ben

The orange bars have also been lightened to a prettier color since that update.

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Jon

The beta will be for everyone. We are doing beta only to work out any issues it may have, once we get the okay that everything is working properly, it will be official.

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Stanley

Looks very interesting, and I'm surprised you got this done within vB.
You should continue to launch these sections individually as soon as they're done, we don't want to wait till March to see the rest

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trigatch4

Congrats jon. Can't wait to dig in and blog about it. WF was already my favorite forum (I visit 54325532 times daily) and this only cements that notion.

*deep inhale*
Smell that?
It's the smell of asshats burning in the WickedFire!

Cheers and Thanks
Trigatch

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andrew wee

Looks great, and a hell of a lot of work must've gone into it.

The 'real time' nature of the ratings system and interaction between affiliate and AM sure give it a leg up over other AM forums I've seen.

Is "WickedFire Resource Area" a working name? Or the final name?
Maybe there'll be a naming contest?

I'm planning to blog about it and sexy names always sell.

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Jon

Nah, we're just going to stick with WickedFire since we own the international trademark license for it in every form of internet marketing around now.

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randomlande

Looks and sounds great.

Any word on when any of the other sections are going to open? (or maybe i missied it in your post)

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jerxs

It looks great Jon, congrats to you Brandon, Ben and the others, I look forward to seeing it live, as well as the rest of the resouce area.

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Jon

The Newswire is the next one in production to be released. Either next week or the week after, but no later than Feb 7th.

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pjleonhardt

looks and sounds fucking amazing.
Cant wait to see her done.

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illusion

Very smooth, no longer need to look at those gay 130 lists of ad networks with just names. Should be good, nice work Ben, Brandon and Jon

a.titus1

So you're going with the Google definition of beta i.e. a complete product, but if any bugs occur, just point to the beta sign

Not complaining of course. Sounds like this will be a great resource, and definately looking forward to trying it out.

chrislingle

um, I thought that the "resource" section was going to be this private section were people would have to contribute to the "main" forum to get in. There was like some promise that if you used the scripts etc. that you asked ideas for, and put in the work there was no way you would not be able to make some real money? that was supposed to be released in Oct. I went back and looked and what you were promising then was that part would be up by ASW. Is that no longer going to happen?

Breakpoint

great job Jon, it looks amazing

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andrew wee

Chris,
You refering to this?
Premium Section

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kaveman

Good stuff Jon, cant wait to see what else you guys have up your sleeve

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chrislingle

no I don't refer to that. There was supposed to be a section with scripts and tools and more info than the avg fluff in most forums. The original launch date was in oct. then it was moved to ASW and has been talked about quite a bit since then. Would probably be the tools section. That was the original promise made to the members, not a directory with stuff that most people already know. Not that I need jons scripts to make money, I just thought it would be interesting to see what he came up with after all the suggestions we gave!

Jan

Hats of to everyone who worked on it!
Glad to see you didn't make comprimises and didn't listen to those voices who told you that it couldn't be done.

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Brandon

Those resources will still only be made accessible to users that contribute to the forums. The directory has taken a little longer than expected, so it has pushed everything back a little. The directory is one of the sections that is open to everyone, though only contributing member will be able to post reviews.

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engaged

i don't get it... i'm serious

Brandon

Don't get what?

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engaged

like... so people review Azoogle? i mean, i already use Azoogle...

lerchmo

well there are 18 more that you probably only use 9 of

Brandon

Great, so you already use Azoogle, you can review their service, support, payouts, offers, etc. This will help other members with their decisions on which company's they should deal with. So if someone has never worked with Azoogle before, they could read your review and that will help them decide if they should.

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engaged

so i review Azoogle and then i get what? i mean if you don't know about Azoogle and can't find the info elsewhere, you probably won't make much $ with them anyhow.

Andrew

Notice the other categories? This is going to make things a hell of a lot easier than sticking in names and searching the archives of every webmaster forum in existance to make a judgement about a company.

May be I am wrong, but I am also guessing the quick contact will be a good way around the bullshit and delays you can run into when sending an e-mail to "sales" at a company.

Th3Boss

looks sweet

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PreZ

Looking great, can't wait for the tools section.

Maybe engaged wants a place to put in his referral link after he vouches for Azoogle or any other network.

Might be a good idea.

emp

Just fucking sweet. I'll make sure to try and contribute to the section, as should everyone. Making Wf even more of a kickass place.

Good job, you guys.



::emp::

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DrHowe

When are you adding the enGAYged section?

Jon

The "education" and "tools" channels are what the premium section were broken up into. The directory is just one part of the puzzle, as the other sections are made available, and packed with content, you'll see the bigger picture of things. Plus the "statistics" section will be a great addition to those two channels, and all three will only be available to those members who have acquired a certain level of value/respect. The only fee of admission into them is community participation that has some value. Like I mentioned a few months ago, hanging out in the StS area won't really get you that level of respect compared to someone that posts article style posts in say the Aff Marketing section. I really wish I could show you and everyone else what the other sections will feature and do, as a completed resource area, but we have to keep things quiet and a secret so that we can continue to be the first ones to accomplish the full plan of the resource area. Ya dig?

