Seán Crotty

Wedding sites

Many people are using SynthaSite to create a website about their wedding.

Here are some examples:

Trevor & Christi included a map, reception details, and updates every few days.

Mirka has a countdown timer and some nice photos on her site.

Diana, in her first website, gives details for her bridal shower, bachelorette party, and gift registry.

I think the fact that our tool is free, easy, and allows you full control of the elements on your page is probably why people are using it for their wedding sites.

Breeding sites

One of the real joys of working in the web world is discovering the incredibly random sites that people make with your tools.

In the affiliate world, with eBay and Art.com, it was the super-specialized product sites. My favorite was the woman who scoured the globe for the latest in exotic hardwood knitting needles. She had quite a following; over 2,600 people per month subscribed to her newsletter.

For widgets, with Mpire, it was the product review fan-sites, like the guy who created a great-looking site dedicated to the BMW M3 and every possilble accessory for that model.

With SynthaSite, some of the fun, off-beat discoveries are the animal breeders who set up sites to promote their services and sell:

mini-lamas at http://Gingerichsminiaturefarms.synthasite.com/

parakeets bred naturally at http://thesanctuary.synthasite.com/index.php

leopard geckos at http://jandjleopardgeckos.synthasite.com/

cute shizshu / poodle crosses at http://puppylove4me.synthasite.com/

and many more ...

People's ingenuity never ceases to amaze!

Hiring update

Happy to announce that I've hired a Director of User Experience in San Francisco and two Community Support Specialists in Cape Town, South Africa.

I've also added a job requisition for a Product Manager to help me translate our identified business needs into specific Web 2.0 functionality.

Still available are the Community Support roles and the Interaction Design role in San Francisco. Tell your friends! :)

WSOP 2008

With this year's World Series of Poker about to start this weekend in Vegas, there's been a little bit of poker mania locally. Some friends are headed to Sin City to try their luck, and there's been lots of reading up and practice hands.

One of the latest poker resources that I've been referred to is: Phil Hellmuth's Black Belt course in Poker, which is a series of podcasts -- great for watching on the plane to Las Vegas, for instance ...

I actually jumped in and bought it. Looks pretty fun, albeit cheesy (but, that's Vegas), with some good poker advice.

I’m Hiring

I am currently hiring for several positions in our San Francisco office, all of which are a part of my Product Development group:

-- two people in the area of website interface and usability – a Director of User Experience and an Interaction Designer

-- two people, a senior and a junior, in Community Support, which is our combination of Community Management and Customer Support (I've recently hired 3 other people for this in our South Africa office, since we're going for round-the-clock coverage to keep our users super happy.)

-- at least one person in Quality Assurance

Our engineering group is also actively hiring Java and Ajax rockstars, our marketing group for Business Development, and Operations is looking for a world-class Executive Assistant / Office Manager. For more detail on positions at SynthaSite, please check out our Careers page.

If you’re interested in one of these jobs, or know someone who would be a great fit, please contact me at sean.crotty@synthasite.com.

Visit to SynthaSite South Africa

We had a very productive three weeks in Cape Town.

I got to facilitate five straight days of strategy, branding, and product planning sessions. We covered everything about the company, within our Exec Team level and with everyone in the company. It was one of the most satisfying corporate exercises I’ve ever done – mainly because we came out of it with a crisp statement of company objectives, specific product feature priorities, and clearly defined quarterly goals – which everyone had participated in and agreed to.

It was my first time in South Africa, and only my second time on that continent. Besides lots of concentrated work, Vinny & crew showed me and the other recent American hire, Randy Almond, a great time. You can see pictures of the trip at http://travelswithvinny.synthasite.com/Cape_Town.php. They are on a website I made with our free web design tool, SynthaSite (of course). The up-close pictures of the Rhinoceros are the wildest.

Encountering SynthaSite

While I was at the Affiliate Summit conference in Vegas in February, I ran into Vinny & Charlene Lingham.

