Tag Archives: tell-a-friend

Viral Tell-A-Friend Thats Safe For Your Granny or CEO

By Andy Beard | Published: September 12, 2009

I have been ranting and raving about insecure viral Tell-A-Friend scripts for over a year, and it seemed like I was just talking to a brick wall. Now in the space of just a week I have been able to highlight a solution based upon one of my own blog posts that uses a slightly ghetto, but K.I.S.S method to achieve extremely effective viral tell-a-friend functionality, and now I want to mention another more sophisticated solution.

Posted in Google, marketing, news | Also tagged oauth, Octazen, tellafriend, viral inviter, viral marketing, viral optin generator | Comments closed

Unique Sales Funnel Tricks That Will Blow You Away

By Andy Beard | Published: September 4, 2009

The other day I was slacking off on Twitter and clicked a link through to a JV promotion that I had seen in a number of emails, but hadn't really taken much interest in. I hadn't heard of the guy doing the promotion, and to be quite honest the topic didn't seem to be the best match for this blog, though it does fit with the overall "Make Money Online" and "Work From Home" niches very well. 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?"

Posted in marketing | Also tagged 2 tier, Opt-in, optin accelerator, sales automation, sales funnel, tellafriend, viral inviter, viral marketing, viral optin generator | Comments closed

Twitter Security Hypocrisy

By Andy Beard | Published: July 15, 2009

Twitter get Gmail and Google Apps hacked, but expose their customers to a similar danger

Posted in marketing, web 2.0 | Also tagged api, gmail, Google, oauth, taf, tellafriend, twitter | Comments closed

Twitter Viral Hell With Launch Tree

By Andy Beard | Published: May 7, 2009

The security risks for your customers running viral tell-a-friend scripts and widgets. This post is a year overdue - I have held back the material and refrained from pointing the finger for that period of time, but there is something I have noticed:- If you don't kick up a big stink, possibly including names, any advice just gets swept under the carpet.

Posted in marketing | Also tagged Andy Jenkins, anik singal, launch tree, launchtree, Mike Filsaime, product launch, tellafriend, twitter, viral inviter, viral marketing, viral optin generator | Comments closed

Opt-in Accelerator Warning – Security Risk – Read This First!

By Andy Beard | Published: June 23, 2008

Optin Accelerator is a massive security risk for your customers - rather than fix the security problems, the new version just adds fluff without addressing core issues. 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

Posted in blogging tips, marketing | Also tagged Google, google contacts api, oath, optin accelerator, plurk, tellafriend, TrafficXplode, viral inviter, viral optin generator, windows live connect api, yahoo contact api, yahoo mail, ymail | Comments closed

How To Screw Up Your Internet Business

By Andy Beard | Published: June 5, 2008

Jeff over at Coding Horror has just been taking a small pop at Yelp for requiring email account access to find friends

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.

Posted in marketing | Also tagged email, email marketing, email_delivery, internet marketing, optin accelerator, tellafriend, viral optin generator | Comments closed

Viral Optin Generator Warning

By Andy Beard | Published: April 18, 2008

Another tell-a-friend like Facebook / Myspace / Linkedin etc script seems to have launched today

http://www.viraloptingenerator.com/index.php

This script is different to Optin Accelerator in a number of ways

The script is hosted 100% on your server
No subscription fee
It doesn't "send home" any date, so it is 100% your responsibility

In theory that makes it almost exactly the same as the scripts used by the big boys of Web2.0 though their servers are less likely to conk out the first time someone with 200 contacts in Gmail uses the script if you are on shared or even most reseller hosting. You would probably have

Posted in marketing | Also tagged aweber, email marketing, email_spam, facebook, myspace, plaxo, smtp, taf, tellafriend, viral optin generator | Comments closed

Optin Accelerator Closed – Too Risky?

By Andy Beard | Published: April 13, 2008

When I first read about Optin Accelerator I had a few initial thoughts

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

Posted in marketing | Also tagged aweber, facebook, linkedin, myspace, optin accelerator, tellafriend | Comments closed