I am not sure what drove me to sign up as a JV partner with Dan, though the following factors almost certainly played a factor.

• Supreme confidence in the value of his product just oozes out of the videos he produces (there are lots of them)
• Lots of professional landing pages – it is obvious he has spent a lot of time working on them
• A great JV Opportunity but to be honest I would highlight this anyway… you will see why in a moment

Unobtrusive Marketing

I have spent a fair amount of time since I signed up with Dan chatting with him on Skype – his commitment to his JV partners is exceptional, but I am sure that has also lead to significant improvements in his sales funnel as affiliates give him direct feedback.

We have all seen various improvements to sales funnels over time, and a lot of what Dan is doing will seem very familiar. The overall design of the landing pages, the opt-in etc, but Dan has added a few of his own twists that take things to a new level.

What is special is that the things Dan has added are smart and unobtrusive, but still catch the eye and achieve the desired effect – many of them he has coded himself.

It is a rare thing for me to see something and immediately reach for Skype and ask “Where did you get that script from?”

Long Term Commitment To Success

I am going to swipe a small excerpt that Dan sent out in one of his JV emails – if you are a successful online marketer, this is the kind of email that might make you emotional, because you can almost see before you a guy that is just about to hit a home run.

******************************
1 Year In The Making!
******************************
Someone asked me the other day if I am starting to get excited, because launch is getting so close. I find it hard to put into words how excited i am getting. To give you an idea, I have been working on this project since September last year. 20 hours a week at first, then 50 – 60 hours a week for the last 9 months… and it finally feels like it’s within reach. So am I excited? What do you think?

The fact that I am so exited is only part of the contributing factor to me not sleeping at night. The other thing is the fact that I am on the other side of the world to pretty much everyone, and I spend hours on the phone. Amongst other things, I have spent ages on the phone making sure that I will be able to handle a huge launch in every respect.

The Personal Touch & Proof

There is nothing quite so powerful in establishing relationships with a JV partner than a personal greeting. The one I received from Dan was remarkable, not because of big promises of huge commissions, special access or anything else you might normally expect – the greeting I received was really personal, and at the same time provides me with something more valuable than even a $2000 boxed product… proof

I have been given permission to publish whatever I like, but here is just a small excerpt.

Thanks for coming onboard with TheBossBuster launch. Just thought I’d drop you a quick hello and welcome, and also let you know something that I learned from you that is going to make me a lot of money (and already has done alright for me).

Ok so that grabbed my attention but on its own isn’t much to go on, lets grab a few more snippets…

Originally I bought viral inviter, and was going to use that on my site. After ■■■■■■■, and ■■■■■■■, I went looking for another solution. What I found was a solution on your site, where you can just pass parameters to gmail, hotmail etc, and do effectively the same thing straight through them. This has a number of advantages over viral inviter (which I am sure you are aware of, so I won’t tell you how to suck eggs).

Yes I have ■ out some of this. I will quite happily criticise an application on specific technical issues that represent a risk to my readers, but I am not going to address other aspects that may be hearsay, or subject to specific circumstances.

But I digress…

So long story short, when I tested this with one of my affiliates, I made ■■■■■■■. I was also getting people to do some social networking referrals, but most of the extra was from the emails. The best bit about this is ■■■■■■■, so it doubled my income! Now I am rolling it out on this major launch, and I expect it will make me 6 figures!

I am keeping exact numbers confidential but suffice it to say most people would be able to live for an extra month on the additional income made on one relatively small test.

Now I can’t give you any specific reference, but a frequently quoted figure is that a Tell-A-Friend script, even some of the “viral” ones with features copying Facebook & Myspace rarely add more than 10-20% additional subscribers.

For a tell-a-friend implementation to double Dan’s income, and notice he was specifically tracking the emails compared to social media referrals, that is a huge revenue increase… from one of my blog posts.

