Adam Jewell – Search & Affiliate Marketing

It’s going to be an extended ski season this year! Thursday will mark the departure for Winter Park Colorado! For a while, it looked like we’d be a little light on snow for the spring bump runs but lately, the temps have dipped and they’ve gotten some snow. It looks like it is supposed to warm up just in time for our arrival out there. It will be a King of Prussia Ski Club trip; one of many they’ve had this year and my first major trip with the club.

A few people from the Elk Mountain house this past winter will be heading out there on the trip also. Unfortuneately, due to the economic conditions a number of people had to bail along the way, however it seems that most of those vacant spots have been filled.

It’ll be bumps all day every day out there. I’ve heard a lot about Mary Jane so we’ll be riding her hard all day, just as she would have liked. With the outrageous price of lift tickets these days, it’ll probably cost more to ride her today than it did the miners back in the day. We’ll see how the bumps have help up over the years and hope they are still nice and soft and supple!

The PSIA National Academy is less than four weeks away now. Just like last year at the 2008 PSIA National Academy, you ski daily with one group and the pick a new elective for the afternoon session.

This year there is a great selection of elective to choose from including skiing bumps and crud, carving, kids programs, park and pipe sessions, women’s ski groups (um, where are the mens ski groups?), various indoor sessions like bootfitting, Interski and the Matrix and even an opportunity to try telemark skiing.

Last year the lineup I chose included an Avalanche training course, bumps and crud, boot fitting (to get rid of the tears in my eyes at the end of every day of skiing in boots that didn’t fit quite right), a video session and one afternoon of skiing with an international pro from one of the visiting countries including Argentina, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Great Britain.

This year will be bumps and crud, some carving and free skiing, personal improvement in the park and pipe (I’m a raw beginner there!), maybe a day of telemark skiing (raw beginner there too but still have the knees to be able to handle it!) and possibly a race clinic or something related to teaching kids.

Aside from the variety of clinics, we’ll have one pro that we ski with each day in the morning. Last year it was Steve Smart of the Rookie Academy. Steve lives the life bouncing back and forth between teaching skiing in Canada, taking some time off and then teaching over in Australia/New Zealand with the Rookie Academy. He’s a great skiier and a great teacher as well.

24 more days till heading off to the 2009 PSIA National Academy in Snowbird, Utah! Can’t wait!

In case you haven’t heard about the latest social media craze, microblogging site Twitter.com on the net, on the news and everywhere else, it appears to be THE next big thing in social media. Another site with lots of users but extremely challenged when it come to generating revenue and coming up with a business model.

The folks at www.current.tv have come up with some clever Jib-Jab type videos. One of the latest is about Twitter, Titled Twouble With Twitters and can be seen below:

People use Twitter for a variety of different things. Some use it exactly as depicted in the video while others use it to offer another means of customer service or disseminating coupons. Twitter can and often is a big time sink with sometimes questionable benefits. It serves as a means of self expression for many people and a quick way to communicate for others. Pretty soon it is going to be time to see if it is possible to monetize a conversation. My guess is it is possible but the upside is minimal.

Google has the best source of revenue from online advertising locked up in search. The mindset of a consumer using a search engine is that of someone actively looking for something; trying to satisfy a need. On Facebook, people go there to see what their friends are up to and may opt-in to various applications and offers from various merchants. Typically people dont go to Facebook to shop as they do with Google.

Twitter is sort of a cross between Google and Facebook. Twitter is full of useless information but also has some golden nuggets, however it is still fundamentally a conversation. Can you monetize a conversation or the act of searching conversations? I think the jury is still out but my guess is not very effectively. When you want to search for something to buy, you go to Google or a shopping engine. You may post a question on Twitter looking for reccomendations but that question is most likely to be answered by another Twitter user. It’s an exchange of information that Twitter won’t be able to monetize unless they start inserting some kind of affiliate tracking code in product and site links that people post in their conversations. Should Twitter embark on an AdWords style advertising program, the click-through rates are likely to be in the range of banners ads (basically zero) because a consumer on Twitter is not likely to have the same intent or be in the same mindset they are when searching Google, Yahoo!, MSN or Ask.com.

Twitter can be a cool application for some purposes, however it is fundamentally a social conversation tool whereas Google is an intent and need based “converstional” tool. Twitter will probably burn through a lot more cash over the next few years and months if it stays independent. Since it is unlikely to be able to stand on its own from a financial point of view, it will sadly probably end up as a new Google Beta product. Twitter may prove to be a nice compliment to another real business but I doubt it has any serious revenue potential of its own.

Now that spring is in the air and the snow is melting here in Pennsylvania, the next big trip to look forward to will be a 4 ski day, 5 night trip to Winter Park Colorado with the King of Prussia Ski Club in early April. On April 18th, 2009 the REALLY big ski trip happens again and that is the PSIA National Academy In Snowbird Utah. It is where the top instructors from around the world gather to learn the latest teaching techniques, ski their hearts out, and have a big end of season blast out in the best ski resort in the US West – Snowbird Utah.

The event is limited to 200 participants this year and I booked early to ensure there was no being on the wait list this year like last year. Booking early made it easier to plan everything out and get a much better deal on airfare on a direct Delta flight to Salt Lake City.

Only 1 month left to go till the best ski trip of the year! Let the count down begin!

The next ski trip for 2009 will be a 5 day get away to Winter Park Colorado for some hot spring skiing, soft bumps and good times with the King of Prussia Ski Club!