This happens a few times a year, ever since I was running eBay’s Affiliate API Program. Vinny & Charlene’s business, Clicks2Customers, was consistently one of my best-performing affiliates – in the top 0.5 % every week. Vinny’s and my number skills also came in handy during one fondly-remembered winning night at the Wynn casino, where we both walked away from our private Blackjack table with a good amount of the House’s money. :D

Way back when, Vinny had presented a web design tool, targeted at affiliates, which was a side project of his company. I signed up for the early, early Beta program and checked it out. Over the last 3 ½ years, Vinny and I had discussed various ways of working together. When we happened upon each other during a party at the Tao nightclub in the Venetian, he told me he’d spun out the tool into it’s own company, SynthaSite, and recently gotten first-round funding of $5 million.

He said: “Come be our VP of Product Development!” in his trademark boisterous, spontaneous way. After an early morning group interview and several more rounds (where I was impressed with the progress from the first version, and the quality of the team he’d already assembled), I said “Sure.”. Thirty days from the encounter at the party in Vegas, I was on a plane to South Africa to meet the rest of the engineers, as a newly-minted member of the SynthaSite team.

Creating WidgetBucks

I spent much of the summer defining and testing concepts for various widget implementations at Mpire. This was quite timely, since Newsweek had declared 2007 to be “The Year of the Widget”. And, by the way, Seattle is a very cool place to travel to every other week – which was what I got to do.

We settled on a widget ad network, called “WidgetBucks”. It is a very cool set-up, informed by current market data, which presents the most popular products in an attractive Flash interface.

WidgetBucks launched on October 2nd and took off like wildfire.

As a pay-per-click network, it is designed to deliver revenue to bloggers and website designers, while providing them with relevant, self-updating, gorgeous content. TechCrunch covered our launch with this post: “A Widget That Actually Makes Money”.

We had 5,000 people sign up in the first week! One of the keys to our success was listening closely to our users and responding to their suggestions and concerns within hours. You can see how we were very focused on user needs in a blog post of mine on our official WidgetBucks blog.

Expanding the feature set and increasing the types of ads served helped us achieve “amazing growth rates”, delivering 1 billion ad impressions in the first 83 days . This Spring TechCrunch reported WidgetBucks delivering 700 million impressions per month!

Move to Mpire

This Spring I was recruited to join a company called Mpire.

Since it was a great opportunity to work on cutting edge internet marketing technology and the position was an incredible fit for my skills and industry contacts, in mid-June, I transitioned the management of the Art.com and AllPosters.com Affiliate Programs to the eminently capable Erika Lamoreaux (whom I'd been working with on several projects inside Art.com already).  I miss the gang at Art.com, but have been able to see some of them for lunch, and have full confidence that they will continue to succeed and grow rapidly.

At Mpire, I'm the Vice President of Product Marketing [press release] and their guy in Silicon Valley.  The company is a prodigiously productive engineering team, based in Seattle, specializing in distributed shopping, price analytics, and a widget network.  We take product, price, coupon, and review data from several major feeds and present it in compelling ways -- which are getting very high click-through-rate (x12 industry average).

Their ability to integrate and present data is impressive.  They accomplish the uncommon by being both data wizards and also having an excellent user interface -- something I really appreciate from my days at Apple and doing graphic design on my own [bio].  I even remember meeting with them when I was at eBay and helping them get started using the eBay API and eBay Affiliate Program.  I dug up their business cards from September 2005 and recalled hearing about them from my long-time cube neighbor Laura Della Torre (they are a prominent eBay Developer in her Certified Provider Program).  At one point, her walls were covered with magnets with the Mpire logo.

It's been a whirlwind ever since their recruiter pulled me from her rolodex.  In the middle of the interview cycle, I was in Ireland with my Mom, visiting the little coastal town where I'd lived for 10 months at age 3, and reconnecting with the whole clan of Crotty relatives in Ireland.  I dragged Mom to an internet cafe in Dublin and continued the e-mail discussions with the Mpire CEO.

