1. With a sub-affiliate model, affiliate scammers will be all over this (especially if there is no real vetting process). These are the type of links that Twitter spammers would love to pump out in the wild.
2. Would any of this traffic be incremental for a merchant? For example, if my buddy asks me what TV to buy wouldn't I tell him my true opinion regardless of the payout I received?
3. Right now it looks like they're using Viglink (http://www.viglink.com) for affiliatizing (at least for eBay). I would seriously wonder how willing merchants would be to get onboard directly.
I'm excited for innovation in the affiliate space (which is sorely needs), but this is a really tough problem. Fraud and incrementality are two things that need to be addressed before a merchant would be willing to sign up (esp. if they don't have much budget free to work with).
1. With a sub-affiliate model, affiliate scammers will be all over this (especially if there is no real vetting process). These are the type of links that Twitter spammers would love to pump out in the wild.
2. Would any of this traffic be incremental for a merchant? For example, if my buddy asks me what TV to buy wouldn't I tell him my true opinion regardless of the payout I received?
3. Right now it looks like they're using Viglink (http://www.viglink.com) for affiliatizing (at least for eBay). I would seriously wonder how willing merchants would be to get onboard directly.
I'm excited for innovation in the affiliate space (which is sorely needs), but this is a really tough problem. Fraud and incrementality are two things that need to be addressed before a merchant would be willing to sign up (esp. if they don't have much budget free to work with).