For example, imagine a TV advert showing offers/promotions for an electrical retailer converted into this format! Just hover and click – and you’re on your way to buying. Similarly take a Marks and Spencer ad and use the same technology – one click on Mylene Klass’s bikini and you’re one step away from purchasing!

Another useful feature is that the ads can also be shared socially with an embedding facility that’s integrated into the ad. Very clever!

The major challenge for affiliates is integrating this content into their sites so that it is used by the user and a major challenge for networks is providing options in terms of sizing to enable affiliates to meet that challenge. One size doesn’t always fit all!

That aside a very impressive step forward in the use of video creative!

Simply by taking jackpot data over a given period of time and utilising Google Charts, we’re now able to show the progress of jackpots over a period of time. In short we’re tracking the jackpots i.e. Trackpot!

A crackpot idea or a jackpot idea?

The Trackpot allow us to look at the progress of the current jackpots, noting trends, anomalies and other interesting facts. These can then be used either on the websites we run and/or newsletters. Essentially we’re now using some stats and data to generate content in a unique way.

By using the stats and graphical image we can suggest that perhaps one game is better to play than another at a given time. Of course, bingo is a game of chance and predicting a win is perhaps impossible, but The Trackpot provides a player with information they perhaps never had before.

Unique content, something different, innovation = all good things for your website!

Of course, there’s always a concern that The Trackpot will become part and parcel of every bingo site here on in, but at time of writing we’re pretty sure no other bingo site has ever done this before, which is kind of cool. We’ve also applied it to other jackpot related games, like slots, too.

For this to develop though, we really need more data from bingo and gaming sites, and it’s quite shocking how difficult many find it to be able to rapidly provide this data (SQL call to database, get jackpot amount, write to xml feed). The lesson here is if merchants provide the tools and information, affiliates can often find new ways to utilise it to promote you!

The Trackpot hopefully demonstrates that point – that and that there’s still a few crackpot ideas from the old school ;o)

Yes the likes of Osoyou and Mydeco are lovely, and no doubt have had some serious investment – but are they the future? Will users go for these sites? Do we need bells and whistles to have a quality website? You don’t need to look far to find examples of non-tarty sites providing a good service. Moneysavingexpert is arguably a social platform – yet runs purely off vBulletin. Amazon has various user options, but it isn’t exactly the flashiest of sites.

The problem these new sites face is attracting users who will interact, keeping users who will interact, maintaining the site so that it’s well managed and moderated, and then monetising them. From my experience your bread and butter loyal users don’t want anything overly complicated. Even the voices in affiliate marketing stick to a good old vBulletin forum on a4U versus the community area!

I’ll probably be totally wrong and mydeco et al will go on and be the “next big thing”!

And the “next big thing” is something that many affiliates are hoping to seek. Matt asks “would it therefore be astute to invest income generated from less stable affiliate activity into these uber projects so we can compete in the long term?”.

I guess as affiliates we should keep an eye on the future and continually build and develop – but that should never be at the expense of the here and now. Time and time again affiliates will be launching a new site or doing a new project, having left their previous one (that launched last week) to fester.

No one seems to invest time or effort in their current sites and projects making sure bugs are fixed, user experience is improved, community is encouraged, or new tools developed for that service. Little Acorns don’t become Mighty Oaks (or manageable sized trees that look nice in the garden and require just a bit of pruning without upsetting the next door neightbour) without a lot of love and attention. It’s easy to set up new projects, it’s much harder to run them long term – and I do wonder about the longevity of sites like Osoyou and MyDeco or indeed any other “uber project”.

To borrow a line from Star Wars (The Phantom Menace), affiliates need to “Be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment” – and right here, right now there are still opportunities.