It's also been a joyous reunion with many friends from eBay, since Mpire works so closely with eBay on quite a few engineering projects, such as the eBay Pop site.  I joined the Mpire guys in attending the eBay Developers Conference, eBay Affiliate Day, and eBay Live! in Boston.  Great to be back in the flow of exciting new technical developments on the eBay platform.  I knew I'd made a good decision in joining the company when on the first day, in his opening keynote speech, the President of eBay Marketplaces, John Donahoe, singled out Mpire as the first company he mentioned and then gave them the 2007 Star Developer Award for Best User Experience Design.

I'm working from my apartment in Palo Alto, which is a new thing for me.  No more 1 hour+ commute to Emeryville.  But my sailboat's still in Emeryville, since it's so quick to get sailing in the Bay from there.  I go up to Seattle to synch up with the whole team twice a month.  In the spirit of the Northwest, I got a kayak and store it on Lake Union -- our office being right on the lake.

In late June, we went to the Under the Radar conference for emerging start-ups; our CEO, Matt Hulett, presented and won the Judge's award in the Search category.  Then, separately, Time Magazine named Mpire.com #24 in their list of 50 Best Websites for 2007!

I then had a nice few days in Maine for July 4th, eating lobsters with family, visiting with old friends, and doing some classic New England rusticating.

Then off to the Affiliate Summit conference in Miami.  As usual, a great industry event.  Reconnected with many friends there and began spreading the word about Mpire's widgets.  Jim Kukral interviewed me on video describing what we do.

Immediately thereafter, flew to WidgetCon in New York City and did mind melds with some of the 140 other people defining the widget space.  Two buddies from eBay where there Ro Choy (now a VP at RockYou) and Rob Cross.  Also got to represent Mpire at the TechCrunch summer event.

Needless to say, the past few weeks have been very exciting!  I'm enjoying the new gig, and really like the team I get to work with and the widget network we're creating.

Sean Crotty - Affiliate Summit Bloghaus

Click to Play

Find your way

One finds inspiration in the strangest places.  I was watching a movie trailer about some surfing penquins and the big kahuna penquin says:  "Winners find a way.".

This really resonated because in the fast-paced world of a tech start-up, you don't have GE's research librarian to size your market for you, or eBay's UI group to tell you which landing page is best by analyzing user eye movements, or Apple's Advanced Technology Group to prototype three versions of your product.  Instead, in start-ups, you find a way yourself.

Whether it means driving through Nevada badlands to measure satellite visibility angles deep within canyons, training a partner's whole salesforce on a product you created the day before, or ferreting out the elusive tech-savvy super-affiliate and showing them why your link conversion is the best.  You just find a way.

I also wanted to give a shout out to Brad Justus' new post on Wired's GeekDad blog:  "GeekDad Bookshelf Essentials:  The Way Things Work".  Brad works a few feet away from me, masterminding the artist community and marketplace sites here at Art.com.  And the book he talks about is great too.

Innovative Affiliates

One of the things I love about the affiliate business is the never-ending variety of business models that affiliates come up with.  Just when you think you've seen all possible ways of affiliate linking, an affiliate will call me with a funky new idea.

Some of my favorites are the domain name hunters, who scour the web for the latest lexicon, buy related domains, and put up modules with relevant, self-refreshing best sellers.  Some of these guys pay their annual fees within days.

Even better are the elaborate site constructors, who pull from one or more datafeeds, build a deep site, with logical, useful link paths, and automatically pull in relevant text.  The key is how well-matched the products, links, and text are.  I'm not talking about the schlocky cram-the-page-with-random-words junk that too often appears; I'm extolling the highly-context sensitive, sophisticated algorithm-based assembly of actually relevant content.  It's masterful when you see it.

