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Talk about a case of too much government! You may have heard about the recent legislation that New York state passed that give it the authority to charge sales tax to ANY entity selling to a resident of the state no matter where they are based. That love also extends to affiliate sales! Can you believe it?

As a result, Overstock.com has cut off all of it’s New York affiliates so no more Big ‘O’ for the Big Apple.

Amazon has decided to sue the state questioning their authority in collected those taxes. Go Amazon! I think your affiliate program isn’t any good (session cookies? come on!) but I am definitely in your corner on this one.

In typically government shark-like activity, other states namely Texas and California, smell blood in the water and are also close to passing similar legislation. I do have hope that none of this will stand up to scrutiny and I also don’t think they this is even enforceable. The cost of any enforcement attempt would likely negate any revenue benefit they could possibly gain. With Amazon’s lawsuit impending, the state of New York will likely just end of losing money to the lawyers at the expense of tax payers. Good thinkin’!

Take a look at reactions across the web:

• New York’s Ambitious Sales Tax Law: Broader Than Amazon and the …
- Amazon.com sued New York State earlier this month, challenging a newly enacted law that has serious implications for online advertisements. In April, the New York legislature passed a law designed to increase sales tax revenue from …
• When Will New York Introduce A Google Tax?
- Today’s news is that Overstock have decided that they are axing 3400 affiliates in the New York area because of the previously reported “Amazon Tax” - which Amazon are fighting. I think Janet was the first to break the news of the …
• New York Passes Online Sales Tax Law
- In addition Amazon says the New York law is unconstitutional based on a 1992 US Supreme Court ruling that claims states are prohibited from requiring out of state retailers to collect sales tax unless the company has a physical presence …
• Overstock.com 1, New York State 0
- New York state’s legislature recently passed a law declaring that any company with affiliates in New York must collect sales taxes on purchases made in that state, effectively inventing sales tax nexus out of thin air. …
• Overstock Drops New York Affiliates
- The issue is that New York State had enacted a law that deemed Overstock to have a New York presence simply because it had affiliates in the state and was therefore to be required to collect sales tax on behalf of the state. …
• NY’s “Amazon Tax” Takes First Casualty: Overstock Affiliates
- The backlash comes in response to New York’s misguided attempt to collect taxes from online shoppers. Up until now, online retailers have only had to collect sales tax in states in which they have a physical presence. …

Tags: new york, sales tax, affiliate marketing, amazon

Finally after months of grand standing and covert ops, it appears that Microsoft decided to drop it’s pursuit of Yahoo. Here’s a link to the official press release. Although the deal may have created lots of synergies between the two online media behemoths, it would not have done much in the way of gaining on their mutual nemesis, Google.

Now that Google is climbing into bed with Yahoo and serving up advertising from Adwords, it is going to be interesting how things develop going forward. Not saying that Google is trying to purchase Yahoo, but there were a few other companies that had espressed some interest. Maybe this is part of a wait and see game from Microsoft? Who knows. I don’t think that it is over quite yet.

Tags: Yahoo, Microsoft, Adwords, Microhoo

You are not going to believe this but Forbes posted a story about the richest man in India, Mukesh Ambani, building a home costing nearly $2,000,000,000 dollars! 2 billion dollars? It will be 27 stories tall and have over 400,000 square feet of space including 6 floors of parking.

While impressive with it’s features the overall look leaves something to be desired. Check out this video below:

Tags: Billion Dollar Home, Richest Man In India, Mukesh Ambani

I recently came across a video, that a friend sent to me, that defines RSS and it’s uses in a light hearted manner. It’s the best explanation that I have seen so far so I wanted to include that video for you. After that there is another video about getting RSS feed for specific tag searches on Youtube.

Here is another video that shows you how to grab RSS feeds from Youtube tag searches.

There are plenty of resources on learning how to use RSS Feeds and here are just a few. Enjoy!

• RSS Feeds & Feed Readers

- May 1 was RSS Awareness Day as declared by Daily Blog Tips. The intent of the declaration was to bring attention to something all bloggers need to be aware of: their RSS feeds and how to make sure readers can [...]

• Needing a Gentle Intro to RSS Feeds

- Reading RSS feeds should be an integral part of my daily work. In fact, reading about the latest industry news and industry pundit opinions is key to what I do - advising clients about their Internet strategies and writing about the …

• How to Import RSS Feeds to Facebook

- After clicking Import a blog, you need to enter the url of RSS feeds of your blog and click start importing. Facebook will automatically update your notes whenever you write in your blog. Imported blog posts cannot be edited. …

• RSS via Outlook

- And so are my RSS feeds because I’ve configured Outlook to store my feeds in folders that are on the server. All I have to do is keep Outlook running on my desktop PC so that the feeds are pulled in periodically and synced up to the …

Tags: information, RSS Feeds, YouTube

If you haven’t already heard by now, China officially passed the US in the sheer number of online users, according to Nielsen Net Ratings.  While everyone knew this would happen it still is a huge reminder of how quickly the world is going digital.  China boasts some 233 million users!  Now his sounds really impressive by sheer volume, the truth is that those users only make up about 17% of it population.

On another note, and maybe not an accident, Skype announced unlimited calls to a number of Asian countries, including China for just 9.95 a month.