Dan absolutely nailed the best possible way to encourage me to write something… providing me with some proof that helps me with any future product launch.

Tell-A-Friend Implementation

Dan didn’t just take an idea from my blog and implement it, he ran with it adding nuances that work so well, he doubled revenue.

Here is just a small part of his Tell-A-Friend page

This Tell-A-Friend implementation I endorse fully (though I did agree to disagree on a couple of details)

• No password is requested
• It is bullet-proof – it doesn’t even use APIs
• Email deliverability is most likely much higher than other solutions
• Emails are sent from a “natural environment” that the end user is familiar with
• Dan figured out a way to even add incentives that are delivered automatically
• The incentive system is multi-tier, rewarding people who refer more friends

Ultimately it is better than anything I have seen used by 6, 7 even 8 figure online marketers, and in many ways better than what is used by Facebook, Myspace and other social networks.

There are a whole load of other smart things he has added to the page that work very well, but I don’t want to spoil it for you for when you sign up to check things out.

It isn’t perfect (but pre-launch doesn’t officially start until Monday)

• The page needs a privacy statement
• A few trust marks could probably boost conversion even more
• I have encouraged Dan to change the way videos are being streamed, but more on that at a later date

Exit Strategy

This is what prompted me at 3am to immediately fire up Skype and contact Dan this morning (there are some advantages with him being in Australia)

• We have all seen corner-peel ads – they are effective to a degree
• We have seen automated “live support” robots on exit, which we all know are fake
• More recently the fashion has been to redirect to a new offer page, opt-in or other alternative, which is often confusing for me which button needs to be pressed to actually stay and read the damn things, I don’t know about anyone else.

What Dan has implemented is different… unique, apparently he coded it himself, and it was quite simple to do

It grabbed my attention as a geek, but I am sure it is something that would grab the attention of any audience, though it is something you would want to split-test extensively – it is something that can be split tested very effectively.

Just watch what happens on the page when you try to exit before opting in…

I am sure the code is very similar to a Page Peel, but the effect is quite different.

Video Use

Dan has made some great use of video in his prelaunch to JVs, keeping them informed on a regular basis. This is one thing I have strongly urged him to tweak however, but more on that at a later date.

I am not going to say he has done things better than others, but he has used video extremely well at every stage of the sales funnel that I have seen so far, and for regular JV updates.

JV Tools

Dan is quite proud of his JV Tools area that is pretty effective – plenty of preprepared emails and banners without the usual long confusing page. I can’t remember the last time I just used even part of someone else’s copy but that is just me. I tend to highlight things in a different way.

Smart Autoresponder Pages

This part isn’t quite unique, I know Big Jason Henderson sells a similar script, but it was very well implemented and no doubt increases email confirmation rates significantly as it is “smart” specific to each email service.

Product Fit For Your Audience?

Who knows, Dan is running a 2-tier affiliate program using Delavo which is fairly robust and has some interesting features in itself. I know lots of affiliates who love it.
The product is a little risqué for some territories, sports arbitrage, but Dan certainly seems to know what he is talking about, and the videos I have seen suggest he is an exceptional teacher – of course he provides a solid guarantee as well.

Apparently he has tested in multiple niches with some quite interesting results.

The Purpose Of This Post?

• Above all, I think Dan has been working his #$%^ off for months assembling this launch
• I love people taking action based upon my blog posts – Dan isn’t the only one who has seen remarkable success, but there is a danger in bragging about things like SEO. I want you to see Dan’s Sales Funnel
• I believe the product might be of interest to some of my audience.
• I love 2-tier affiliate programs and I know some of my readers are a great match. Sign up to JV with Dan

(Note: I will add in the links to the squeeze page on Monday, but you can navigate your way through easily enough – I wouldn’t want to be accused of emailing early for the launch)

Anyone can make a mistake, release a product without considering all the possible ramifications, but to release Opt-in Accelerator again without major changes is irresponsible.