I'm finding that the key restriction on affiliates is tech resources.  By that I mean, technically trained web programmers who can build a site, incorporate complex data types, keep up with changes to the web, and keep the site fresh and functioning.  These people are highly sought-after and quite expensive.  There are only a few affiliate shops who are in the business seriously enough to be able to support these rock star web programmers.  Everyone else makes due, learning it themselves piecemeal or begging favors from techie friends.  The only relief for the majority of affiliates is the slow progress of new tools to make all this simpler and more standardized.

Online Media Buyer needed

Work available for an online media buyer.  This would be for an agency in the San Francisco Bay area, which is focused on life sciences.

If you are that person, or know that person, please post a comment here.  I moderate comments, so the content of your comment will not actually appear on my blog, but I'll get the message.

Valentine's Banners

We've made some new banners for our affiliates to promote Valentine's Day items ... and we're actually pretty proud of them.

For AllPosters.com we have:

Click Here to Buy Valentine's Day Poster!

And we already had good ones for Art.com:

You'd be amazed at how many kiss posters and photos there are ... (and I don't mean the band ...).

Web + Log + Widget = Blidget

Just ran across the new "Blidgets" on TypePad's Widget Gallery.  Created by WidgetBox, a blidget is small module that other people can drop into their sites.  It shows a quick glimpse of the titles of your latest posts, and allows you to customize the look of the module.

We began with "Web" and "Log", from which came "Blog".  Now "Blog" and "Widget" have begotten "Blidget".

Really going international

Just joined my first Japanese affiliate network, ValueCommerce!  Here's a lively link to their eCommerce comparison shopping engine.

Check it out!  It is fascinating to see how differently products are displayed in each culture.

===  ===  ===

Well, it appears that the network removed the banner because my site is not in Japanese ... hmmm, time to brush off my "restaurant Kanji" and try again ...

Article on Long Tail affiliates

I was quoted in a November 27th article, "Online affiliate marketing's renaissance", in DM News (“The News Leader in Direct, Database, and Internet Marketing”) about the resurgence in affiliate marketing, written by Jeff Molander.

My main message is:  make it easy for bloggers and social networkers to use your affiliate links.  It also helps to have hundreds of thousands of products (like the AllPosters.com and Art.com Affiliate Programs), so people will always find something relevant to their interests.

Jeff helped found the affiliate network Performics.  I know him from affiliate industry events, spoke on one of his panels, and kick affiliate ideas around with him.  He's now a principal at The Partner Maker, where they help connect premier advertisers and affiliates.

Running an affiliate site

Running an affiliate program is a lot of fun.  There are so many moving parts:  from banners to tracking to payments.

One of the most important things is staying in close touch with your affiliates.  This helps them promote your website and enables you to keep on top of anything that needs to be fixed. It also builds a relationship of trust and cooperation between you and your affiliates.

One of the things we do with the AllPosters.com affiliate site is post notices of things that the affiliates need to know.  For instance, we've just put up an "Important Announcement" about some routine maintenance we're doing on the Affiliate site (which will speed up performance).  We're not working on the main AllPosters.com site, but on the affiliates.allposters.com affiliate area.

What I want to stress to my affiliates is that their sales and commissions will continue to happen and be recorded during the 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time tomorrow, Tuesday 21 November 2006.  The only thing that will not be available during that time is access to the affiliate area.

It's also fun to see some of the new products that we carry.  We're over 400,000 products now.  For instance, here's one that we've recently added:  "The Road to Enlightenment".

The Road to Enlightenment Framed Art Print
Barbey, Thomas
Buy at AllPosters.com

Short video from Affiliate Summit

Shawn Collins just e-mailed me to say that the video from his July Affiliate Summit conference is now available.  I have a short piece in the "Lessons Learned" session.  As the second speaker, I'm sandwiched between Vinny Lingham and Jim Lillig (august company indeed :-> ).