These announcements definitely tell of the burgeoning Chinese economy.  However, I am not sure how many of them are consumers.  I’ll be on the look out for that information and will post it here when I find it.

Tags:  china, internet, skype, nielsen, net ratings

If you have done some searches recently you may have noticed that Google is playing around with video placement in the search results. This allows for more videos to be displayed in its regular search results. If you are a marketer, if you haven’t started capitalizing on using video in your business, you are missing out on the primary driver of traffic on the net!

Google also announced that they are dumping the SEM division of Performics. This was an anticipate move as the prospects of them owning a firm that specialized in getting companies ranked better in the search engines was an obvious conflict of interest.

Oh yeah, one more bit of Google news. Turns out that their whole position on trying to buy the 700mhz spectrum from the FTC was a bit of a ruse. Their main reason behind their bid was to keep the price high enough to trigger the important “open applications” and “open handsets” license conditions” so that its development crew would have the space to push out a whole swath of mobile applications.

Tags: Google, universal search, performics, sem

Okay, this is one of those things that just makes you go, huh! There’s a guy, Ian Usher, in Australia that has decided to sell his life via auction as a way of clearing out stuff that reminds him of his marriage and that time in his life and start “fresh”. He is even giving away his job! You can read the story here.

I don’t think he’ll be successful in getting rid of the memories though. He’ll likely find new things to associate those memories with since the source of his angst has nothing to do with his motorcycles or his home or anything else external for that matter. It’s an interesting story nonetheless and he’s sure to get a lot more press by the time it’s all said and done. Oh yeah, did I mention that you get his friends to! LOL

Tags: Ian Usher, sell your life, self improvement, a life for sale

I just found out that Yahoo is in alpha test mode for its own social news site. It continues to amaze me how many of these site seem to constantly pop up. It is definitely a sign of the dramatic expansion of the participatory web (breaking news, huh). It makes you wonder about how many of these sites you need? Well, it usually isnt’ about need but more about demand, or percieved demand.

Also, in typical fashion, the potential battle of Digg vs. Yahoo has already begun with accusations already starting to fly; check out the comments from this Techcrunch post. Michael Arrington pointed out that many companies are trying to unseat Digg but none have succeeded. Which ever direction you want to go with this battle, Yahoo Buzz will be a hit and is a natural outcropping of their suite of news and information service.

What took you so long, Yahoo? Will this convince Microsoft to up the ante a bit? Not likely but I wonder about the timing of the announcement. . .

Tags: Yahoo Buzz, social news, Techcrunch, Digg

One of the things the Napoleon Hill stressed the most in his classic book, “Think & Grow Rich” was to create a mastermind group. This is a ensemble of people skilled in various aspects of running a business of whom you can contact for advice.

In my former business, I failed to do this and the result is that the business is just that. . .former. Since then, I have been actively seeking out people who are skilled in various areas so that I can have my own group. The benefits of gaining these new contacts are paying off in ways that I never could have anticipated and I have been on a roll because of it.

Today, I received and email from Eben Pagan (I am on his list, I don’t know him personally yet) talking about the importance of building a mastermind. He put together a video about it here and in essence it is a challenge to get your group started. Go take a look at the video and come back to share your initial impression. As I mentioned, I am looking to expand my mastermind group so maybe that will include you?

Here are a few site that discuss the power of the Mastermind:

• Six Traits Of Successful People
- This is what people are referring to when they talk about a mastermind group. They network with other people and turn to successful people for encouragement when times are hard. They seem to actively avoid working with people who are …
• Think And Grow Rich Chapter 7 February 2008
• My First Singapore Mastermind Group Meeting
- Not only was I busy with that, I went for my first Singapore Mastermind Group Meeting with some of the great marketers here in Singapore and Malaysia. Here are the list of marketers who attend it:. 1) Alvin Phang (Blogging Expert) …
• Mastermind Rules?
- In one of my recent Mastermind Blog posts, I discussed the importance of having rules in a mastermind group. Let’s face it without some rules in place, there would be chaos. I think what often confuses or stumps people who are not …
• Mastermind Your Way to Success
- What is a Mastermind Group? The concept of a Mastermind Group was introduced to the world in a formal manner by Napolean Hill, the author of “Think and Grow Rich” in the 1900’s. He defined the Mastermind Principle as, “”The coordination …

Tags: mastermind group, Eben Pagan, mastermind, Napoleon Hill

Phew! I spent the weekend at a conference that Stephen & Alicia Pierce put on. Now I have read a lot of books, spent money on a lot of courses, and have attended a variety of business events. None of them compare to what I experienced last weekend.

I have been a fan of Stephen for a while and when the opportunity came up for me to see him live, I jumped at it (especially since it was just a couple of hours north of where I live!). There are a ton of action items that I have to implement in the projects I am working on (which I won’t discuss quite yet, but the concept was validated at the event!).

If you aren’t familiar with Stephen, be sure to check out his DT Alpha blog. Oh yeah, I included a picture below that we took. You should notice a few other familiar faces like Ryan Deiss, Jesse Jameson, and Joel Therien from the internet marketing world. It was a lot of fun talking shop with such accomplished marketers.

Have any of you had an event that seemed to change the course of your business?

Tags: Stephen Pierce, Internet Marketing, Business Conference