I had a fun chat with Deb Carney on her AffiliateABCs podcast the other day about my early days in affiliate marketing.

This discussion came out of a link I Tweeted recently for an article I wrote in 2000 on the history of affiliate marketing.

We touched on the origins of the industry, as well as my start as an affiliate and an affiliate manager in 1997 at Medsite.com.

Back when I started as an affiliate, I joined the Amazon.com affiliate program and created a horrible site on AOL, which was a shoddy guide to New York City. I got my first domain, velocitynyc.com, on August 25, 1998.

This was an online version of a zine, Velocity NYC, that I was publishing offline for a few years.

“The writing was on the wall for Shawn Collins when he named his year-and-a-half-old quarterly zine, Velocity N.Y.C. Walking past a stairway, Collins noticed graffiti spelling out the title of his soon-to-be zine. Like the graffiti, Velocity N.Y.C. is a spontaneous expression of one life in the urban jungle. Collins ruminates on bachelor parties, stuff in his mailbox and the zine’s most reprinted feature, movies that affected his life.” – FOLIO

“A wonderfully sophisticated zine that captures the energy and style of New York City life. Shawn has done a lot, experiences a lot, and has a lot to say. He doesn’t come off as preachy or pretentious, just genuinely friendly.” – Factsheet 5

This domain is now used for the Velocity NYC Press, a book publishing imprint from Affiliate Summit.

My second domain, babylounge.com, was registered on July 19, 1999, and the initial purpose was to manually create online birth announcements, after lots of friends and family enjoyed the one I created for my first daughter months before.

These online birth announcements were available in a free version (with affiliate ads) or a few paid versions.

As of today, I’ve got 152 domains, and I couldn’t even tell you how many have been affiliate sites, or are currently affiliate sites. Plus, there are many domains that I grabbed for a year or two for projects and let go.

Anyhow, the podcast also gets into my experiences in the early days as an affiliate manager and it’s a fun trip down memory lane for the resources and such from back then. Have a listen to episode 19 of Affiliate ABCs to hear how things used to be in affiliate marketing.

You’ve probably heard by now that the Federal Trade Commission announced new rules yesterday regarding disclosure of freebies and financial interests by bloggers.

But what does that mean to you when it kicks in on December 1, 2009?

I am fortunate to be a part of a secret cabal, and I heard about the new rules early on from Dan Murray, Internet Marketing Strategist and Founder of Ravenwood Marketing, Inc.

There was a lot of discussion about the new FTC rule, and Tim Carter, nationally-syndicated newspaper column Ask the Builder and the founder of AskTheBuilder.com shared his disclosure policy.

I read through that disclosure policy and grabbed some elements to add to my own disclosure policy, which is now linked from the bottom of all of my blog posts on the site and in the RSS feeds.

Now please note that if you choose to be “inspired” by either of these policies, you should do so at your own risk. Neither of us claim to be lawyers or anything like that. We’re just trying to do what’s right here.

I am hoping to get some direction from affiliate programs and networks, but I’ve only gotten information on the FTC issue from ShareASale, so far.

When I was logging into my affiliate account with ShareASale earlier, I saw a notice reading “New FTC Rules surrounding sponsored blogs, tweets, reviews … Important read: – click here to view ShareASale Blog.”

I’ll keep an eye out for more news from affiliate programs and networks.

There has been a lot of talk about the advertising tax, which is being considered by many states, but a lot of folks aren’t clear about the threat and implications.

So, I’ve put together a a short video on the advertising tax. Given me two minutes of your time t find out why you need to start playing a role in the fight against the advertising tax in your state.

Basically, if you’re an affiliate working with companies who don’t have a physical presence in your state, and an advertising tax bill passes in your state, you’re at risk of being kicked out of those affiliate programs.

This tax is also known as the affiliate tax or Amazon tax.

The gist of it is that these states are trying to require companies to collect sales tax even when they don’t have a physical presence in the state.

Currently, if a company doesn’t have a physical presence, they don’t have to charge sales tax. There is legal precedent for this from the Quill Corp. v. North Dakota decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So yes, the advertising tax is unconstitutional for anybody who cares about the U.S. Constitution.

The contention by the states is that affiliates are a physical presence for these companies. You know that’s not true, and I know that’s not true, but does your state senator know that we’re just running advertising?

Anyhow, this sort of bad legislation became law in New York last year, and the result was a large number of affiliate programs removing their New York affiliates to avoid charing sales tax.

It’s a lose/lose/lose situation.

The state still isn’t getting sales tax from all of these transactions when merchants boot their affiliates, affiliates are losing their “jobs”, and the state naturally has less income tax to collect.

If you’re an affiliate, merchant, or network, it’s imperative that you take action.

One place to find information about fighting current or future legislation in your state is the Fight Against the #AdvertisingTax group on Facebook.

Also, check out Affiliate Voice and the Performance Marketing Alliance for resources and news on the advertising tax.

Lastly, when the vote does come down in your state, be sure to note how your representative(s) vote. And then put them out of a job at the next election if they voted against your livelihood.