You can see the quick video here.  My main message is that the most effective pitches are short, focused, and avoid the "we do everything" sinkhole.  I'm most likely to follow up with people who have an identified specialty and can articulate that clearly and quickly.

Lobster Man !

I’m proud to announce that I have just been accepted as an affiliate of Lobster Gram .  This may not sound very important, but to a Maine boy such as me, being able to bring the joy of lobsters to the rest of the world is a big thing.

Especially since I was summarily rejected by their program back in 2004.  <humph>  I was interviewing for the newly-created Affiliate Platform job at eBay (thanks Eva & Yi-Fang!) and the interview crew and I had fun with the idea of Seán from Maine promoting lobsters on the net:  “Hmmm, what kind of a datafeed could we create for live lobsters?”  “The API definitely needs CrackClaw, DipInWarmButter, and SendLobsterGiftCertificate calls.”  I even ended up with a plastic lobster in my cube.

Through the power of networking at the Affiliate Summit conference, I’ve been allowed into the fold.  My connection was Jim Lillig, who now manages the Lobster Gram affiliate program.  I saw him speak at the Affiliate Manager Boot Camp put on by Affiliate Classroom in Vegas in January.

Then we connected again at Shawn Collins’s latest Affiliate Summit in Orlando last week.  I made my case, informing Jim that I’d grown up in Kennebunkport since the age of 7.  My neighbors were lobstermen.  As kids, we held lobster races on our kitchen floor.  I’d chased lobsters while snorkeling off the coast.  My Mom explained proper lobster eating technique to her English language students at a hotel & restaurant management school in Switzerland.  Who could possibly be a better lobster affiliate?!

I have spared you the “Get Some Tail Here … Lobster Tail” and “Free Pot ... Lobster Pot” banners, [Jim:  Your origins are showing … ;) ] and instead have chosen to show the rather tasteful [intended ...] button below.  I encourage you to check out their mouth-watering offerings: 

Sailing Along

To welcome me to my new job, everyone who interviewed me got together and we went sailing Thursday after work.

I’m certainly feeling welcomed.

Tom Hamilton, our in-house recruiter, organized the event.  There are magnificent views of the San Francisco Bay from the Art.com building, so, while I was interviewing, Tom tried to entice me with “If you worked here, just imagine the sailing you could do.”  Then when I was considering their offer, he upped the ante with: “Join us and we’ll go sailing.”

True to his word, Tom arranged it with a friend of his, Max Fancher, the C.O.O. of the Olympic Circle Sailing Club (OCSC) and Max's wife. I had taken two sailing certifications at OCSC a few years back, in preparation for earning my Bareboat Chartering certificate in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

It was a perfect evening:  sunny, breezy, and no fog!  With very little traffic on the water, we zipped around to our hearts’ content – everyone having a chance at the wheel.  Picniced in the windshadow of Angel Island, cruised through Raccoon Strait, chose to let a giant tanker & tug go ahead of us, enjoyed a mini opera solo by Tom (a striking tenor! who knew!), buzzed Alcatraz, and coasted home in a stunning, multi-colored sunset.

Inspired by that fantastic sail, I went looking for a sailboat on Friday (something I’ve dreamed of since I first took sailing lessons in Maine at age 12).  Through the magic of Google and Craigslist, I found what I wanted within 10 minutes.  She’s a 27 foot Catalina that sleeps six people.  Most importantly, she’s docked just down the street from our offices.

After a test sail Saturday morning, I bought the boat on the spot.  We arranged for me to have the same slip in the Emeryville Marina.  On Sunday, I christened her with a bottle of Brut Impérial champagne from Moët & Chandon, naming her after my Mother, Mary Jane.  On her maiden voyage that afternoon, I called Mom from the middle of the San Francisco Bay to tell her.

And amazingly enough, I can see my boat from my desk.  All I have to do is look over my monitors and there she is, just waiting for me.  :)

I’m looking forward to a good summer of sailing!