The Irresponsible Viral Tell-A-Friend Trio

So far there have been 3 such scripts I have written about, and there is a 4th “coming soon”

• My first coverage of Opt-in Accelerator
• Then there was Viral Optin Generator which may well have been a private label or resale rights product
• Viral Inviter is launching soon – last I saw of this script installed “out in the wild” it was a security risk
• There is another one I know about, TrafficXplode 2.0 which also features the same security risks

Relook @ Opt-In Accelerator

You see that big red circle I added?

That is the key to unlocking:-

• Your Email
• Your Google Adsense Account
• Your Google Adwords Account
• Google Analytics
• Google Website Optimizer
• Your PayPal Account
• Affiliate program passwords
• Access Your Blogger account
• Access any scripts that allow you to resend or reset passwords
• Open any social media profile that used that email address
• Did you use that address for domain records? Wave goodbye to your domains

I am not claiming that anyone creating such as script is dishonest, or even the people who might use them, but it takes a huge investment of manpower and financial muscle to keep personal data secure, and those are things most internet marketers don’t have.

All it takes is a script kiddie to come along and compromise the script running on your server, and then rather than acting as an “innocent” tell-a-friend script to boost your email subscribers, it would collect login and password information and forward it to an anonymous server.

All it would take is 2 lines of additional code

We will ignore many of the other potential problems with scraping the email services against their terms of service, potentially breaking the terms of the autoresponder service you use, or totally trashing your email deliverability as 100s of people flag your messages as spam.

I think Robert Plank covered that aspect of Opt-in Accelerator quite adequately.

Solutions

Password data should never be entered in an insecure form hosted by someone without exceptional security in place.

Very Simple Mail To:

This example from Plurk (they also use the insecure method, and have been accused of spam with their Facebook implementation)

http://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&cmid=0&fs=1&su=Invitation+to+Plurk.com&body=I+have+been+using+Plurk+and+I+think+you+should+check+it+out%21%0A%0AAccept+my+invitation+by+going+to%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fplurk.com%2FredeemByURL%3Ffrom_uid%3D15547%26check%3D-1998160234%26s%3D2%0A%0ACheck+out+my+profile+at%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.plurk.com%2Fuser%2Fandybeard%0A%0APlurk.com+-+Your+life%2C+on+the+line&tearoff=1&shva=1&ui=1

http://compose.mail.yahoo.com/?Subj=Invitation+to+Plurk.com&Body=I+have+been+using+Plurk+and+I+think+you+should+check+it+out%21+Accept+my+invitation+by+going+to%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fplurk.com%2FredeemByURL%3Ffrom_uid%3D15547%26check%3D-1998160234%26s%3D2.+Check+out+my+profile+by+going+to%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.plurk.com%2Fuser%2Fandybeard

http://www.hotmail.msn.com/secure/start?action=compose&subject=Invitation+to+Plurk.com&body=I+have+been+using+Plurk+and+I+think+you+should+check+it+out%21%0A%0AAccept+my+invitation+by+going+to%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fplurk.com%2FredeemByURL%3Ffrom_uid%3D15547%26check%3D-1998160234%26s%3D2%0A%0ACheck+out+my+profile+at%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.plurk.com%2Fuser%2Fandybeard%0A%0APlurk.com+-+Your+life%2C+on+the+line

This code is wonderful because people use their own email server to send the emails, no strain on your servers, so it could be used on any server, even a shared account which has limitations on how many emails you can send per hour.

Existing APIs

Google Yahoo and Microsoft also have APIs for this kind of stuff which can also be used for finding friends.

Google Contacts API
Yahoo! Contact API
Windows Live Contact API

I should also mention the ongoing Oath efforts being made to create a unified interface for retrieving contact and other personal information with permission.

To be fair, I am going to give Jason a link with some partial counter arguments. He seems to think it is worth the risk.

The problem with that argument is that there is no need for this to be a security risk. It is just junk programming.

