It may be coming faster than we think, but as soon as the majority of users stop using social media in a social way, you'll see people moving out and trying to find something to replace it. That's my prediction. People who like social media for the social aspect like it because there is so little advertising or pimping of one's services. If that goes away, if more and more people start tossing pitches to their friends and family, we'll see it start to die. What can replace it? Who knows? And maybe that's the only thing keeping social media alive right now, that there's nothing to replace it waiting in the wings.

That's my theory. I could be wrong.

I've been using PHP redirects, but I'm unhappy with the link structure: .com/visit?destination - so I've been planning (for like, six months!) to give htaccess a shot. Thanks for reminding me.

Really? You're going to try to say that Shawn is somehow capitalizing on a convention that hasn't even happened yet, simply because you chose to go with the most generic name possible? Are you seriously saying that anyone that talks about an affiliate convention is treading on your show somehow?

"I'm going to an affiliate convention in Denver this year."
"Oh, yeah? What's it called?"
"Affiliate Convention."
"Right, but what's it called?"
"Affiliate Convention."
"You said that, but what's the name of the affiliate convention?"
"Nevermind, pass the scotch."

Fantastic recap, Joe! We didn't chat much at all, but I hope to rectify that come January at Summit.

I love that it's primarily very minor/obscure characters, rather than "L is for Luke" and "H is for Han". Very cool.

My only complaint is that I didn't know beforehand that the names would have to be 5 characters long... I tried "dan" first instead of "daniel" and got an error message that probably cost me what would have been my first choice had I known.

Big thanks to Jim for coming on the show today! I couldn't be happier that there were no misunderstandings or hard feelings about any comments I made on previous shows - Jim's one of the good guys, and he proved it again on the show today. Total class act.

You're welcome on the show anytime, Jim.

Joe - what's the opening music this week?

Fully agreed with Shawn and all the follow-ups, I would only add that I'm shocked that nobody has created the bot yet. It seems like such a no-brainer and Twitter has been around long enough that I'm really very surprised we haven't seen it yet.

No problem at all in my estimation. It's weird... we're marketers, yet many of us have a problem with affiliate links - not just on Twitter, but on sites as well... the whole notion of disclosure is very strange to me. I would never lie and say that an affiliate link isn't an affiliate link, but I don't really see the need for prominent full disclosure.

If we are affiliate marketers, and the basic premise of affiliate marketing is that we earn a commission for driving traffic to a *relevant* merchant... then aren't we self-haters when we complain that someone provides us with an affiliate link?

...and this, folks, is why (okay, one of the many reasons why) Amazon pays such terrible rates to affiliates.