So first look at the left pie chart on the left. 59% of the people surveyed admitted to having seen a video on the Internet. Not sure what planet the “I don’t know” 14% live on.

Now to the right. Of those 59% who watched an online video…

22% requested information

18% went to a store

15% made a purchase

9% signed up for a trial

3% ordered a subscription

Would you call those conversion goals? Would you kill for those off-the-chart conversion numbers? I sure as heck would!

So according to this report, online video converts.

But are companies starting to use video to their advantage?

In the performance space, I just recently noticed that Marketleverage is beginning to use videos to help promote their offers. Pretty, pretty smart.

Watch this video. Kinda makes you wonder why other big networks aren’t doing this yet? I wonder that as well. A big “hmmmmm”.

Online video is hot. Still don’t believe the hype? Why not?

What’s holding you back from getting started? Maybe you think you can’t get it done on your own? Many web video production companies are popping up left and right, with the promises of helping you drive sales, leads and publicity. So hire a pro if you want help.

So I ask you, ReveNews reader, online/affiliate/search/email/ppc marketer…

What’s your video strategy? Or do you still have a bunch of excuses on why you can’t do it yet?

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Affiliate Classroom, a leading publisher of educational tools for the interactive advertising industry, has hired affiliate marketing veteran Rachel Honoway as the company’s vice president of marketing.

I didn’t see it coming (because she didn’t leak it to me), yet it makes a lot of sense. Rachel, my old boss at Kowabunga, had just recently moved down to Florida to head up the marketing for Think Partnership. I guess the balmy Florida weather couldn’t keep her from hometown, gray-skied, Detroit.

Looks like Anik and company got a steal. Good luck Rachel and congrats to AffiliateClassroom.com.

The facts: Pagerank has dropped for a lot of websites today.

The questions: Did some sites drop because they were selling text links?

Did other sites who weren’t selling text links get affected just as a swiping general reduction?

Does pagerank really even matter anymore?

Does this kill the TextLinkAds business model?

Is this the dawn of Trustrank?

Jim, I sell online marketing services and I want leads for my business and I’m willing to spend up to $10k a month for those highly-qualified targeted leads. I can’t afford to do Google PPC because the costs of bids on the top phrases are too high for me to pay to be profitable. I have a good reputation so I’m not going to buy lists or spam. I was considering starting an affiliate program, but I am told that takes a lot of time and work to find good affiliates to promote my services.

What do I do Jim? How do I get good leads, fast?

This is no scenario. This really happened to me the other day. And I found myself sitting there without a real solid answer.

If he can’t do ppc because of the competitiveness/cost of the keyphrases, and he can’t get a streamlined, well managed, recruited and producing affiliate program up and running in 30 days, what does he do?

So I asked around to my contacts in this industry. Most did not have a real answer besides “go buy targeted distribution in b2b email lists with marketing directors”. So it’s not just me at least.

Can you solve this problem? What’s a b2b player to do when it comes to lead generation?

Note: The comments on this post aren’t turning on for some reason. I have not disabled comments, fyi. I’m more than interested in your feedback. Please give them time to fix it.

So here we are 3-months into 2007 and I am announcing that I’m officially handing the keys to ReveNews back to Wayne Porter. Where the ReveNews car will go now is something I’m sure Wayne will be letting you know soon. I will find out when you do.

I leave on my own accord, having spent over two-years working with ReveNews as one of my main focuses. Believe me, it’s hard to let go of something you have so much invested in, but on the same hand, I knew that for ReveNews to continue to grow that it was time for me to move on and let someone else run the rest of the race. It has been a learning experience and I’m grateful to have had it.

Thank Yous…

First off, a huge thank you to readers of ReveNews. Your readership and feedback over the past two-years was invaluable, and I don’t think we could have made the site as good as it is without it. You are the true heart and soul of what ReveNews is all about, so thank you.

Thanks also go out to every single blogger that wrote for the site. Your thoughts, analysis and insights are greatly appreciated. I learned a lot from you. Many of you have become friends. Don’t be a stranger, you know where to find me. Those of you who know me well enough know I don’t know how to stay idle for very long.

The last and biggest thank you goes out to Wayne Porter, who is the one who got me this gig in the first place and who guided me over the past two years. Wayne’s behind the scenes guidance, creativity & ideas were catalysts for me. The rumors are true people. Wayne does not sleep. How else do you think he’s so smart? I have seem him drinking Vampire wine- that is a true story.

Adios.

Today I removed Snap previews, much to the happiness of the vast majority of you. I also dropped the BUMPzee widgets in at the bottom of every blog entry, and on the home page of ReveNews. Bump away!

Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

Ever wonder which sites are banned by Digg? Who would have thought that 3 of the top 10 Alexa sites and sites like CareerBuilder, DHL and 43Things would be banned? To develop as complete a list as possible, I tested the top 10,000 Alexa domains and top 1,000 Blogshares blogs to see which were banned. Overall, I found 183 banned sites.

The banned sites fell into several categories:

User Generated Content sites without subdomains. One bad actor on these sites can ruin it for everyone. Popular UGC sites like Myspace, Squidoo, 43Things, Geocities are all banned, whereas sites like Typepad, Blogspot, Wordpress do just fine because it is easy to ban one bad actor. If I were Seth Godin, I’d give Squidoo lenses their own subdomains pronto - there is good content on Squidoo that will never see the light of Digg.

Sites about SEO & Affiliate Marketing. These include TopRankBlog, DigitalPoint, Revenews, John Chow, Paula Mooney, etc. There is some great content that’s been banned … and plenty of poor content as well (theRichJerk).

International Sites, particularly Asian sites (Baidu, Sohu, Sina, Yandex, etc.). I can’t speak to the quality of these sites, but four of them are in Alexa’s top 20 and others are very popular. Digg and Digg users would certainly benefit from international versions of its site. (Hint, follow the Google model, not the Yahoo model).

Scummy sites. There are plenty of sites here that I’m not surprised to find banned. Gossip Sites (perezhilton), Adult-themed sites (pornotube), adware/spyware sites (smileycentral), etc.

There’s more good information in that post, specifically an instruction guide to test your site at Digg.

Hat tip to MarketingPilgrim.

Don’t forget, the winner also gets a copy of AffStat ($129.99 value/pdf) and a exhibit hall only pass to the Miami 07 Affiliate Summit ($299).

I’m still thinking of a new contest for the Summit in Miami. Any ideas?