Email is the de-facto master password for a huge swath of your online identity. Tread carefully:

* As a software developer, you should never ask a user for their email credentials. It’s unethical. It’s irresponsible. It is wrong. If someone is asking you to code this, why? For what purpose?
* As a user, you should never provide your email credentials to anyone except your email service. Sites that ask you for this information are to be regarded with extreme suspicion if not outright distrust.

This is the same terrible system used by many large social networks, and 2 scripts I recently strongly advised internet marketers not to use.

• Optin Accelerator – due to be relaunched soon
• Then there was Viral Optin Generator
• Coming soon is Viral Inviter which has some redeeming qualities, it works with old address books from Outlook etc, but it is still asking for highly personal passwords, and there are some other security faults.

Viral Inviter, with even heavier marketing and endorsements, will have a huge long-term negative effect on email marketing, with the rewards quickly being overtaken by a backlash of negative sentiment and poorer email delivery which will be universal.

Plurk which has very recently become very popular also suffers from this evil invite and finding friends method, but at least has a redeeming feature.

http://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&cmid=0&fs=1&su=Invitation+to+Plurk.com&body=I+have+been+using+Plurk+and+I+think+you+should+check+it+out%21%0A%0AAccept+my+invitation+by+going+to%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fplurk.com%2FredeemByURL%3Ffrom_uid%3D15547%26check%3D-1998160234%26s%3D2%0A%0ACheck+out+my+profile+at%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.plurk.com%2Fuser%2Fandybeard%0A%0APlurk.com+-+Your+life%2C+on+the+line&tearoff=1&shva=1&ui=1

http://compose.mail.yahoo.com/?Subj=Invitation+to+Plurk.com&Body=I+have+been+using+Plurk+and+I+think+you+should+check+it+out%21+Accept+my+invitation+by+going+to%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fplurk.com%2FredeemByURL%3Ffrom_uid%3D15547%26check%3D-1998160234%26s%3D2.+Check+out+my+profile+by+going+to%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.plurk.com%2Fuser%2Fandybeard

http://www.hotmail.msn.com/secure/start?action=compose&subject=Invitation+to+Plurk.com&body=I+have+been+using+Plurk+and+I+think+you+should+check+it+out%21%0A%0AAccept+my+invitation+by+going+to%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fplurk.com%2FredeemByURL%3Ffrom_uid%3D15547%26check%3D-1998160234%26s%3D2%0A%0ACheck+out+my+profile+at%3A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.plurk.com%2Fuser%2Fandybeard%0A%0APlurk.com+-+Your+life%2C+on+the+line

That first line for instance brings up an invite email inside Gmail, no need to scrape Gmail contacts, and then you can use Gmail’s own address book to access contacts.

They also use Facebook

Existing APIs

Google Yahoo and Microsoft also have APIs for this kind of stuff which can also be used for finding friends.

Google Contacts API
Yahoo! Contact API
Windows Live Contact API

Over the last few months I have already taken the decision not to promote a number of sites and services launched by Internet Marketers using these dangerous scripts.

I have proven I can rank highly in the SERPs for any product. It is going to help conversions when on the first page of the SERPs for your product name potential customers find…

Product Name – WARNING: SECURITY RISK – Read This First!
or
Product Name by Marketer Name – Warning: Security Risk

The only problem is, this won’t be a typical fake affiliate promotion, but a real warning

Update

Tim has provided the code so that anyone who buys one of these viral tell a friend scripts can easily modify it so that it stores all the personal data entered in a form. It would take a typical script kiddie less than 2 minutes.

Doing it on someone else’s server is a little more work, plus they would need to get access, but how many people really think their websites running 3rd party scripts are totally secure.

Tim points out Paypal… how many marketers use Gmail for Paypal access, along with their Adwords, Adsense, Domain registrations etc. I know I do, because I trust Google with the data more than I trust my ISP – plus it would be a thankless task changing everything if you changed ISP.