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Jon

You're looking at this in the wrong way.. First off, it's not about "ME" or "YOU" as a single user, it's about the community as a whole. When you first started off in aff marketing you didn't know who to use or who not to use and why, you kinda based it off of loose reviews on forums through posts, or what some 3 or 4 year old directory of links told you, and you learned, by trial and error which network was good, and which wasn't. The directory with the member reviews eliminates the guesswork and leads people to the right networks who are valued in the industry as networks who when it comes down to it, don't fuck over their affiliates.

Second, you my friend, won't be allowed to post any reviews because of your reputation level, or lack there of. Which is why I kept saying, over and over, neg rep may look pretty to some people but it will eventually have a big hand in deciding the level of respect or value that a user has, and where he/she will have access to. So someone with neg rep will have to work a hell of a lot harder to turn those into positive ones just to gain access to the Education, Tools, and Statistics sections, and to be able to write a review and rate any advertiser inside the directory.

The directory is NOT just ad networks and affiliates/merchants, it will be hosts, domain registrars, design firms, programming firms, content writers, etc. Everything that services this industry will eventually have a place to advertise, but at the same time be subject to user reviews and ratings. Everything will also be updated regularly so to keep things working smoothly without letting things get old and out of date. Advertisers within the directory will undergo bi-annual reviews from out team to make sure they are acting the way they should be and providing a safe and honest place of business. Anyone who fails, will be put on standby/probation and will be yanked from their respective category in the directory.

There really are a ton of things about the directory that you may either not notice now or pick up on right away, but I can bet that within a year from when everything is complete, all sections are up, running, and working properly that you will not only see the big picture of things, but appreciate it and rely on it more than you know. I'm saying this to everyone, not just engaged.

Reviews on advertisers and companies within our space help everyone, not just the selfish person who thinks "how will I benefit from this". Look at how comparison shopping works. When someone posts a review, whether negative or positive, it helps the merchant gain more business or change the way they work in order to attract more buyers and better reviews. The reviewers don't get anything out of it, but they know that by taking 5 mins out of their day, writing a review and rating the merchant that it may help some other buyer down the road, and in turn, maybe when they are looking at a merchant, they can read what other people, just like them, wrote about a product or merchant. You may gain nothing financially out of reviewing, but you will help the community as a whole and inspire others to do the same so that maybe sometime down the road when you're in the shoes of someone who needs help picking a new host for example, and see 11 reviews, it will give you a better idea of what you are getting and give you more confidence, or less and help you make the correct decision, rather than going the sometimes expensive and frustrating trial and error route.

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andrew wee

From what I see, the revamped WF is positioned as an info resource, community site for AMs.

When you post reviews and comments you're sharing your info/experience so others can make an informed decision.

Likewise if you're reading reviews based on actual experience, rather than just what appears on their pitch page, you'd be able to make a more informed decision on who else to work with.

I think this'll help both newer Aff mkters and newer aff networks get exposure.

plus if you're an affiliate, you could potentially recruit sub-affiliate from your 'fans' and generate some passive income that way.

I can see the community value that the WF 2.0 will provide.

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ImagesAndWords

Jon, this is awesome!
Btw - I assume WF members (with access) will be able to submit their own articles, tools, tricks, etc. to the Education and Tools sections later?

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Jon

Yes and no.. the tools and education areas are a lot different than whatever you're thinking of. Won't say anything more than that. You'll have to wait and see what I mean.

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sebastya

Excellent. Well done Jon, Ben and anyone else who helped out on this project

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Michel Z.

Congrats Jon!
I am looking forward to check out the Beta Resource section! I can't wait...

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Jon

We're pretty much done with it.. just going over the cosmetic touch ups today. Should be ready to go sooner than expected.

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Xrproto

can I get a direct link...i'm at work and they started filtering out your links up top so they don't show up.

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kaveman

not yet,
easy sailor, eaaaaaaaasy

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Xrproto

Well I guess I should have read through it all...

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Sg4

Lookin' really nice. I can tell a lot of planning, thought, effort was put into this as its not an easy task to pull off. Congrats on the first section.

As far as the premium sections, its to bad some people abused the reputation system in the beginning! But, other than that I totally agree that admission to the premium sections should definitely be based on reputation and community contribution.

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emp

I really just got to read the whole thing (I was at work before) geezes, you guys hit it right on the head!

Very, very nice addition for the hole family^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H community.

::emp::

Edit: I really wanted to change "the hole family" to the right spelling, but then I realized I am at WickedFire...

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[R]DeVore

I know im late, but this looks (and sounds) awesome. I cant wait to test it out. I'm also going to post some useful articles/tips over the next week or so to help out the community.

Robb