Marketers are the perfect target

• Running lots of 3rd party scripts on a site
• Often running outdated versions of WordPress
• Have multiple sites on the same server
• Have a “set and forget” mentality

• It took a long time for internet marketers to copy the viral signup mechanisms used by many internet startups, including the more established Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace etc.
• It is a massive business security risk
• People are going to buy it and use it and their customers are going to face the risk
• Some of my subscribers might damage their business either by using it for one of their sites, or giving their account access away.

Now I hoped that as soon as people realised it was a bad idea despite having massive viral potential, the product would be pulled.

Currently it looks like the site has been closed – I have high regards for Reed Floren and Matt Haslem who launched it, so I am assuming it is off the market.

That being said, I have seen a few people using it still – if it is just limited circulation, some people need to be a little careful.

So where did they go wrong?

What Did Optin Accelerator Do?

Quite simply you hand over your login information to your primary email account, and it scrapes addresses so you can send an email to all your friends about a new service you have found, or product.
Yes… exactly the same process as is used by many Web2.0 sites, but you don’t have to worry about the technical details of how things work, because the script is on their servers, and calls home.

This means that your subscribers are sharing their personal login information to their email account with a 3rd party just to promote your product.
The big guys are generally using 1st party scripting, still risky but at least you know who has your data (I would never use it though)

Robert Plank has gone into that aspect of Optin Accelerator in some depth

Here is part of the comment I left on his blog post

Google has unified login, so does Yahoo and MSN.

By handing over login information, you are hading over not only your email (which could be full of important passwords for affiliate accounts) but also providing access to Adsense, Adwords, Google Analytics, Google AppEngine (if you are a geek)

It would also allow someone to reset every password you have which sends resent information to your emil, such as all your wordpress blogs, hosting etc.

Handing over this information is throwing your whole internet business into turmoil.

Would you want to encourage your own subscribers to do that?

Robert has actually gone through all the terms of service of each of the large online email services, and it seems handing over your account details is breaking their terms and conditions. How the hell do the big guys get away with such a security risk?

If that isn’t bad enough, it has been determined

• It is against Aweber’s terms of service (as are all tell-a-friend scripts) – that being said, I know people who use tell-a-friend scripts who primarily use Aweber – I have no idea how they get away with that.
  A guy in Robert’s comments (Craig) posted a response from Aweber

  Thank you very mush for bringing this to our attention. We have taken action to contact the owners of that product.

  Please understand that this was done without our consent, and will be fully addressed. We take many steps here to ensure your deliverability, including monitoring the use of customer accounts, so that even should someone use this type of program without our consent, we would remove them from the service.

  Thank you again for bringing this to light. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to let me know.

  Regards,
  Tracey Churray
  Director Of Customer Solutions

• Most hosting affiliates use would have problems handling the emails being sent, unless they are using SMTP through Gmail for instance
• If it is a really good product, shouldn’t you be promoting it as an affiliate?
• Melody from Women’s Net also mentioned the possibility of liability
• Plaxo provide fwidget for free that could be integrated to achieve effectively the same – that is slightly less risky (suggested by David L. Cross)
• Randolf Smith goes into the nature of email address books (all those friends and family) – how many are really interested in a specific product? Also as an affiliate, why would you promote something for free? At least Tell-A-Friend scripts often pass on your affiliate links, but that only works down one level – if it is really good, isn’t promoting to your list or blog readers better?

People You Know vs Sending Email

If you are going to use one of these scripts, it is much better to use the export and import contact list options often provided.
If there isn’t anything provided, you can also create a new email account just for importing contacts which has no private information.

I can see a real reason to find people you already know on a service – maybe services should be using the MyBlogLog API in a smart way.

If your service encourages every person who joins to send out 100s of emails, it becomes spam even if it technically isn’t if they are personal contacts, and you are doing it in a non-professional capacity.